Fans of The Who may not want to hold their breath waiting for the band to tour the U.S. again.
In an interview promoting their recent live album, The Who with Orchestra: Live at Wembley, Roger Daltrey shared his doubts that The Who would ever hit the road in North American again.
Daltrey tells USA Today they don’t currently have any U.S. tour dates planned, noting, “I don’t know if we’ll ever come back to tour America.”
He added, “There is only one tour we could do, an orchestrated Quadrophenia to round out the catalog. But that’s one tall order to sing that piece of music, as I’ll be 80 next year. I never say never, but at the moment it’s very doubtful.”
Roger also points out that “touring has become very difficult since COVID,” with a lot of bands not being able to get insured for shows, making things very expensive.
“Most of the big bands doing arena shows, by the time they do their first show and rehearsals and get the staging and crew together, all the buses and hotels, you’re upwards $600,000 to a million in the hole,” he says. “To earn that back, if you’re doing a 12-show run, you don’t start to earn it back until the seventh or eighth show. That’s just how the business works. The trouble now is if you get COVID after the first show, you’ve (lost) that money.”
The Who do plan to tour Europe this summer. The latest leg of their The Who Hits Back tour kicks off June 14 in Barcelona, Spain. A complete list of dates can be found at thewho.com.
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