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British guitarist Pete Townshend is back on the road this month. The Who co-founder is currently on a 17-date North American tour with fellow band member Roger Daltrey, and it’s one he’s having mixed feelings about. Touring and life on the road as you approach 80, Townshend said, can be a lonely life. Of course, the 80-year-old is grateful to still be performing in this capacity, but he and Daltrey have also been discussing what the future might hold.

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

Townshend’s interview echoed a theme many fans know well by now: balancing deep gratitude for getting to do what he loves while at the same time feeling a bit of weariness from decades on the road. The Who has a way of overtaking the actual people who make up the band. “It’s a brand rather than a band,” he said in the interview. “Roger and I have a duty to the music and the history. The Who [still] sells records. The Moon and Entwistle families have become millionaires. There’s also something more, really: the art, the creative work, is when we perform it. We’re celebrating. We’re a Who tribute band.”

Townshend was referencing both late drummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwistle, two foundational members of the band. On the other hand, the guitarist also touched on how being on stage also asks more philosophical questions of both himself and his bandmate. “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,” he 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.”

It’s the 50th anniversary of Live at Leeds, The Who’s landmark 1970 concert album. That’s no small achievement, and for Townshend in particular, part of that excitement of live performance has been getting to experiment with setlists and do some rare takes in rehearsals. Even for an established act, touring can still be fresh.

Roger Daltrey on His Health and Where to Go From Here

Touring has been, in some respects, both a blessing and a curse for Daltrey, too. Earlier this year, while on stage with Townshend at the Teenage Cancer Trust benefit concert in London, the singer opened up to fans about his health. “Fortunately, I still have my voice, because then I’ll have a full Tommy,” Daltrey said, gesturing to the title character of The Who’s genre-defining 1969 rock opera. In a lyrical reference, he added: “Deaf, dumb, and blind kid.”

Daltrey expanded on the matter in a recent interview with The Times, dropping a potential bombshell for fans: This could very well be it for The Who. “This is certainly the last time you will see us on tour,” he said in the month-old interview. “It’s grueling.”

Daltrey went on to explain that the wear and tear of performing The Who’s extensive catalog night after night, while feasible during the group’s most active period, has become more challenging to sustain at 80. “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 reflected. “I don’t know if we can do that anymore.”

It remains to be seen whether Daltrey and Townshend will commit to future, one-off concerts. “As to whether we’ll play [one-off] concerts again, I don’t know. The Who to me is very perplexing,” he said. It’s a heady way to put it, but then, The Who always has been something more than a band.

On the bright side, however, Daltrey was confident that his voice could still power him through the songs. “My voice is still as good as ever,” he said. That’s certainly good news for audiences across North America in the coming weeks.

Fans of The Who in the U.S. and Canada have one final shot this month to see the group perform live before Daltrey and Townshend officially hang up the microphones (for now). For the band, it’s not just a chance to put on one last show but also to reflect: to contemplate the shared history, the lasting legacy, and what it means to grow old while simultaneously carrying the weight of an entire rock generation on their shoulders.

The Who is as much about family, friends, and everything in between as it is about the songs they continue to sing. For Townshend and Daltrey, that’s an ongoing reminder of survival, of a shared creativity, and of a long, extraordinary journey that has brought them to this point. “We’re lucky to be alive,” Townshend said.