Roger Daltrey in Glasgow - memories of legendary performances through the decades

The singer has graced Glasgow with his presence many times over the decades, from early gigs at Green’s Playhouse (later The Apollo) to opening the Beatson’s first unit dedicated to teenagers with cancer.

Daltrey founded the band at school in 1961, but its first single (they were called High Numbers then) released in the summer of 1964, vanished without a trace. A few months later, they renamed themselves The Who and let guitarist Pete Townshend try his hand at songwriting. The single I Can’t Explain was a hit, and the band grew to become a global success story which continues to this day.

Daltrey went on to receive a Golden Globe nomination for Tommy, the 1975 film version of The Who’s rock opera, which kick-started his film career (he also appeared in Ken Russell’s Lizstomania, McVicar, Lightning Jack with Paul Hogan, Teen Agent, and a variety of TV dramas, including CSI and The Bill.) He is also a best-selling solo artist.

Since 2000, Daltrey has been a patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust, a charity that builds specialised wards for teenagers with cancer in the UK.

His first fundraising show with The Who and Friends raised £1.2 million, for which he won a Humanitarian Award in 2003 from Time magazine. In 2005, Daltrey was awarded a CBE by the Queen at Buckingham Palace for his services to music and good causes.

In Glasgow in 1972, The Who played Green’s Playhouse and the story goes that the power consumption of the gig was so huge, it made lights dip around the area.

Our photographers captured Daltrey and his bandmates at the Apollo in 1981. Our sister newspaper The Herald reported they “attracted an audience which ranged from elderly hippies to latter-day Mods.

“It would have been easy for The Who to have rested on their laurels and simply played a medley of their better-known hits. Surprisingly, they did not sing ‘My Generation’, but seemed to concentrate on newer numbers.”

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It continued: “The biggest response, however, was reserved for ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, with Roger Daltrey swinging his microphone out over the heads of the audience and Pete Townshend flailing madly at his lead guitar.”

In 2007, Daltrey opened the first teenage cancer unit at the Beatson Cancer Centre, in his role as patron of the Teenage Cancer Trust, which funded the new facility

Did you see The Who in Glasgow? What has been the best gig you’ve been to in the city over the decades? Get in touch to share your memories and photos.