Despite Roger Daltrey's longing to hang it up, the Who have announced the beginnings of a U.S. tour in the fall. So far, only a pair of dates have been announced: a two-night run at Los Angeles Nokia Theatre on November 8 and 9. Fan club tickets and VIP packages for those dates go on sale July 14th at the band's official website. The band also promises more dates will be announced soon. The Who will also take the stage this Saturday night at UCLA's Pauley Arena for a VH1 Rock Honors special, to air July 17th. Pearl Jam, Flaming Lips, Incubus and Tenacious D will also participate in the event, with each band paying tribute to the Who before Daltrey and Townshend take the stage.
The group initially planned to hit the studio with T Bone Burnett this year to record an album of R&B obscurities from the Fifties and Sixties as a follow-up to 2006? Endless Wire, but Pete Townshend has indefinitely postponed the project.
"I must not commit to studio time or show dates, especially not to long tours, without some kind of creative programme," Townshend wrote on his blog in April. "I don't know whether I can write songs for the Who. I don't know if I can come up with some idea, some story, some angle, that will make me feel good about being the writer for the Who. Most important of all, I don't know if I write something whether I should try to force the Who to carry it."
Daltrey is also conflicted about the idea of a new Who album. "I think we've done enough already," he says. "It would be great to have something new, but it doesn't really matter." He does still see a bright future for the band as a touring act. "No one plays our music better than us," he says. "By the end of this year, after we've done this short stint and got Japan under our belts, we'll have a re-think. I would like to do Quadrophenia again. I think that tour was way ahead of its time when we did it back in 1996. There's so much we can do, but the road does wear you down."
Sorta hurts knowing I'll never see these guys live.
At the same time; I would like them to retire if Roger can't rest his voice up a bit. They sounded great when they started touring again in 2006, but he's been getting hoarser and I wouldn't like to fork out big money for a Who gig just to see something like what happened at that Verona gig.
I would dearly love a new album from them, if they can get Starkey on it too. He was only on one song for their last album. Underused.
Daltrey is right, though; no one does it better than they do. I'd be embarrassed to hear any of those bands doing The Who, particularly Pearl Jam.