Roger Daltrey is gearing up for his "Who Was I?" solo tour, which runs next month in the UK. The Who frontman explained to The Brighton & Hove Independent that he needs to keep his vocal cords limber if he wants to keep them working: "I have got to sing. As simple as that. I have done a few shows during the breaks between the lockdowns for the Teenage Cancer Trust, and I have done a few car festivals. I haven’t done nothing, but I need to be singing more the age I am. The vocal cords are muscles. You have got to use them. The Who had been booked to go out next spring, but that hiatus was going to be too much."
Daltrey has been particularly heartbroken for rock's backline — the lighting, sound and road crews — that have been sidelined by the pandemic as everyone's road dates dried up: "It’s time (to get back out there). Totally time. I am concerned about the industry. It’s important to get our road crew working again. Without these guys the halls would go silent. It’s also clear that live music is an important part of all our lives, something to free us from the groundhog days that life has become. This pandemic has brought home to me what an important part of me singing is and it’s made me determined to get back onstage ASAP."
Daltrey gave a timeline as to what fans can expect from the Who — and even when he thinks he and Pete Townshend might call it a day: "(There will be) the Teenage Cancer Trust concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in March (2022). And then the Who will be out in America in the spring next year. We will go to do the full tour that we got canceled. And we may do some festivals. And then we will go back out in October and then we will our swansong in the UK in 2023 maybe."
In an interview posted a while back on TheWho.com, Roger Daltrey spoke frankly about the physical toll live work takes on him: ["The energy. You're asking someone, basically, to play a football match five nights a week. And we're not spring chickens anymore. I mean, I know we don't leap about quite as much as we used to, but most of the energy is in the singing (and) getting the voice out to do what it does emotionally. Pushing all those emotional buttons every night, it's physically exhausting."] SOUNDCUE (:19 OC: . . . it's physically exhausting)
Roger Daltrey kicks off his "Who Was I?" solo tour on November 7th at Birmingham, England's Symphony Hall.
Roger Daltrey On His Stage Energy :
