i watched townshend do his crazy windmill thing and i tried it and my arm is all bruised up now so is there any way that it is made easier?
I think you just have to keep doing it. He ripped himself apart doing that windmill thing. If you watch him at Monterey, I think it's Monterey, he's got blood on his face cuz he ripped a nail off doing that windmill! Now that's rock and roll!
Pete in his own words:
It is terribly painful. But I'm used to the fact that there will be pain. I know that I will take my nail off at the beginning of every tour. Still. The string gets under the fingernails and rips it off. It's part of the job. I am playing sometimes and I go do a windmill , "Wang, wang, wang, blood" and then I think, This is it. I've arrived. It is the place where I should be, like a boxer in the middle of a fight.
And when he injured himself in '89 from the windmill:
Yeah. That time I speared myself. I was using a guitar that was created for Eric Clapton. It had one of those whammy bars for vibrato, basically a sharp piece of metal. It went in one side of my hand and out the other. I lifted my arm and the guitar was hanging there by piece of metal through my hand.
PLAYBOY: Did you finish the show?
TOWNSHEND: I slipped it off and belted a lot, but yeah. And there was a brilliant surgeon nearby and I was lucky enough not to have hit anything vital. Then it happened again on the bike. Everything has happened to the same hand. I have some heavy right-hand karma. I've 126 stitches in my hand.
Edited By Sadie on 1123397498
I read that interviewin one of my dad's older issues! Haha! :D :;):
What is the windmill style?
OMG that rocks so much, never thought of doing that.
*goes to guitar
*comes back with whammy bar in arm
Did he do this at LIVE8? I missed them, i only watched floyd, bob and greenday.
Edited By Metabog on 1123998210
Yes. He ALWAYS does it. That's the one thing you can count on. No more guitar smashing, but the windmill always stays.
Metabog Wrote:OMG that rocks so much, never thought of doing that.
*goes to guitar
*comes back with whammy bar in arm
Did he do this at LIVE8? I missed them, i only watched floyd, bob and greenday.
I don't think he did, i was watching for it, but it never really happended. I think he kind of did a half assed version, but thats it.
Pete has said that he often breaks a string on the very first chord of the very first song of a performance "windmilling" - not as inconvenient (or painful) as sticking a vibrato arm right through your hand though!! 
so thats how its done and btw yes it was done on live 8 in the middle of who are you