I never saw Keith play ...but have studied him extensively .... (extensively may actually be an understatement) .....and have interviewed family members, band mates, and friends of his for a 3 year long project I constructed in college that never truly was finished completely ....nor was college actually
and what I came up with is that Keith was not a drummer at all....he was a true force of nature that just happened to have a drum kit in front of him on occasion.....a comet.....one never meant to age and become old
outside of the Who he did not care to even see a drum kit ....much more concerned with fame and running with the whos who crowd, raising hell and buying pointless items like hover crafts and exotic cars that he could not drive
I believe the accidental killing of his friend Neil Boland changed Keith forever and escalated the already evident downward spiral
he had a few instructors as a child but did not care much for lessons ....and once attempted a lesson with Philly Joe Jones ....which is a quite funny story for another day
Pete describes Keith as a one man orchestra ....and if you watch videos and listen you can hear how he does approach some situations as a timpani player would with impeccable dynamics ...
he also followed the vocal and the guitar more than the Ox pretty much always
Keith almost never played a tune the same way twice ....and I may feel safe even saying he never did.....
as you probably know he gave up on having a hi hat pretty early in his career but it was suggested by Glynn Johns while trying to harness some of Keiths insanity for some of Petes tunes that required synth and sequencers when producing some records that he return to the hi hat....which he did briefly
Glyn did manage to get some solid takes out of Keith ...but to me they don't sound very Moon like and are definitely not how he would have expressed himself
for someone with very poor technique Keith had amazingly fast hands.
live he was pretty much off the hook and to him it was the Keith Moon show not the Who.....
Keith would often latch on to certain people he met and take them on a 6 month to a year journey that they would never forget.
in a recent Eagles documentary Joe Walsh says.....one of the worst things that has ever happened to me in my life was Keith Moon taking a liking to me..
pretty funny
I love anything and everything Keith and am pretty much an encyclopedia of Moon.
I am just fascinated by it all and spent years studying his life and tracking down everyone I could who knew him to talk to them
I got very much enjoyment out of every minute of it and am very glad I did it
I plan to write a book one day .....just way too busy right now
a personal favorite representation of his playing is Live At Leeds....and their performance at the Rolling Stones Rock n Roll Circus TV program which the Stones never allowed to be released until the 90s because the Who blew them out of the water