Roger Daltrey shares sad health update from stage: 'Joys of getting old'

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Roger Daltrey has revealed his health is on the decline during a rare moment of candor during a concert at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

During a show in support of the Teenage Cancer Trust, Daltrey, 81, said he’s losing his ability to see and hear.

“The joys of getting old mean you go deaf, I also now have got the joy of going blind,” The U.K. Sun reported The Who frontman said. “Fortunately I still have my voice, because then I’ll have a full Tommy.” 

The “full Tommy” quip was an allusion to The Who’s 1969 rock opera concept album, which centred on Tommy Walker, the pinball-playing son of a British army soldier who becomes deaf, dumb and blind.

Daltrey’s bandmate Pete Townshend, 79, also revealed his battles with age, telling the crowd he recently had one of his knees replaced. 

He then joked, “maybe I should auction off the old one.”

“Elton John had one done, and he wears his as a bracelet. Unfortunately, mine’s in three bits,” Townshend said.

In an interview with Postmedia last summer, Townshend hinted that the band may be close to retiring for good.

“Both Roger and I look forward to touring again with each other. We need to talk about that,” he said.

“I don’t think we’ll make another album and the reason is simple: I don’t think Roger Daltrey wants to make another album. I would love to make another album, so if I want to do that it will have to be a solo album,” Townshend added. “On the other hand, I think both Roger and I look forward to the very difficult subject of being able to tour with each other and work in some way that feels new and different and exciting … We need something new and we need to talk about that. We’re hoping that we can find something so we can perform again before one of us passes away.”

But after a much-heralded goodbye in 1982 was erased by a comeback in 1989, Townshend said the pair likely won’t bill their next outing as their farewell.

“I don’t think we’ll ever say, ‘This is our final tour!’ … I don’t think we can do it again.”

Nearly a decade ago, Daltrey told Postmedia that he hoped he’d have “the wisdom to stop” touring when age caught up with him.

“In our heads we want to go on as long as we can,” said Daltrey. “And our bodies, you kind of physically know you’re coming to the end of that type of show. That’s not to say you can’t play your music in different ways. But equally, our music, having got that energy and that kind of urgency that is within it, I’m not so sure whether I want to be involved with singing in that way. I don’t think it’s the kind of music you could ever cruise through.”

During The Who’s 50th anniversary trek, Daltrey also said that the band’s most recent run of shows left him wishing the group had played more during their younger days.

“We kind of feel we wish we’d done more when we were younger, when the original band was together, ‘cause there were years there where we didn’t tour,” he said. “I was going out doing silly little solo things of my own just to keep singing. So there is a bit of, kind of wishful thinking that we’d done things a bit differently.”

mdaniell@postmedia.com