The Who When: 7:30 p.m. Sunday Where: Save Mart Center on the campus of California State University, Fresno Tickets: $53.75 – $203.75 Information: Tickets are on sale now at select Save Mart Supermarkets, online at www.ticketmaster.com, charge by phone at 485-8497 or at the Save Mart Center box office.

Townshend and Daltrey are the only surviving group members By Chuck Darrow Gannett News Service

The Who, which comes Tuesday to Fresno’s Save Mart Center, is wrapping up its first tour since 2002.

Charter members Pete Townshend and lead vocalist Roger Daltrey will be joined by drummer Zak Starkey, bassist Pino Palladino, keyboardist John “Rabbit” Bundrick and guitarist Simon Townshend, Pete’s brother.

According to a band publicist, Townshend, the group’s guitarist and composer, spends a good deal of his time online. Which is why it wasn’t surprising that he consented to an interview only if it was conducted via e-mail:

Question: According to your Web site, this tour is showcasing new material, the first time that’s happened in many years. Does performing new songs make touring more enjoyable?

Answer: It makes it less predictable. So many of the classic Who songs we play affect our audiences in the same way every time. New stuff challenges us, and our audience, to connect on a different level. We have to make space for each other.

Q: What are the subjects [for songs] that interest you nowadays? Are they essentially the same as they’ve always been, or do you find yourself drawn to topics you didn’t address in the past?

A: I have been stuck in a groove since I was 19 years old and got a hit with The Who with one of my first songs, “Can’t Explain.” This song was inspired by "Young Man Blues" by the jazz singer Mose Allison (Chrissie Hynde told me that the Kinks first big hit, “You Really Got Me” by Ray Davies was inspired by the same song).

That groove begins with the strange, bleak mood of postwar Britain. There was a lot of pride in what we’d done, but for us younger ones trying to see what had happened there was a lot of denial. Who are my targets? Many of them are now my age, old men and women from 50 to 70 years old. And yet in all of them I see children with unanswered questions. I don’t blame parents or grandparents. They were heroes. In any case without the “Great Silence” of the postwar years, rock music as we know it today would never have been born. We’d still be dancing to saxophones and living in romance.

Q: Has getting older affected you as a composer?

A: Hardly at all. I've always been ambitious… sneered at for my pretensions … and don't regret trying new things. But I've always known that I can do several things better than almost anyone else on the face of the Earth, so I am less of a willing Polymath (Renaissance man) than some of my ex-art school buddies.

Q: How is the set list determined?

A: Roger decides how it flows and he uses old-school showman’s instinct that usually works very well. We get advice and ideas from fans, too. Ending the show with the prayer from the end of “Tommy” (“Listening To You”) was an obvious idea that we had stopped using.

Q: Any time an act of your stature and longevity hits the road, the “this could be the last time” conversation takes place among fans. How much longer do you see The Who touring, assuming health is not an issue?

A: That’s right. I was happy to quit back in 1982. Happy not to tour. Now I'm happy to be back. I may come and go all over again. But this is a big tour because we’ve made a new album and I want people to hear it, so we’re going everywhere we can.