The Who‘s Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey are holding a press event in London on Thursday where they will be making a “special announcement followed by an exclusive Q&A session” that will be livestreamed to fans around the world. (They’re already soliciting questions via their social channels.) Enticingly, the project is called “The Song Is Over.”
They haven’t clarified what exactly they’re announcing, but it’s very possible this is a farewell tour. Rock bands don’t generally hold press conferences to announce anything besides tours, and “The Song Is Over” is a perfect name for a final Who trek since it’s the title of a beloved Who’s Next deep cut.
Of course, this wouldn’t be the Who’s first farewell tour. They launched one back in 1982 that landed them on the cover of Rolling Stone with the cover line “The Who The End.” But Pete Townshend was 37 back then. Roger Daltrey was 38. Townshend turns 80 on May 19, and Daltrey is 81. A farewell tour by a couple of octogenarians carries a lot more weight than a farewell tour by a group of guys a decade younger than the members of Maroon 5.
There is a strong precedent for announcing farewell tours at press conferences. Elton John gathered the press at New York City’s Gotham Hall in 2018 and delivered the news alongside Anderson Cooper. Mötley Crüe announced their supposed last tour, Beacher’s Madhouse Theater in Los Angeles, back in 2014, and even signed a legally dubious “Cessation of Touring Activities” contract.
These events generated global headlines and helped both acts sell a ton of tickets. And even though two farewell tours might seem a little silly, they’ll be separated by 43 years. (Kiss launched their farewell tour in 2000, and then did a second one just 17 years later.)
But we don’t actually know at this point what the Who are announcing tomorrow. It might be a new perfume. It could be a new rock opera that happens to use an old song title. It could be the Keith Moon biopic that Roger Daltrey has been teasing for about 30 years. (Mike Myers was once loosely attached to it, but he aged out of the role quite a while back.)
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But since they’re calling this mystery thing The Song Is Over, there’s every reason to think our original presumption is right. And coincidentally or not, they played “The Song Is Over” for the first time in their history in March at the Royal Albert Hall. It may have been the first hint that this tour was in the works, but it was also a bit messy Daltery had trouble hearing himself, and he stopped a first attempt at the halfway point.
“To sing that song, I do need to hear the key,” he told the crowd. “And I can’t hear. There’s no pitch here. I just hear drums, ‘boom boom boom.’ I can’t sing to that. I’m sorry guys. We’ll try one more even though it’s getting late.”
Accounts vary as to what happened backstage in the aftermath of this, but there’s little doubt that longtime drummer Zak Starkey was let go from the band in the ensuing weeks. “After playing those songs with the band for so many decades, I’m surprised and saddened anyone would have an issue with my performance that night,” he said in a statement, “but what can you do?”
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Just three days later, Pete Townshend announced that he was re-hired. “There have been some communication issues,” he said, “personal and private on all sides, that needed to be dealt with, and these have been aired happily.”
That means Starkey will be in his rightful place behind the drum kit if The Song Is Over is indeed a farewell tour. We’ll find out for sure tomorrow.
