The Who’s 50th Anniversary Dates to be Their Final Tour

It’s a sad, sad day for fans of the Who.

Speaking to the Evening Standard at a screening for band documentary Sensation, Who guitarist and one-half of the band’s surviving members, Pete Townshend said:

“For the 50th anniversary we’ll tour the world. It’ll be the last big one for us. There are still plenty of places we’ve not played. It would be good to go to eastern Europe and places that haven’t heard us play all the old hits,”

The tragic news follows speculation this summer that The Who may follow in the footsteps of the Rolling Stones’ reunion gig. Earlier this year, singer Roger Daltrey (and other half of the Who survivors club) suggested that the band may honor their own 50th anniversary with some shows. He told the NME:

“The end of this year is our 50th anniversary, just like the Stones. They’re on the road again – we could have never out-Stoned the Stones. Are we going to do one more ‘something’ or do we just retire, gracefully? Or disgracefully. I don’t know. Or do you just say, ‘Thank you very much,’ to a great night? I think that’s tragic in music – I don’t think you should ever say, ‘This is the last time’. Music isn’t like that.”

The band’s 50th anniversary is due for 2015, so fans may only have a couple of years at most to catch them live. The rockers’ first album My Generation was released in 1965, and since then, The Who have sold more than 100 million records and kept touring despite the death of founding members Keith Moon and John Entwistle.