After multiple rehearsals and warm-up gigs, the band played a private show at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club, London in early May 1969 intended to preview Tommy to the press.

After Woodstock, the band headlined the second Isle of Wight festival and played Tommy at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, one of the world's forefront opera houses.

[2] After a series of rehearsals and warm-up gigs, the band gave a preview concert to the press at London's Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club on 1 May.

[3] Realising the opera's narrative was too difficult to comprehend, Townshend explained a synopsis of the story, before the Who played Tommy at roaring volume.

After the Who played "Pinball Wizard", Yippie founder Abbie Hoffman interrupted the show to protest the arrest of John Sinclair before getting kicked offstage by Townshend, and the sun rose almost as if on cue during "See Me, Feel Me".

[12] The band started another North American tour on 10 October at the Commonwealth Armory in Boston, emphasized by a six-night stand at the Fillmore East in New York City.

[13] The Who ended 1969 with a tour of Europe that continued into 1970, including a show at the London Coliseum on 14 December, which was filmed for a possible future Tommy feature.

Included were January stops at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen, and three opera houses in West Germany.

[16] After beginning recording sessions for a planned new album, the group returned to the United States for a 30-day tour in June and July to support Tommy.

In the year since the release of Tommy, the group had become rock superstars and now commanded considerably larger venues than on previous stints in the country, when they played mostly in theatres and colleges.

[21] While the rock opera remained the focal point of the set into 1970, the band also featured their latest single, "The Seeker" on the 1970 U.S. tour, although it was dropped after two weeks.