PETE TOWNSHEND and ROGER DALTREY during satellite media conference

The Who stage a media event

THE Who sure can sell beer.

That was the message given Wednesday through the medium of satellite communication with the band the Who addressing reporters during a 55-minute media conference live from a Toronto hotel.

Sitting under a “Molson-Molson-Molson-Molson” sign, band members talked about how they liked Maple Leaf Gardens, how they might have spent too much time making films instead of music and how much they enjoyed giving concerts.

But local reporters at the CKVU studios got no chance to ask questions about the future of the band, which is staging a so-called final concert in Toronto on Friday.

Only two questions got asked from Vancouver, one from CKVU Vancouver Show host Wayne Cox.

Molson’s had arranged the questioners in advance. Coincidentally enough, the Who concert is to be carried Friday night simultaneously by CKVU and by CFOX at 9 p.m.

While the rest of the reporters sat under beer signs, drank free light suds and listened quietly — playing the role as the audience for the Vancouver Show’s clips of the event — Cox asked if members of the Who will ever play together again, even though the Friday show is billed as “The Who — The Final Concert.”

Responded singer Roger Daltrey: “One thing that’s happened is that people feel this is our last concert. I don’t think it’s true. This is the last concert of our farewell tour. There won’t be any more tours. We might do . . . festivals,” he said. “There’ll be more concerts.”

Most of the other questions centred on the future of cable-TV rock concerts — “The financial potential of cable for groups is pretty big,” said Pete Townshend, but Daltrey said they lack the vitality of live concerts — and the past and future of the Who.

“Most of our good stuff is old,” says Daltrey. “The Who has had its crack at innovating and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”

Friday’s concert, he said, will contain perhaps four songs that haven’t been performed in Toronto before, and will contain “a few different lighting effects.”

The press conference almost didn’t happen. The band, flying from Cleveland, was forced to land in Buffalo and drive to Toronto, arriving at the hotel almost 25 minutes late.

The beer companies had booked only 55 minutes on the Anik B satellite to pump the television feed to TV stations throughout the country. A number of stations lost the broadcast half-way through because the time couldn’t be extended.

CKVU was able to switch over to the Weststar satellite carrying the show to Los Angeles and caught the entire show, but the Toronto emcee ignored requests for more questions from Vancouver.

Daltrey, however, racked up local points when he noted that “Outside the U.K., there aren’t many places I could live. I think Toronto’s one of them. Toronto or Vancouver.”