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FILE - In this Feb. 7, 2010 file photo,Roger Daltrey, left, and Pete Townshend acknowledge the crowd after performing during the second half of the NFL Super Bowl XLIV football game in Miami. Townshend and Daltrey are taking the band on the road for a series of shows in the U.K. celebrating its 50th anniversary. Daltrey suggested it would be their last major tour, referring it to the start of their "long goodbye" during a news conference Monday, June 30, 2014, at Ronnie Scott's jazz bar in London. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, file) Image Credit: AP

Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey are taking The Who on the road for a series of shows in the UK celebrating the band’s 50th anniversary.

Daltrey referred to the tour as the start of the Who’s “long goodbye” during a news conference on Monday at Ronnie Scott’s jazz bar in London.

“Well, it just has to be really,” the 70-year-old Daltrey said. “We can’t go on touring forever, but we don’t know how long we will go on touring. It’s an open-ended kind of thing. But it will have a finality to it. We’ll stop touring, I’m sure, before we stop playing as a band. It’s just like Eric Clapton’s just said: It’s the grind of the road, it’s incredibly tough on the body this age. The singing is free; you pay us for the bloody traveling.”

The Who Hits 50 tour will be a retrospective of the band’s career, including best-known hits such as Who Are You, Pinball Wizard, and Baba O’Riley. It is set to begin on November 30 in Glasgow, Scotland, and wind up in London on December 17. Tickets go on sale on Friday in the UK.

Monday’s news doesn’t necessarily mean Townshend and Daltrey are backing away from the band. Townshend said he’s written three new songs and hopes to record them with Daltrey.

“I thought I must send them to Rog. ... Happily he likes them,” the 69-year-old Townshend said.

The Who hasn’t issued new music since 2006’s Endless Wire, its first release in 24 years.