The Who
Maple Leaf Gardens
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
October 21, 1976

Audience Recording by JEMS

01. I Can’t Explain
02. Subsitute
03. My Wife
04. Baba O’Riley
05. Squeeze Box
06. Behind Blue Eyes
07. Dreaming From The Waist
08. Magic Bus
09. Amazing Journey
10. Underture
11. Sparks
12. The Acid Queen
13. Fiddle About
14. Pinball Wizard
15. I’m Free
16. Tommy’s Holiday Camp
17. We’re Not Gonna Take It
18. See Me Feel Me
19. Summertime Blues
20. My Generation
21. Join Together
22. My Generation Talking Blues
23. Who Are You
24. Won’t Get Fooled Again

Roger Daltrey … vocals, harmonica
Pete Townshend … guitar, vocals
John Entwistle … bass, vocals
Keith Moon … drums, vocals

In mid-1978 Moon moved into Flat 12, 9 Curzon Place (later Curzon Square), Shepherd Market, Mayfair, London, renting from Harry Nilsson. Cass Elliot had died there four years earlier, at the age of 32. Nilsson was concerned about letting the flat to Moon, believing it was cursed. Townshend disagreed, assuring him that “lightning wouldn’t strike the same place twice”.

After moving in, Moon began a prescribed course of Heminevrin (clomethiazole, a sedative) to alleviate his alcohol withdrawal symptoms. He wanted to get sober, but due to his fear of psychiatric hospitals he wanted to do it at home. Clomethiazole is discouraged for unsupervised detoxification because of its addictive potential, its tendency to induce tolerance, and its risk of death when mixed with alcohol. The pills were prescribed by Geoffrey Dymond, a physician who was unaware of Moon’s lifestyle. Dymond prescribed a bottle of 100 pills, instructing him to take one pill when he felt a craving for alcohol but not more than three pills per day.

By September 1978 Moon was having difficulty playing the drums, according to roadie Dave “Cy” Langston. After seeing Moon in the studio trying to overdub drums for The Kids Are Alright, he said, “After two or three hours, he got more and more sluggish, he could barely hold a drum stick.”

On 6 September, Moon and Walter-Lax were guests of Paul and Linda McCartney at a preview of a film, The Buddy Holly Story. After dining with the McCartneys at Peppermint Park in Covent Garden, Moon and Walter-Lax returned to their flat. He watched a film (The Abominable Dr. Phibes), and asked Walter-Lax to cook him steak and eggs. When she objected, Moon replied, “If you don’t like it, you can fuck off!” These were his last words. Moon then took 32 clomethiazole tablets. When Walter-Lax checked on him the following afternoon, she discovered he was dead.

Curbishley phoned the flat at around 5 pm looking for Moon, and Dymond gave him the news. Curbishley told Townshend, who informed the rest of the band. Entwistle was giving an interview to French journalists when he was interrupted by a phone call with the news of Moon’s death. Trying to tactfully and quickly end the interview, he broke down and wept when the journalist asked him about the Who’s future plans.

Moon’s death came shortly after the release of Who Are You. On the album cover, he is straddling a chair to hide his weight gain; the words “Not to be taken away” are on the back of the chair.

Police determined that there were 32 clomethiazole pills in Moon’s system. Six were digested, sufficient to cause his death; the other 26 were undigested when he died. Max Glatt, an authority on alcoholism, wrote in The Sunday Times that Moon should never have been given the drug. Moon was cremated on 13 September 1978 at Golders Green Crematorium in London, and his ashes were scattered in its Gardens of Remembrance.