Watch Pete Townshend & Broadway Cast Bring Songs From ‘The Who’s Tommy’ To ‘Fallon’

Pete Townshend appeared on Wednesday’s episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in support of The Who's Tommy On Broadway revival. Townshend was joined by the stage cast of the musical for a medley of songs from Tommy and sat for an interview with Jimmy Fallon.

The Who released the groundbreaking rock opera Tommy featuring music and lyrics by in 1969. A stage adaption came to Broadway in 1993. Now, 30 years later, the musical has been revamped for its return to the Great White Way. The Who’s Tommy On Broadway opens on Thursday, March 28 at the Nederlander Theatre.

Pete Townshend’s extended conversation with Jimmy Fallon touched upon the formation of The Who, how he fixed guitars after smashing them during performances and the making of Tommy. “We were doing really well with rock songs, so I thought, ‘We need to do something really drastic,'” Townshend explained of his 1969 masterpiece. “And that’s when I came up with the idea of rock opera and that’s when I wrote Tommy. I thought, ‘I need to write something which is bigger than just a single.'”

The musical performance starts with Townshend on acoustic guitar. Tommy star Ali Louis Bourzgui then comes into view along with other members of the cast. The Who guitarist and the Broadway cast was accompanied by Fallon house band The Roots on a medley combining portions of Tommy classics “Pinball Wizard,” “See Me, Feel Me” and “Listening To You.”

Watch the medley and Pete Townshend interview below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjv_dftuPqY