“This is what happens when you get old,” Pete Townshend said with cheerful resignation.
Townshend, the “lead guitarist, chief songwriter, and presiding genius” of the Who, as the critic Ellen Willis once wrote, had knee replacement surgery earlier this year. Roger Daltrey, the band’s singer, announced in April that he’s losing his sight and his hearing — though not, he’s quick to emphasize, his powerful tenor.
So on Aug. 16, the Who began what they call a farewell tour of North America. Townshend, 80, and Daltrey, 81, formed the group with Keith Moon and John Entwistle, who died in 1978 and 2002. The band has mustered only two new albums in the last 40 years, but through the ’60s and ’70s, the Who treated rock both as an art form and a cathartic communal ceremony, consistently stretching the limits of how thoughtful and expansive the music can be. The Who’s cinematic songs even spawned a Broadway musical (“Tommy”) and a film (“Quadrophenia”). Daltrey’s macho roar gave body and vigor to Townshend’s words, and in concert, they created an uncontrollable source of energy that could explode in volume or mayhem.
In separate interviews, there was a stark difference between Townshend and Daltrey, an odd couple who’ve been open, even boisterous, about their differences. The infamously articulate Townshend, in a video interview from his recording studio in the Vale of White Horse, 70 miles west of London, was philosophical and digressive as he reflected on the Who’s career.
Daltrey, on the other hand, was concise and playfully gruff, a man of certainties rather than questions, as he talked from a hotel room in Florida. “I’ve just gotten out of bed and I’m having breakfast,” he announced. It was 4:30 in the afternoon.
These are edited excerpts from the conversations.
The Who’s first farewell tour was in 1982, and there have been other “final” shows since then. Why should anyone believe you this time?
PETE TOWNSHEND Are you suggesting we’re swindling the public? [Laughs] The fact is, we are willing to swindle them. That’s what we’ve done our entire life. Why stop?
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