Is The Who’s Tour Doomed?

Pete Townshend left the stage before the show was over on The Who's opening date of their Quadrophenia Tour. The Who have a date scheduled for at the Target Center. Will they make it?

Pete Townshend left the stage in Sunrise, Florida during You Better You Bet and did not come back for Baba O'Reiley, but it wasn't due to personality conflicts with Roger Daltrey. It was due to the fact that the music was way too loud.

As you may remember, Pete almost called it quits due to partial deafness and severe tinnitus brought about by continuous exposure to loud music; likely thanks in part to The Who's 1976 concert in London which was dubbed the "Loudest Concert Ever" - and is stated as such in the Guinness Book of World Records as well as Keith Moon blowing up his drum kit on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in 1967. Pete said several years ago that if his hearing problems weren't fixed, he'd be forced to hang it up. After a scare with some feedback in 2008, Pete says he's taking really good care of his hearing now and thankfully, in July of last year Pete stated on his blog that his hearing was, "better than ever". He said "I'm 66. I don't have perfect hearing, and if I listen to loud music or go to gigs, I do tend to get tinnitus." Pete said that he has special computers in his studio that help him out on the mixing and producing when he's recording and that he worked with audiologists and special engineers on the remaster of Quadrophenia so they could clean up the high frequencies that were out of his range.

The audio problems and technical difficulties were fixed for their show in Orlando over the weekend and should hopefully stay fixed for their date in Minneapolis on November 27. The concert should consist of Quadrophenia in its entirety plus seven more songs. Tickets are still on sale.

See you there.