{"id":480750,"date":"2019-01-11T06:57:54","date_gmt":"2019-01-11T13:57:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=777375"},"modified":"2019-01-11T06:57:54","modified_gmt":"2019-01-11T13:57:54","slug":"the-who-plot-symphonic-u-s-arena-tour-new-studio-album-for-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/music-news\/the-who-plot-symphonic-u-s-arena-tour-new-studio-album-for-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"The Who Plot Symphonic U.S. Arena Tour, New Studio Album for 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When Pete Townshend<\/a>\u2019s management team came to him with a lucrative offer from Live Nation to spend much of 2019 on the road with the Who<\/a>, he said he\u2019d only agree to it under a single condition. \u201cI said I was not going to sign any contracts unless we have new material,\u201d says Townshend. \u201cThis has nothing to do with wanting a hit album. It has nothing to do with the fact that the Who need a new album. It\u2019s purely personal. It\u2019s about my pride, my sense of self-worth and self-dignity as a writer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new album \u2013 which will be their first release since 2006\u2019s Endless Wire<\/em> \u2013 exists now only as 15 painstakingly constructed demos that Townshend crafted last year at five studios around England, but he hopes Roger Daltrey<\/a> will record vocals later this year for a 2019 release. In the meantime, however, they are gearing up for a 31-date American tour where\u00a0a local symphony orchestra will join the band nightly. Daltrey got the idea after spending the summer of 2018 playing Tommy<\/em> with symphonies and loving the experience. \u201cI\u2019ll be 75 years old in March and this feels like a dignified way to go and do music,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s all we\u2019re really left with. We\u2019re old men now. We\u2019ve lost the looks. We\u2019ve lost the glamour. What we\u2019re left with is the music and we\u2019re going to present it in a way which is as fresh and powerful as ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group has yet to release tour dates, but Townshend says it will begin at New York\u2019s Madison Square Garden in April and travel through the Northeast alongside Chicago and Detroit. That initial leg is just 14 shows, but they\u2019ll return in September and October to hit Canada and the western United States. (Most of the shows are at arenas, though he mentioned the possibility of a stadium or two.) Townshend says that the European tour plans are less clear at the moment, but that they\u2019ll play festivals in the UK over the summer and hopefully return at the end of the year to play arenas.<\/p>\n

\n

It\u2019s about my pride, my sense of self-worth and self-dignity as a writer\u201d \u2013 Pete Townshend on new Who album<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The idea of pairing The Who\u2019s music with an orchestra dates back to 1994 when Daltrey performed with local symphonies on his Daltrey Sings Townshend<\/em> tour. \u201cRock bands being very loud and orchestras being quiet, there were very big technical problems to overcome taking a show like that on the road,\u201d he says. \u201cWe achieved it in the end, but it was hard.\u201d Things went far better last summer on Daltrey\u2019s tour, which was overseen by arranger Keith Levenson, who is also heavily involved in The Who\u2019s upcoming tour. \u201cEverything is a whirlwind at the moment since we just decided to tour at the end of last year,\u201d says Daltrey. \u201cThe most important thing that people realize about this tour is that the energy and the venom the Who play with will not be compromised at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

And even though the routing is still being worked out, both Daltrey and Townshend say they will not be making a return appearance to Woodstock for the 50th anniversary event at Watkins Glen in August. \u201cWhat would be the point?\u201d Says Daltrey. \u201cI can\u2019t work outside in the heat anymore like that in August. It\u2019ll kill me. I got really big problems with heat now due to my meningitis. But I think they should do it with young bands. I don\u2019t see why they should have us there.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they couldn\u2019t afford us anyway!\u201d he adds, laughing.<\/p>\n

The tour isn\u2019t billed as a \u201cfarewell,\u201d but Daltrey says it may indeed wind up becoming just that. \u201cI think it is always a mistake to ever say \u2018farewell,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cBut this will possibly be my last tour. I\u2019m just being realistic about going through the 75th year of my life. I have to be realistic that this is the age I am and voices start to go after a while. I don\u2019t want to be not as good as I was two years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

The big problem is figuring out what songs they\u2019re going to play. Both Townshend and Daltrey agree that a decent portion of the night will be devoted to material from Tommy<\/em> and Quadrophenia<\/em>, though Daltrey wants to fill out the rest of the set with their greatest hits and Townshend is hoping they could break out a handful of obscurities like \u2018Time is Passing\u2019 and \u2018Too Much of Anything\u2019 that he feels would work well with symphonies. But Daltrey traditionally makes the setlist himself and is unsure about challenging the audience like that. \u201cYou can\u2019t please everybody,\u201d he says. \u201cSome hardcore fans might bitch and moan, but 99.99 percent of the audience wants to hear the hits. I don\u2019t want people scratching their balls and going, \u2018I want to hear \u2018Baba O\u2019Riley.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt is always a mistake to ever say \u2018farewell,\u2019 but this will possibly be my last tour\u201d \u2013 Roger Daltrey<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The two longtime bandmates also hit a bit of a snag over the new material, which Townshend describes as a mixture of \u201cdark ballads, heavy rock stuff, experimental electronica, sampled stuff and cliched Who-ish tunes that began with a guitar that goes yanga-dang.\u201d When he finished them late last year, he sent them off to everyone in his orbit and received an amazing response from everyone besides the man tasked with singing them. \u201cJust silence from Roger,\u201d says Townshend. \u201cI had to bully him to respond and then it wasn\u2019t the response I wanted. He just blathered for a while and in the end I really stamped my foot and said, \u2018Roger, I don\u2019t care if you really like this stuff. You have to sing it. You\u2019ll like it in 10 years time.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Daltrey doesn\u2019t deny taking a while to give his feedback about the new songs, but he explains that the book tour behind his new memoir Thanks a lot Mr Kibblewhite: My Story<\/em> occupied all his time during that period. He also perforated an eardrum in December that caused him enormous pain and made listening to music of any sort very difficult. \u201cThey\u2019re all great songs,\u201d he says. \u201c But sometimes I hear them and I think, \u2018I can\u2019t add anything to this to make my job as singer worthy of doing anything better than what Pete has already done.\u2019 There\u2019s at least five or six I can lay into and I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll come out incredible. Now that I\u2019m healed up, I\u2019m going to spend time getting into them. Okay, so I didn\u2019t get back to him quickly at first. It doesn\u2019t mean anything! I was deaf for about three weeks. It wasn\u2019t even possible for me to bloody hear what was in them!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIs the chemistry between us still there? I hope there is\u201d \u2013 Roger Daltrey on Pete Townshend<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cOne of the great difficulties here isn\u2019t that Roger and I don\u2019t get on,\u201d says Townshend. \u201cIt\u2019s that we don\u2019t communicate. Over the years we haven\u2019t really developed a dialogue. I don\u2019t think that the fault is on my side. He feels a bit intimidated, perhaps, because I overcomplicate things, but we think very, very differently. We do talk on the phone. That\u2019s the most significant way we communicate, though we don\u2019t decide much on the phone. He doesn\u2019t text and he\u2019s just now starting to use e-mail, but he isn\u2019t very good at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Daltrey lets out a deep sigh when this topic comes up. \u201cNo, we don\u2019t communicate well,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I\u2019ve gotten quite insular, I suppose. I don\u2019t know why that is, but I accept it. Is the chemistry between us still there? I hope there is. It\u2019s been a year since we worked. We\u2019ll see soon enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

The one thing they do agree on is that their label\u2019s request that they capitalize on their status as the ultimate \u201cdad rock\u201d band by finishing the album in time for Father\u2019s Day in June is simply asinine. And with tour rehearsals beginning in just two months, it would be nearly impossible. \u201cIf they can\u2019t get it by Father\u2019s Day, they don\u2019t care when they\u2019re getting it,\u201d says Townshend with a laugh. \u201cAnd so it might wind up being September or October.\u201d Daltrey sees less humor in all this. \u201cIf it takes us until next fuckin\u2019 Father\u2019s Day, so be it,\u201d he says. \u201cI loathe that part of the business. I just hate it. That\u2019s why they\u2019re working in an office and we\u2019re on the stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Pete Townshend\u2019s management team came to him with a lucrative offer from Live Nation to spend much of 2019 on the road with the Who, he said he\u2019d only agree to it under a single condition. \u201cI said I was not going to sign any contracts unless we have new material,\u201d says Townshend. \u201cThis […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-480750","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-12 11:52:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KQZR - The Reel","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=480750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/480750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=480750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=480750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=480750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}