Although Jimmy pulls away when he realises it’s his friend Kevin, he doesn’t stop the fight, he rides away on his scooter. The week of Quadrophenia’s release wasn’t quite as beatific though. At least one quarter of The Who seemed a little disgruntled. Fast forward to the summer of 1996. Quadrophenia has finally been remixed, with both Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend involved, and remastered on CD. The sound is sharper, clearer, the nuances of Townshend’s more intricate passages teased out in much greater relief against the bigger, more abrasively Who-like songs. Technology has finally caught up with Townshend’s original vision. It’s enough for the band to try out Quadrophenia live again.

The Who’s music and the film’s fashions live on today, as the stylish, music-loving youth still embrace the coolness and the belonging of what it is to be a Mod. Although not defined in the film, Quadrophenia is mentioned in the album’s sleeve notes and is an amalgamation of two words, Quadraphonic and Schizophrenia.From nostalgic Mods to younger generations inspired by this cult classic, Mod fashion can still be seen on high streets today as a dress code for the stylish elite. After 40 years since its original release, Quadrophenia is still a cult classic, loved for its nostalgia and representation of an iconic moment in British pop culture. Although relatively new and budding actors at the time, Quadrophenia’s cast members featured a stellar line-up of some of today’s greatest actors and performers. Jimmy and Steph get up close and personal in an alley by 11 East Street in Brighton. Now dubbed ‘Quadrophenia Alley’, it’s a hotspot for all Quadrophenia fans. This single jersey T-Shirt is made with 100% organic combed cotton and weighs 190gsm. It features a set-in sleeve, sleeve hem, and bottom hem with wide double-needle topstitch.

His parents throw him out of the house after discovering his stash of amphetamine pills, then he quits his job and spends his severance on more, before finding out that his new love Steph is actually in a relationship with his friend Dave. It was, in fairness, hardly unique behaviour. The Who’s formidable reputation was partly based on such wanton acts of violence against unsuspecting hardware, though the sudden assault on Pridden was altogether more extreme. This was different. Townshend’s tipping point was the result of sustained pressure and frustration. Directed by Franc Roddam, Quadrophenia, released in 1979, is a British drama film co-written by Pete Townshend, co-founder of The Who, and is loosely based on The Who’s album of the same name.

HUGE SELECTION

Mod leader Ace Face is played by Sting, who was about to achieve global success with The Police at the time of the film’s conception. But by the end of February ’74 The Who had stopped playing it entirely. “The whole thing was a disaster,” griped Townshend. It would be 22 years before they attempted it again. In September ’72 Townshend had issued his first solo album, Who Came First, a devotional album dedicated to Meher Baba. Were there certain aspects of himself that couldn’t be accommodated in The Who? “It was mainly my interest in spiritual things, and artistic endeavours, that the band found hard to accommodate without taking the piss. Townshend today describes Entwistle’s input as “Stunning, he was also wonderful to work with: meticulous, disciplined, funny and inspired. I loved it that he wrote out his brass parts on music manuscript paper like a proper composer. What he arranged and played on a whole variety of exotic brass instruments fit my own synthesiser and string arrangements perfectly.

One of the central themes of Quadrophenia is the idea of joining a tribe or gang for the purposes of personal development, perhaps best expressed by the song I’m One. Townshend: “As a young man I needed, and wanted, to be part of a gang of young men. I’d grown up in a gang, one that started when I was a street kid in Acton when I was four years old, running wild when it was still safe to do so. The first show is a highly theatrical, all-star hootenanny in Hyde Park, with giant video screens, and various guests taking key roles in the narrative – Phil Daniels (reprising his 1979 film role as Jimmy), David Gilmour, Ade Edmondson, Stephen Fry, Gary Glitter and, as news anchor, Trevor McDonald. It proves a huge success, enough for The Who to take Quadrophenia out on an extensive tour across the US, before returning to the UK for a handful of homecoming shows before Christmas and swinging over to Europe.Meat People’ on 4-6 Essex Road has all the original art-deco features thanks to it being a Grade II listed building. A visit will evoke memories of the scenes played out in the café. Press reaction was ambiguous. Writing in Rolling Stone, Lenny Kaye praised Quadrophenia as “a beautifully performed and magnificently recorded essay of a British youth mentality in which [The Who] played no little part,” adding that “it might easily be said that The Who as a whole have never sounded better.” But he was less convinced bythe overall feel of the record, finding little evidence of telling contributions from Daltrey, Entwistle and Moon, and concluding that “on its own terms, Quadrophenia falls short of the mark”. Notably, two fashion staples from the film that still take pride of place in every Mod’s wardrobe today are the Fred Perry polo shirt and the Clark’s Desert Boot. Easy to wear and pair with other classic wardrobe staples, they are key components of the signature Mod look.