Smash It Up

SPECTRUM001

Was watching an old bit of Pete Townsend footage - his guitar royally biting the dust during a show.

Which got me wondering if anyone here has ever done it ? 

I would imagine very few - but who knows...

In fact, I have never even seen it happen (a few drum kits pushed over, guitars left feeding back)...

underdog

I could understand it in the moment, but it just becomes cliche and also kinda bratty to do it all the time, was always a bit lame when Cobain switched to a cheapy Strat for the last song.

poopot

Years ago, a mates band - “sumo rabbit” went for the world record of smashing guitars at a gig...

they got Guinness down, kerrang came down, the sun etc etc etc.

they asked punters to bring old guitars to the show so they could smash them...


they did five in total

TonyR

It makes me cringe every time I see it...

Nitefly

TonyR said:

It makes me cringe every time I see it...

Me too!  It rather put me off The who for a long time.

merlin

Richie Blackmore. Knob. 

I saw Rainbow at the Capital Cinema in Cardiff, probably in 1976/77. 

He played the whole show and then in the last number he went behind his onstage stack and took off his guitar and put on a shitty strat copy, came back on and smashed it up. Twat head. 

Not only that, but the neck didn't have a truss rod, as it snapped when he bashed it on the monitor that was actually just a black metal box. They toured with a metal box so that he wouldn't damage anyone's (or the band's) monitors. Tits. 

I was in the balcony. Saw the whole manoeuvre. What a wuss. 

SPECTRUM001

I am intrigued how Townsend’s peers saw it ?

And whether audiences thought it a hoot, or complete egotistical idiocy.

axisus

I thought Townsend was a complete twat smashing guitars. One of the things that put me off the Who, I've never been interested to be honest, I found him to be a boring player, although I admired his onstage antics other than smashing guitars.

proggy

Rather than smash them up, he should have put a bit more effort into learning to play them.

imalrightjack

proggy said:

Rather than smash them up, he should have put a bit more effort into learning to play them.

I do think the smashing thing was a bit odd but he was a great player!

viz

I used to have a satellite guitar, which had a home-made pic of Eddie from the Somewhere in Time album, dun with airfix paints. I used to set that on fire. It actually sounded better after a good burn-up. 

ZenOvertone

Townshend used to go on about it being "art" in earlier interviews

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/auto-destructive-art

Alan Rogan was busy in the 70s and beyond... http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/gear/guitar/smashed.html

My Eros Mk2 les Paul copy bit the dust many years ago after accidentally falling over losing the headstock, the job was finished...one time only though

freakboy1610

I smashed my Sigma acoustic 22 years ago. It was hanging on the wall in the spare room and I threw a heavy office type revolving chair at it. This wasn't "art" or any such nonsense but rather a product of my first major bout of depression,  combined with alcohol. Needless to say, neither the alcohol nor the smashing of the guitar made me feel any better. 
I stopped playing altogether for around 9 years and haven't owned another acoustic guitar. (I don't drink much either!)

monquixote

When I saw slipknot one of the guitarists broke a string and obviously annoyed smashed the guitar in half then threw it in the crowd.

A bit later on the moshpit cleared in front of me and two blokes appeared locked in a deadly struggle trying to stab each other with the broken neck. They must of been fighting over it for about 15 minutes.

Moe_Zambeek

I saw Little Angels smash a guitar at MK bowl, they swapped in an epi Les Paul before doing it. Lame.

Hattigol

imalrightjack said:

proggy said:

Rather than smash them up, he should have put a bit more effort into learning to play them.

I do think the smashing thing was a bit odd but he was a great player!

Was he? I'm not convinced he was anything more than a decent rhythm player. Please feel free to direct me to his 'high water' mark...

Dan_Halen

I know nothing about The Who but they were kicking about in the 60s right? A pristine 60s tele is what, £10k now? Say they did 100 gigs a year over a decade, that’s 1000 guitars at 10k a pop today’s prices...

£10 million pounds worth of smashed guitars (using some very liberal/made up numbers).

Jimbro66

So you don't like performers smashing guitars. Fair enough but before slagging off Townshend try putting what he did into context.

The original teenage rebellion music, rock & roll, had lasted only a few years before being stifled by the establishment to be replaced by watered down pop made to appease the younger generation.

Then along came bands like the Stones playing their interpretation of blues standards in clubs like the Crawdaddy to mainly student audiences.

Then the mods and rockers period arrived with regular large-scale violent clashes. When The Who began performing at the Marquee club the audience was entirely made up of pill-popping, strutting mods. The Who were the first band to use high powered Marshall amps and stacks for instruments and pa. No bands had ever played at that volume level before. Nor had any played with such high energy. The mod audiences loved it. It was two fingers up to the establishment.

The Who completely represented their audience. They too popped indecent quantities of pills and got more high as the evening went on. The chanting crowd, the high energy performance and ear-splitting volume built to a climax where Townshend smashing his guitar into Marshall stacks and Moon crashing his drums across the stage was completely inevitable for all those present. There was no other way they could have left the stage.

Townshend also mastered the control of high-volume feedback long before others, including Hendrix, adopted it. So no, he wasn't a skilled player but he was a great innovator and pioneered many of the techniques later claimed by others as theirs.

thermionic

I remember the Manics at Cardiff Castle a few years ago and watching in horror as James smashed a white guitar at the end. Not the Les Paul Custom! Turns out it was one of Nicky’s cheapish Italia basses. Phew!

longshins

I thought the main point of wrecking everything was so that there was no encore... You know, that other cheesy trope.

usedtobe

Not a fan of smashing instruments, at all.