Pete Townshend Jokes The Who Is ‘Swindling the Public’ with Farewell Tours

Pete Townshend knows The Who have been saying goodbye for a long time

In an interview with The New York Times published on Tuesday, Aug. 26, the legendary guitarist joked about the many years the band — who had their first farewell tour in 1982 — has been in the business of continuing those runs.

When the reporter asked Townshend, 80, why people should believe that their most recent farewell tour The Song Is Over is actually “final” one, he quipped: “Are you suggesting we’re swindling the public? The fact is, we are willing to swindle them. That’s what we’ve done our entire life. Why stop?”

Townshend then reflected on how the 1982 farewell tour was “a mistake.”

“I was in terrible shape, with family troubles, and I needed a sabbatical,” he recalled. “I wrote to the music newspapers and said, ‘I’m stopping work with The Who.’ We already had a tour booked, and when it started, I realized it was being billed as the final tour.”

Townshend said he should have “objected,” but ultimately chose not to.

“The album I’d just written for the Who, It’s Hard, is one of our weakest. I didn’t feel I was able to write great songs for the Who. I didn’t know who we were anymore,” he said.

In May, The Who announced their The Song Is Over North American tour, named after the band’s 1971 classic.

A press release said that the tour would be “the final face-to-face celebration of this timeless connection with North American Who fans, forever appreciative of the band’s ability to dispense with nostalgia and deliver authentic rock moments time and time again.”

At the time, Townshend expressed his bittersweet feelings about the end of the band’s time touring across the pond.

“Well, all good things must come to an end,” he said. “It is a poignant time. For me, playing to American audiences and those in Canada has always been incredible. The warmth and engagement of those audiences began back in 1967 with hippies smoking dope, sitting on their blankets and listening deeply and intensely. Music was everywhere. We all felt equal.”

Townshend added: “Today, Roger [Daltrey] and I still carry the banner for the late Keith Moon and John Entwistle and of course, all of our longtime Who fans.”

The tour launched on Aug. 16 in Sunrise, Fla. at the Amerant Bank Arena and will wrap on Sept. 28 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.