Back in the early Sixties, a little-known London band called The High Numbers rehearsed every Wednesday night in a Brighton club called The Florida Rooms.

Punters would pay 10p to watch them at work and the gatherings would sometimes turn chaotic - often at the instigation of their bonkers drummer.

In 1964, they renamed themselves The Who and went on to become one of the biggest bands in the world.

Their love affair with Brighton has now spanned five decades and they return next week for a gig described by their PR people as a "public rehearsal" for their world tour - their first without original bassist John Entwistle, who died in 2002.

Joined by Zak Starkey, son of Ringo, on drums, Pino Palladino on bass, Rabbit Bundrick on keyboards and Simon Townshend on guitar, original members Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend are expected to play several songs from their new album, their first in 25 years, out in October.

Many Brighton fans can still recall the early days.

"I'd pay my ten pence, get a chair and sit right at the front of the stage," says Alan Morris, aka Portslade DJ King Jerry. "They were mad.

"We'd never seen anything like it. They'd finish their set and then smash all their gear up, all while wearing these suits."

Jerry, himself just starting out as a Motown DJ, saw The Who at the Florida Rooms about five times.

"I remember Roger and his wirey hair very clearly and John Entwistle, who used to play his bass with a fag in the top fret.

"Keith Moon was just off his trolley. The drums would get a right bashing but he was wicked. They came just at the right time."

The Florida Rooms, at the Brighton Aquarium buildings, was a premiere venue for bands. One of the main faces at club was promoter Bonny Manzi, who now lives in Patcham. Known as "Uncle Bonny", he was a colourful character who booked hundreds of legendary acts, The Who being among them.

"They made one of their debuts with us," he says. "I remember they got half the takings - £17.50. We took just under £40 on the door that night, which wasn't bad at the time.

"I used to find bands after reading Melody Maker, that was my bible. I would book acts about three months in advance, so by the time they came to us, they were on the up.

"With The Who I hit the jackpot. They were a lovely bunch of boys. They had to start somewhere and we helped them on their way."

As the Mod scene flourished, so did The Who's popularity and, just a year later, they were playing to crowds of up to 2,000.

On nostalgic music website brightonbeats.com, one of the Florida Rooms DJs, Roy Hatley, remembers 1,700 people "packed in like sardines" at an Easter Saturday gig in 1965, and another 500 sitting outside on the Aquarium steps. "I spent the entire evening wedged in a corner about five feet from John Entwistle's bass stack," he recalls.

"My teeth ached for a week and I was deaf in my left ear for three days. The Who were looked on as one of their own by local kids."

The next decade was a rollercoaster of highs and lows for the band. With hit after hit, sell-out tours and world adoration came inner demons, drug addiction and tragedy.

With them for much of the journey was Portslade-based Doug Clarke, now a respected businessman and Brighton and Hove Albion fund-raiser. He'll be backstage as a guest of the band next week - and his son's band, Two Choices, have been personally picked by The Who's manager to support them.

After hearing a demo, he said they were the best unsigned band he'd ever heard.

Doug, who owns Grate Fireplaces in Portslade, worked as a personal assistant to frontman Roger Daltrey between 1971 and 1984. He also worked closely with Keith Moon, the mad-as-a-hatter drummer, and was once sent to Los Angeles for an extended stay, supposedly to "straighten him out".

Doug and his wife were meant to remain with Moon in LA for a couple of years, but ended up lasting just three months.

"I just couldn't take it," he says. "Keith was very intelligent when you sat talking to him, but he felt he had to be this crazed character.

"We lived with Keith in Sherman Valley in the Canyons and the house was at the bottom of the valley.

Keith used to have fun getting gas canisters and putting them under warming barbecues. The valley would erupt in the middle of the night with all these canisters exploding. The police used to come straight to Keith.

"There were also plenty of hotel incidents. One time he was having a party in his room and guests were complaining about the noise. The hotel eventually pulled all the fuses, but Keith just moved everything out of his room into the hallway and plugged in again."

Doug had somewhat calmer experiences with frontman Daltrey, who lives on a farm in Burwash, East Sussex.

"You get your wild rock stars but Roger certainly wasn't one," he says.

"When you're performing in front of 150,000 people it can be very hard, with all that adrenalin flowing, to go back to your hotel room with just one or two people.

But Roger would do that, have a massage and then go to bed.

"And he used to get up in the morning to go to the gym."

Doug has kept in touch with Roger, although this will be the first time he's seen The Who live since the Eighties.

"It's going to be a big night - watching my son's band, then seeing The Who. And it's Father's Day," he says.

In 1978, as the band released the album Who Are You, Keith Moon succumbed to the excesses of rock and roll and died in his sleep after taking a prescription drugs overdose.

Kenney Jones, of The Small Faces and The Faces, joined the band as his successor and the new line-up went back on the road. They returned to their spiritual home in November 1979, when they played two sell-out gigs at the Brighton Centre, coinciding with the release of the film Quadrophenia - famously set in Brighton and based on The Who's 1973 album of the same name.

Fans from all over the country queued outside for tickets, with some arriving three days before they went on sale. The queue, which stretched from the box office (then accessed via Russell Road) to the front entrance on Kings Road, was in places ten people deep, and was the biggest the venue had ever seen.

The centre expected a flood of touts, so fans were limited to four tickets each - priced at £3.50 for seating and £4.50 standing.

On the day they went on sale, at 7.30am, fans were treated to breakfast inside the Brighton Centre and a DJ played music over the PA.

The gig was a triumph. Daltrey began with the line: "Hello Brighton, it's been too long."

They were next at the Brighton Centre in February 1981, by which time the tickets had gone up to £5. This time, Daltrey began with the words: "Hello Brighton. It hasn't been too long has it?"

A true sign of the times, tickets cost £37.50 this time around but original fans from the Florida Rooms days are still expected to turn up en mass to relive their Mod days with the era's masters.

Starts at 6.30pm. Tickets cost £37.50. Call 0870 9009100. Sold out.