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Keith Moon’s Troubling Night at the Fontainebleau
Keith Moon was already famous for behavior that strained the boundary between rock mythology and personal disaster. In August 1976, during the Who’s Florida tour, an episode at Miami Beach’s Fontainebleau entered that mythology.
Accounts of the hotel incident have varied in their dramatic details. Contemporary reporting establishes the more consequential fact: Moon was found in distress at the hotel and taken to a hospital in Hollywood, Florida, for observation. The incident came during a period when the drummer’s health and conduct were becoming serious concerns for the people around him.
It is tempting to tell the story as another tale of a rock star destroying a room. That version has a ready-made punch line, but it leaves little room for the person at its center. Moon’s explosive playing was essential to the Who. His unpredictable behavior offstage was becoming increasingly difficult to separate from the harm he was doing to himself.
Miami was a stop on a tour, not the cause of that decline. The Fontainebleau was where one troubling episode became impossible to ignore. Moon died in 1978, two years later.
A city’s music history includes events that happened away from the stage. The Fontainebleau story survives partly because Moon’s reputation made it seem spectacular. Remembered carefully, it tells us something sadder: the image of a musician as indestructible can persist long after the musician has begun to break.