Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
The Who’s Roger: I’ve gone deaf
Rocker has to lip-read to follow music
THE Who legend Roger Daltrey has revealed he is “very, very deaf”.
The rocker made the confession during a solo show, adding that he now relies on lip-reading and wears large in-ear monitors to follow the music at live gigs. Daltrey, 74, told the crowd: “The trouble with these ear things that I wear is that I am very, very deaf. And I advise you all – all you rock-and-roll fans – take your f***ing ear plugs to the gigs.
“If only we had known when we were young ... we are lip-reading.”
Daltrey said he wanted to keep gigging “for a long time”, adding: “I am lucky to be doing what I do – so thank you.”
Despite his medical issues, the Who singer delivered pitch-perfect performances of hits including I Can See For Miles and The Real Me at the Hard Rock Resort in Las Vegas,
Daltrey admitted he missed Jimi Hendrix and Doors singer Jim Morrison.
He said: “Those people aren’t here any more... what am I doing here?
“And these days everybody thinks that they have thousands and millions of friends on this anti-social media.
“But in the end as you get older, your friends do die and there is nothing you can do about it. Your real friends are ... the ones by your side.”
Bandmate Pete Townshend also “wears two hearing aids”, Daltrey has claimed.
Smokers are 1.2 to 1.6 times more likely to go deaf, says the National Centre for Global Health and Medicine, Tokyo.