Roger Daltrey Says He’s Deaf and Blind — But Does He Sure Play a Mean Pinball?

New in PJ Media:

Yes, they really did. On Thursday, what’s left of The Who, Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend, appeared at London’s Royal Albert Hall. During a nearly two-hour-long concert, the pair and the much younger backing band dragged out the band’s most notable old chestnut, “My Generation,” so that the 81-year-old Roger could belt out this anthem of teenage defiance for the 896th time since July 15, 1965. And yes, the old belter said it again: “Hope I die before I get old.” Really, it’s far too late for that, Rog, but in the course of the show, Daltrey also revealed the unfortunate news that he is going deaf and blind.

Deaf and blind? It looks as if life is imitating art. Daltrey is starting to resemble Tommy, the title character in The Who’s famed “rock opera” from 1969, who was not only deaf and blind, but dumb as well (that means he couldn’t speak, kids, not that he was stupid). Daltrey himself made reference to this on stage Thursday, saying: “The joys of getting old mean you go deaf. I also now have got the joy of going blind. Fortunately, I still have my voice, because then I’ll have a full Tommy.” He didn’t say anything about sure playing a mean pinball, as Tommy did, but the old guy probably has a few arcade tricks up his sleeve.

Daltrey, who only occasionally sounded like an 81-year-old man on Thursday as he ran through The Who’s venerable classics, may regard his incipient deafness and blindness with a certain amount of relief: he may soon be able to tune out the leftist ravings of his longtime partner Townshend entirely. Back in 2016, Daltrey and Townshend had a bitter falling-out over Brexit, the endeavor to free Britain from the European Union. Daltrey supported the idea of economic independence for Britain, and Townshend favored the Sceptered Isle’s continuing serfdom to the globalist European socialist conglomerate.

Daltrey explained in 2018: “I’m not anti-Europe, I’m anti-Brussels, but people don’t get the distinction… That’s why I’m so angry about it. I want someone at least answerable to me that I can say: “F**k off, you’re useless!”

That makes perfect sense, of course, but Townshend is a doctrinaire leftist and is thus furiously intolerant of dissent. In Nov. 2024, he complained that Daltrey’s pro-Brexit stance was “very problematic for me. I think he was wrong. But we are a nation divided down the middle.” Townshend did, however, add generously: “He’s not a fascist Right-winger, he’s a very decent man.”

Oh, good grief. The narcissistic myopia of these people! The left constantly acts as if its positions were the serene and unquestionable truth, default mode for the world, and that any deviation from their line means that you’re evil or stupid or both — or an anomalously decent guy, like Daltrey.

There is more. Read the rest here.