A marriage between two people is difficult enough, but a band, where four or five people are in a relationship, can be a minefield of ego, miscommunication, resentment, and control issues—especially when the artistic, financial, and personal stakes are so high. Though time supposedly heals all wounds, in the case of the Who, that didn’t seem to be the case when singer Roger Daltrey, unable to get a Who reunion going, tried another approach—and paid the price for it.

      In a rehearsal studio a week before his sold-out Daltrey Sings Townshend concerts at Carnegie Hall, Daltrey had put together a sixty-five-piece orchestra from Juilliard and a hundred-person crew to help him pay tribute to the songs he’d sung by Who guitarist and songwriter Pete Townshend. But his tributee didn’t appear to be as honored and grateful as he’d hoped. Shaking his curly blond hair in disbelief, Daltrey complained about Townshend to orchestra conductor Michael Kamen.

      ROGER DALTREY: Has Pete decided what he’s doing yet? I think he may be a very big down point in the show.

      MICHAEL KAMEN: He’s giving me another song called “The Shout.” Do you know that song?

      DALTREY: What do you mean he’s decided to perform “The Shout”? I don’t even know that song. I just think that to do something that obscure at that point in the show is suicide.

      KAMEN: I tried very hard to get him to do something else.

      DALTREY: I should show you the letter he wrote: “I’ll do anything you want.” He doesn’t even want to play with the orchestra now. He changes his mind every day.

      KAMEN: It’ll be all right on the night of the show.

      DALTREY: Yeah, I know, but you just don’t do that to friends, do you? He’s mad, isn’t he? The man’s obscene. I’m really up to here in it. (Flushed, Daltrey walks with his manager to a dressing room, where there’s a couch with a large white sheet over it, and says to him:) Was she that bad you had to put a sheet over her?

       He sits on the sheet.

       So what made you decide to do this tribute?

      DALTREY: Quite simply, I wanted to do it for my fiftieth birthday. I know this is going to sound clichéd, but it is the truth: I was the guy who sang, “I hope I die before I get old.” And I’ve survived, much to my surprise—with a lot of luck, too, I should add. I wanted to celebrate my fiftieth birthday in a grand way with music, because without rock and roll in particular, I would have been a factory worker. I was an uneducated yob. Still am in some ways.

       Was it hard to get Pete to agree to do the show?

      DALTREY: Initially, no (laughs heartily). He’s still changing his mind as usual. But Pete’s Pete and he’ll never change.

       How do you feel now when you perform material from over thirty years ago?

      DALTREY: I can’t sing the early songs like “Pictures of Lily” and “I Can’t Explain.” I mean, I can sing them, but I can’t get the sound right. There was something about the way I used to sing them because I was squeezing myself into them—putting a suit on if you like—that I can’t re-create now. I’ve worn the suit for too long.

       Do you find it funny to be paying tribute to someone who has frustrated you in so many ways on this project?

      DALTREY: I used to get incredibly angry because I didn’t know you can’t out-articulate Pete. Pete by his own admission is a compulsive liar, and a lot of those lies have been aimed at me in the past and they still are. But to answer those lies would be just joining the same camp. I try to do it sarcastically sometimes, but I try not to be bitchy because I don’t feel bitchy about it. I get incredibly angry sometimes because it makes me feel like everybody . . . But take Pete’s interviews and look