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After the release of his new album THE ELEMENT OF CRIME, Pete Townshend has resumed touring, this time with Roger Daltrey. The two have begun a 17-show tour of North America. It is not lost on Townshend, at 80, that touring as a career can be a lonely life, even while he is grateful for the opportunity to perform.

“It can be lonely,” Townshend told Rolling Stone in an interview. “I’ve thought, ‘Well, this is my job, I’m happy to have the work, but I prefer to be doing something else.’ Then, I think, ‘Well, I’m 80 years old. Why shouldn’t I revel in it? Why shouldn’t I celebrate?”

Townshend, while grateful to be alive to perform, can understand both the wonder and weariness at what touring has become. He is also able to reflect that The Who, after many years, is more than just a band. “I love it, but it’s a brand rather than a band,” Townshend said. “Roger and I are held to account by the music and the history. The Who [still] sells records — the Moon and Entwistle families have become millionaires. There’s also something more, really: the art, the creative work, is when we perform it. We’re celebrating. We’re a Who tribute band.”

Townshend, of course, is referring to the Who’s late drumme,r Keith Moon, and bassist, John Entwistle. He also reflects that the work on stage also causes him to wonder about other questions about his life and what he should be doing. “It does whet an appetite to think about how we should bow out in our personal lives — what we do with our families and our friends and everything else at this age,” he added. “We’re lucky to be alive. I’m looking forward to playing. Roger likes to throw wild cards out sometimes in the set, and we have learned and rehearsed a few songs that we don’t always play.”

For Pete Townshend, that means playing in front of a crowd, even after all these years, and it does not always seem routine. “I’ve been on the road now for 50 years, and you’d think that by now it would be a drag,” he told Rolling Stone. “But it’s not. We play a few songs that we don’t do so much, and the rest of the set is made up of some pretty random stuff. Every night it’s like, ‘Wow, we could be in trouble,’ or ‘Wow, I’ve got nothing to worry about. So it’s a whole new ball game every time we go onstage.”

Roger Daltrey on Health, Touring, and What’s Next?

Roger Daltrey also has thoughts on the past, present, and future. Earlier this year, while playing with Townshend at the Teenage Cancer Trust benefit show in London, he gave a simple health update to fans in the audience. “Fortunately, I still have my voice, because then I’ll have a full Tommy,” Daltrey told the crowd. Tommy is the title character from The Who’s classic 1969 rock opera. He then quipped and quoted from the familiar line: “Deaf, dumb, and blind kid.”

He told The Times earlier this month a little more about the future for The Who, even if the words seem like it is time to bid the group goodbye. “This is certainly the last time you will see us on tour,” he said. “It’s grueling.”

Daltrey spoke of the toll it takes on the body to perform The Who’s songs show after show. While it is hard to replicate that time when the band was touring heavily and was at the top of its game, it is also something that is not possible to do when you are 80. “In the days when I was singing Who songs for three hours a night, six nights a week, I was working harder than most footballers,” Daltrey added. That high level of energy and time on stage is simply not sustainable after all these years.

Daltrey was asked about the potential for one-off shows in the future. “As to whether we’ll play [one-off] concerts again, I don’t know. The Who to me is very perplexing,” Daltrey admitted. The last part of his sentence could stand for the band’s entire legacy: confusing, at times maddening, as a representation of an era, a rock institution, or even a simple coming of age.

Daltrey did sound hopeful that his voice was still strong and would last, even if he cannot physically sing the same way as he did in the past. “My voice is still as good as ever,” Daltrey said.

For those who can make it to a city on the tour schedule, this 17-date run with Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey may be the last chance to see the band perform live. But for the musicians themselves, the journey is both an end but also a celebration. The Who, at this point, is a distillation of what makes the music that they play worth keeping alive, not only in terms of continuing to play but also in the remembrances of the families, the friendships, and just being grateful for having made it this far. It is for them a symbol of survival, art, and a long life. “We’re lucky to be alive,” Townshend said.