Roger Daltrey Sings 'Won't Get Fooled Again' to Congress; Makes Boehner Cry; Says The Who Will Do More Experimental Music After Their Final Tour (Video)
Roger Daltrey Sings 'Won't Get Fooled Again' to Congress; Makes Boehner Cry; Says The Who Will Do More Experimental Music After Their Final Tour (Video)
Roger Daltrey of The Who sang for the U.S. Congress as Winston Churchill was honored with a bust.
The Who's Roger Daltrey performed for Congress at the Statuary Hall on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, he was backed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
"Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss." This is what it takes for bipartisan agreement in Washington.
Roger Daltrey was on hand when Congress gathered Wednesday to dedicate a bust of Winston Churchill bust. The bust will stand in the Capitol as a testament to the strength of the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom.
Roger Daltrey sang the Ben E. King standard, "Stand by Me," and the Who classic "Won't Get Fooled Again."
After the performance and dedication John Boehner said Churchill was "the best friend the United States ever had. He saw in America the very exceptionalism we see today."
Roger Daltrey recently responded to Pete Townshend's announcement that the next The Who tour will be the final one. Daltrey said that The Who "Might do other things, more experimental" after the final tour. Pete Townshend told reporters at the London screening of the new documentary "Sensation -- The Story of the Who's Tommy," that The Who's 50th anniversary world tourh will be "the last big one for us."
Daltrey said "We have to be realistic about our age. But it's not going to be the last thing The Who will do"
Roger Daltrey told Billboard Magazine, "I think you have to clarify what he said, and what we man is we cannot keep going on doing these month-after-month, long, extended tours. It's extremely hard, hard work, just the grind of it. So we have to be realistic. The band got better reviews on our last tour (the 2012-13 Quadrophenia & More trek) than we had for years. It was incredibly enjoyable. It was incredibly exhausting, and we have to be realistic about our age. But it's not going to be the last thing The Who will do. We're going to be doing events. We're going to be doing shows. We might do other things, more experimental. We might decide to do something in a theater, some small production where we sit down for two or three weeks in one town; that could be managed 'cause we're not schlepping our bodies from city to city. The joy of the stage is wonderful, but the traveling every day is exhausting."
Roger Daltrey promised that The Who will continue to play for good causes "We've always been there for charity shows. The Who has always been there from the very beginning when people were in trouble and need a band for a charity show. We've always been there, and that's not going to change."
Daltrey says he and Pete Townshend take the 50th anniversary seriously, especially since so many of their peers didn't make it. "Any band who survives in this business that long, it's extraordinary," he says. "With the crap in this (business) and that we had to deal with, it's remarkable that we survived at all. We've lost two of us (Keith Moon and John Entswistle) and the (Rolling) Stones lost one (Brian Jones). It's remarkable that any of us survived."
On Nov. 11, The Who will put out a Super Deluxe edition of its landmark 1969 rock opera "Tommy" along with extra discs of Townshend's demos an entire live show put together from different performances.
Pete Townshend is working on "Floss," his next conceptual album. Daltey may put out his first solo album since 1992. He is next set to perform as part of the Moody Blue Cruise in April.
Daltrey is very involved with helping cancer organizations. The Who recently gave Teen Cancer America $1.6 million from a benefit concert in New York City. Daltrey said "We're talking at the moment to 25 different hospitals. We've got to raise a lot of money, of course; all I can do is light the fire, which I think I've done, and it's up to the American people and the families and the doctors to start pressuring your system to come up with this. This is not the expensive side of medicine; this is the cheap side...If we can do it in Britain, I'm sure the Americans can certainly do it. What I particularly like about it is in so many years I've done so many charities and this and that, and you very rarely see big, tangible results. With this one the money goes in and something comes out; you can see a hospital ward that's paid for and done and the nurses being paid for. It's the way to do it, I think."
