The Who perform Pete Townshend solo track for the first time in over 30 years

Virgin Radio

29 Mar 2022, 09:11

Legendary rockers The Who treated fans to a historic performance during their Teenage Cancer Trust show last week. 

On Friday (25th March), Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend took to the stage at the Royal Albert Hall for the good cause, which Roger helped to launch back in 2000. 

As reported by Stereogum, The Who performed an acoustic set with a wide range of tunes from their iconic back catalogue, and also played a solo track from Townshend's 1980 album, Empty Glass.

Pete introduced his track, Let My Love Open The Door, and said: “Well, this next song is definitely not a Who hit. It’s a Pete hit.”

Watch the fan video here:

The song hasn’t been performed since 1989, so fans were no doubt thrilled to hear the guitarist belt out the tune once more. 

The Who also debuted their 2019 track Beads On One String, from their album WHO. They recently released the video for the Yaggerdang Remix of the track in support of Ukraine. 

Townshend told the Royal Albert Hall crowd: “It’s meant to be a song about how all of us with different religions could come together if you believe in something, and stand for one thing.

“But this latest thing [the war in Ukraine] seems to have nothing to do with anybody’s god. I don’t know what it’s about.”

While it seems The Who are still as energetic as always on stage, Pete recently shared that he has different ideas to vocalist Roger when it comes to retiring.

The iconic guitarist has expressed his desire to retire from playing live, but has said that Roger has very different thoughts on the matter.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Townshend explained: “I had a conversation with Roger. I said to him, ‘I don’t want to be like one of these guys that dies on tour.’ I do want to retire. And by ‘retire’ I don’t mean retire from being a musician or artist or creator, but retire from the idea that it requires me to say yes to touring for a load of people to get a smile on their face and go home to their wife and go, ‘Hey, honey! Everything is fine! The Who are going back on tour!’”

He continued: “Roger is of the opinion that he wants to sing until he drops. That’s not my philosophy of life. There are other things that I want to do, still want to do, and will do, I hope. I hope I’ll live long enough to do them.”