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50 YEARS OF THE WHO AND IAG CARGO

Back in the days when The Who were, to quote compere Jeff Dexter at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970, “a nice little rock and roll band from Shepherd’s Bush, London” their transport facilities were spartan to say the least. In the early years of 1964 and ’65 The Who lugged their gear around England and Europe in various Ford Transit and Commer vans and blacked-out lorries usually driven by Roger Daltrey, with his girl of the moment seated next to him. No room for you in the front seats. You had to sit or lie in the back on top of your amps and speaker cabinets and drum kit and guitar cases. It was Roger who was the group’s organiser, the one who would turn up at your house in the afternoon to pick you and your gear up and drive you halfway across the country to play at some tiny dancehall for a hundred quid a night.
 
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Roger Daltrey with The Who’s van in Paris, June 1965. Photo © Roger Kasparian

 

And then by the mid- to late-Sixties things began to change. The Who began to break into the big time in the United States and tours lasting several weeks became the norm. And not only did the tours get bigger, so too did the equipment. The speaker stacks got higher, the quantity of guitars that Pete and John used got bigger, Keith’s drum-kit got bigger, and bigger, and bigger. Then in the Seventies they began using lasers and light-shows and all the equipment that entailed.

 

And this is where IAG Cargo came in. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of their association with The Who, making sure that the band’s gear and equipment, the lighting rigs, their stage sets and drum risers, their huge screens, their monitors, those guitars and amps and speakers and mixing desks and drum kits and keyboards and all the other paraphernalia that goes into putting on a Who gig gets to the right place on the right day and at the right time, ready for the Who’s road crew to pack and assemble and get everything ready for that moment when the band walk on stage and “ . . . pick up their guitars and play, just like yesterday”.

 

And so, here at www.thewho.com we wish a very big happy anniversary to IAG Cargo and say a huge thank you for getting us here, there and everywhere on time and in one piece.

 

And thankfully Roger doesn’t have to drive the van anymore – for which he is eternally grateful!

 


 
 
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