The Who say their farewell tour may not visit their home country of England, or anywhere in Europe.
Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend announced the band’s 16-date North American This Song Is Over tour Thursday. While answering questions from online fans at a live-streamed press conference, they cast doubt on the possibility of UK or European dates.
“Let’s see if we can survive this one,” Daltrey initially joked, before getting to the core of the issue. “I’ve got to say, touring America is a damn sight easier than touring the UK. For some reason or another, the UK has decided to make it as difficult as possible to go from A to B. In America, you seem to want to make it as easy as possible. But we are in the land of ‘no.’ I don’t want to say that there will be, but equally, I’m not confident in saying there will be. That’s the honest answer to that.”
“I would agree completely,” Townshend added. “I really enjoyed the last tour that we did, [but] we played a lot of open-air gigs. We’d had an insurance problem, which meant that we couldn’t play some of the more classic places that one plays under a UK tour. But the door is open to us, we could do a week at the O2, we could do a week, a couple of weeks maybe at the [Royal] Albert Hall, there are things we could do.”
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The 81-year-old Daltrey also explained that the breaks he needs between shows makes touring more difficult and costly. “I can’t do consecutive shows. I’ve been ordered by my throat specialist, my voice specialist to say you have to have a day off after every gig, and then after every three gigs you have to have two days off. Otherwise you will rip your voice and you won’t be able to sing.”
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Gallery Credit: Michael Gallucci
