Daltrey Clarifies Townshend’s Remarks On The Who Retirement

Late last week Pete Townshend made waves with remarks that The Who would retire from the road following a 50th Anniversary Tour in 2015. The band’s lead singer, Roger Daltrey, discussed Townshend’s remarks in an interview just posted on Billboard.com.

“I think you have to clarify what he said, and what we man (sic) is we cannot keep going on doing these month-after-month, long, extended tours,” Daltrey clarified to Billboard. “It’s extremely hard, hard work, just the grind of it. So we have to be realistic. The band got better reviews on our last tour (the 2012-13 Quadrophenia & More trek) than we had for years. It was incredibly enjoyable. It was incredibly exhausting, and we have to be realistic about our age. But it’s not going to be the last thing The Who will do. We’re going to be doing events. We’re going to be doing shows. We might do other things, more experimental. We might decide to do something in a theater, some small production where we sit down for two or three weeks in one town; that could be managed ’cause we’re not schlepping our bodies from city to city. The joy of the stage is wonderful, but the traveling every day is exhausting.”

Rog went on to say the band would always be open to performing for charities. As our favorite rockers hit their 70s and 80s will we see more of them finally stop touring? Are residencies the wave of the future for senior citizen rockers? The answer to both questions seems to be yes.

Head to Billboard to read the entire article.