The Who played the final concert of their North American farewell tour Wednesday night, and from the sound of their closing speeches it might have been their last show ever.
“I suppose, you know, it’s goodbye,” Pete Townshend told the crowd at the Acrisure Anena in Thousand Palms, California after he and Roger Daltrey played a lovely acoustic version of “Tea & Theatre” to end the set. “That’s what it is. To what we know as the Who, it’s goodbye. What Roger and I will get up to next, who knows? If we last any longer, I’m sure we’ll get up to all kinds of mischief, We’ll do stuff together, I’m sure sharing some stuff, all kinds bits and pieces. But for this kind of thing, it’s goodbye. And you were last!”
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When the duo announced the The Song is Over shows back in May, they indicated the tour may not visit Europe or the UK due to the difficulty of touring in those countries.
“I’ve got to say, touring America is a damn sight easier than touring the UK,” Daltrey explained. “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.”
After noting that he agreed completely with his bandmate’s take on the chances of more performances in their home country, Townshend went into more detail. “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.”
The band has yet to announce any UK or European tour plans since that press conference, and Daltrey’s final words to the audience at Wednesday night’s show certainly seemed like the closing of a chapter.
“Thank you so much for coming out, thank you so much for your support over all the years, it means so much to us,” the singer declared. “It was every band’s dream in the ’60s to make it in America, and thanks to you guys, you made it happen for us. Thank you so much!”
Watch the Who Close Their Final American Show With ‘Tea and Theater’
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They said it was the end, but it wasn’t really.
Gallery Credit: Matt Wardlaw
