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Pete Townshend is back on the road, touring on a 17-date North American run with original bandmate Roger Daltrey. For the 80-year-old, though, life on the road at this stage in his life can be a lonely one. Touring is a blessing, he says, but after decades on the road, both he and Daltrey are considering what the future holds for The Who.

“It can be lonely,” Townshend said. “I’ve thought, ‘Well, this is my job, I’m happy to have the work, but I prefer to be doing something else.’ And then I think, ‘Well, I’m 80 years old. Why shouldn’t I revel in it? Why shouldn’t I celebrate? “

For Townshend, there’s a balance between appreciation for what the band still accomplishes and the weariness of a touring musician who has been performing for decades. The Who is still, of course, bigger than just two people, even 60 years after its formation. “It’s a brand rather than a band,” he said. “Roger and I have a duty to the music, a duty to the history. The Who still sells records — the Moon and Entwistle families are millionaires. But there’s something more, really: The art, the creative work, is when we perform it. We’re celebrating. We’re a Who tribute band.”

Townshend, of course, is referencing the late Who drummer Keith Moon and former bassist John Entwistle, two of the three original members of the band (drummer Zak Starkey and bassist Pino Palladino have taken their places). He’s also facing the fact that the work on the stage with Daltrey raises deeper questions about where his and Roger’s priorities should be. “It does whet an appetite to think about how we should bow out in our personal lives: what we do with our families and our friends and everything else at this age,” Townshend continued. “We’re lucky to be alive. I’m looking forward to playing. Roger likes to throw wild cards out sometimes in the set, and we have learned and rehearsed a few songs that we don’t always play.”

While Townshend has been performing for over 50 years, the thrill of live music never truly goes away. In his case, he’s finding new energy in the performance by having to learn and rehearse songs that the band never played in the past.

Roger Daltrey on Touring and Health Update

For Townshend’s co-frontman, the journey of touring and performing has been as rewarding as it is exhausting. Earlier this year, while performing with Townshend at the Teenage Cancer Trust charity event in London, Daltrey gave a health update to his fans. “Luckily, I still have my voice, because then I’ll have a full Tommy,” Daltrey said, referring to the title character of The Who’s groundbreaking 1969 rock opera Tommy. He then, of course, sang the line from the famous album: “Deaf, dumb, and blind kid.”

In a wider interview with The Times earlier this month, Daltrey opened up on what comes next for The Who. For longtime fans who’ve been with the band from its earliest days, the words had a sense of finality to them. “This is certainly the last time you will see us on tour,” Daltrey said. “It’s grueling.”

Daltrey has sung Who songs every night on the stage for many, many years, and, in the band’s heyday, some of the most intense nights for the band were six performances in a row. “In the days when I was singing Who songs for three hours a night, six nights a week, I was working harder than most footballers,” he recalled. Now, he’s 80 years old, and that sort of touring is just more and more taxing.

One-off shows in the future are not out of the question, but, as with so much of what comes after a nearly 60-year career, Daltrey isn’t certain. “As to whether we’ll play [one-off] concerts again, I don’t know. The Who to me is very perplexing,” Daltrey said.

While the plans for what the future holds remain murky, one thing is clear for Daltrey. “My voice is still as good as ever,” he said.

For fans in North America and beyond, the upcoming 17-date run may be the last time to see Townshend and Daltrey perform with The Who. For the band, though, it’s a farewell and a celebration. It’s the recognition that The Who was not just rock music but was a history that began 60 years ago and a life that has ended for many of the friends and family that these two men had along the way. Touring still reminds Townshend that they’re lucky to be alive.