The Who are planning something big for 2011

Despite Pete Townsend's apparent hearing problems, and the speculation they have brought about the future of the band, Roger Daltrey has recently said in an interview that the band is "planning on doing something...possibly related to a past work" in 2011.

In an interview on the band's website (full audio here) Daltrey said that The Who is "in the planning stages for next year," but he stated that he "can't really talk about specifics yet."  He goes on to speculate about the nature of the project, and potential new album, stating: "Pete is writing…you never know when that might turn up. So, between now and then, there might be a new album."  

Kind of wishy-washy, but hey, it's The Who.  Anything would be better than nothing.  At least I hope so...


When asked about a potential greatest hits tour, Daltrey shared that "We have thought about that. But what is a greatest hits show? All the hits and nothing else, and none of the obscure? That would bore me shitless…If we did a greatest hits tour, everybody would say, ‘We’re bored with that, give us something else.’ We can never please everybody."


It appears a Greatest Hits tour is out of the question, then.  What would they do instead?  "I would like to be on the road playing as many different kind of shows as we could", Daltrey says.  "Maybe doing Quadrophenia one night, do greatest hits the next night…this is what I would like to do. And Tommy…if I could still sing Tommy. That, to me, would be really good fun. And don’t keep going out with the same show every night – the audience would have to take a chance on what show they actually got."


Finally, Daltrey elaborated on the challenges of the modern music industry, and touring at The Who's age, saying: "The whole music business has been through a seismic shift, so we’re looking at new ways of doing it. At the age we are now, you can’t do the number of shows per week that we used to, and you need to do so many to maintain the kind of budget that will allow you to do it in the first place. So it’s kind of a catch-22 situation we’re in."


Can you imagine how fast a Who tour would sell out?  Assuming they hit all the big cities (or even come to the US at all) I bet a The Who tour would be one of the biggest of 2011, except perhaps Roger Waters' "The Wall" tour, beginning tonight in Madison Square Garden.  (Tour dates here.)