A guitar reported to have been smashed by Pete Townshend at the famous 1969 Woodstock music festival will be on display in July at the Hard Rock Cafe in London. The guitar in question is a Gibson SG Special, similar to the one shown at left. Although most news sites are reporting this guitar as having been smashed, it wasn’t. It was merely tossed into the audience at Woodstock and retrieved later, common practice by the Who in those days.
While searching for information about this special guitar, I turned up some interesting pages.
First, here’s a review of a Who show played 39 years ago at Hull City Hall from a man who was there. This performance was supposed to have been taped for a live album, but after discovering that the bass hadn’t been recorded, the Who had no choice but to release the other recorded gig. That recording is the now famous Live At Leeds
album, widely considered to be one of the best live albums ever recorded. The Hull City Hall show was, however, considered the better of the two gigs.
The gig at Hull City Hall was absolutely awesome, with Daltrey swinging his microphone with venom, Townshend showing off his windmill style of guitar playing, Entwistle looking as cool as ever, and Moon drumming like a man possessed. The noise was the loudest I had ever experienced.
They took us through the drama that was Tommy and threw in the classics Substitute, Summertime Blues, My Generation, and Magic Bus.
Next, I stumbled across a site attempting to document Pete Townshend’s guitar smashing. A link from that site tells us more about Pete’s famous Gibson SG Special guitars:
Introduction
The guitar model Pete Townshend used (and abused) exclusively on stage from mid-late 1968 until 1971, and the guitar with which he’s most famously associated. This guitar model was used for the famous late ’60s/early ’70s live recordings, including Woodstock, Live at Leeds and Isle of Wight, as well as the recordings of Tommy and The Seeker.
First Use
The earliest appearance of Pete’s use of the Gibson SG Special (other than one he borrowed in 1966 from a support group the Tages) is July 1968, likely purchased at Manny’s Music, New York, though regular use wouldn’t come until late 1968. Throughout his use of this guitar from 1968–1971, he usually used 1966–1970 models, which feature the full black wraparound pickguard. He did, however, occasionally use pre-1966 models, which feature the small pickguard, especially in 1971 as the available supply began to dry up. In all, Pete likely went through dozens of these guitars between 1969 and 1971.
And that is your rock history lesson for the day.
The problem was that his Epiphone electric guitar, which is cased in a coffin-shaped case, was attached to a guitar strap decorated with empty bronze bullet cartridges.
has hooked up with Bumblefoot guitarist Ron Thal and drummer Dennis Leeflang for a short summer world tour with plenty of dates in the States. Bumblefoot will open. She’s also scheduled to play a select number of festivals and motorcycle rallies.
, Paul Gilbert sat down with Clay Howard at 
. I can’t think of any other guitarist who’s pulled that off.
