Roger Daltrey told fans he’s “going blind” at The Who’s Teenage Cancer Trust at the Royal Albert Hall concert on Thursday night (27th March), Planet Rock reports.
At one point during the anthem-packed 22-song set, 81-year-old rock legend Roger Daltrey adjusted his in-ear monitors and said to the London Royal Albert Hall crowd: “The problem with this job is that you go deaf, and now I’ve been told I am going blind.”
Referencing the deaf and blind fictional character, Tommy Walker, from The Who’s 1969 album ‘Tommy’, Daltrey added: “Thank God I've still got my voice. If I lose that I'll go full Tommy."
Roger Daltrey revealed back in 2018 that he’s “very deaf” due to decades of exposure to loud music, and he relies on in-ear monitors and lip-reading at live shows.
“The trouble with these ear things that I wear is that I am very, very deaf. And I advise you all – all you rock-and-roll fans – take your f---ing ear plugs to the gigs,” Daltrey told fans in Las Vegas at the time.
“If only we had known when we were young... we are lip-reading. I am (still) lucky to be doing what I do - so thank you.”
Pete Townshend recalled the moment that Roger Daltrey transcended being the R&B bruiser-meets-pop tenor for The Who, finding both his true voice and opening the door for Townshend's best work.
Townshend spoke to Rolling Stone and shed light on the tremendous growth Daltrey experienced when embodying the material Townshend had written for the band's 1969 rock opera, Tommy: "It was only really when we got to Tommy that Roger decided to dig deep and find some other way of performing and singing.
I think I had sung 'See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Heal Me' on the recordings, and one day, (our manager/producer) Kit (Lambert) took me aside and he said, 'Do you mind if I ask Roger if he can sing that?' And I said, 'No, of course not. It feels very strange and he's playing the role of 'Tommy,' but I'm kind of singing the inner child here, and I'd just prefer to be the narrator at the beginning; it's clearer.'
And I went in to IBC studios and Roger had found this new voice. And it wasn't exactly a choirboy, but it was a new voice and I think from then on, Roger realized that he had a full range of sensibilities that he could tap into as a singer."
s, Roger was trying to go for a voice somewhere between Wilson Pickett and Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, a real growl. And he did it brilliantly.”
Roger, is a fantastic singer of my material. The greatest interpreter that a writer could ever, ever want. Y'know he's a fantastic performer, singer, and brings stuff to my work that I can't bring to it myself. Certainly I've never heard any other singer bring it to it.”
