Late last year, The Who announced they’d be capping off their legendary career with a final tour in 2015. “For the 50th anniversary we’ll tour the world,” Pete Townshend explained at the time. “It’ll be the last big one for us. There are still plenty of places we’ve not played. It would be good to go to eastern Europe and places that haven’t heard us play all the old hits.”
Today, the band revealed the first batch of these dates, which they’ve dubbed, “The Who Hits 50! Tour.” The 11-date UK leg, scheduled for November and December, will see the band perform “hits, picks, mixes and misses.”
In a statement, The Who referred to the jaunt as the “beginning of the long goodbye.” Townshend added, “Trying to stay young. Not wearing socks. Growing a great big woodcutter’s beard. Might even wear a check shirt on stage and get a tattoo of a Union Jack. Always a fashion victim. But under no illusions. We are what we are, and extremely good at it, but we’re lucky to be alive and still touring. If I had enough hairs to split I would say that for thirteen years since 1964 The Who didn’t really exist, so we are really only thirty-seven.”
The Who toured last year behind the 40th anniversary of their landmark concept album, Quadrophenia. However, both Townshend and singer Roger Daltrey are dealing with a myriad of health problems. Townshend suffers from the hearing condition tinnitus, while Daltrey needs regular throat examinations after having surgery to remove several pre-cancerous growths in 2010.
(Read: Five Reasons Fans Might Prefer The Who’s Quadrophenia to Tommy)
While the band may be done touring, they’re not breaking up. “This will be the last old-fashioned, big tour,” Townshend told Rolling Stone last year. “We intend to go on doing music until we drop.” In fact, in a recent interview with the Guardian, Townshend said The Who are already at work on a new album, adding, “We might try to make the album in a more basic way than we usually do.” Though they won’t hit the studio until later this summer, Townshend’s already sent Daltrey three tracks he described as being “more prog rock than pub rock”.
The Who 2014 Tor Dates:
11/26 – Dublin, IE @ The O2
11/28 – Belfast, IE @ Odyssey Arena
11/30 – Glasgow, UK @ SSE Hydro
12/02 – Leeds, UK @ First Direct Arena
12/05 – Nottingham UK @ Captial FM Arena
12/07 – Birmingham, UK @ NIA
12/09 – Newcastle, UK @ Metro Radio Arena
12/11 – Liverpool, UK @ Echo Arena
12/13 – Manchester, UK @ Phones 4U Arena
12/15 – Cardiff, UK @ Motorpoint Arena
12/17 – London, UK @ The O2
Below, watch The Who perform Quadrophenia in full from a show in Tulsa last February:
