The Who get real about octogenarian rock star life

(CNN) — Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend of The Who have been performing together for more than 60 years and admit they feel it.

Daltrey, 81, reportedly talked about the impact of his years on the road during a performance late last week for the Teenage Cancer Trust at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

“The joys of getting old mean you go deaf. I also now have got the joy of going blind,” Sky News reported him saying on stage. “Fortunately I still have my voice, because then I’ll have a full Tommy.”

“Full Tommy” refers to The Who’s 1969 rock opera about the fictional character Tommy Walker who dissociates and becomes “deaf, dumb and blind” to the outside world.

Townshend, 79, told the crowd that he recently underwent knee-replacement surgery and joked, “maybe I should auction off the old one.”

Daltrey and Townshend hinted two years ago that their long-running band might be retiring.

“I suppose Roger and l, at some point, will look ahead and try to work out whether or not we want to do an Elton John and end it in some way,” Townshend told The Sun, referencing Sir Elton John’s farewell tour. “It’s difficult to make a decision going forward, to say we’re going to do this or that, because we don’t know how well we’ re going to be or how fit we’re going to be.”

He added that he and Daltrey were “both old.”

“That in itself has a downside because, apart from what you can or can’t do on the stage, when you finish touring you come back to normal life – whatever it is that you decide to do to fill your time away from the road – and it’s harder and takes longer,” Townshend said.

CNN has reached out to representatives for The Who for comment.

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