When British supergroup the Who announced its "final" U.S. tour, which hits Philadelphia tomorrow at JFK Stadium, tickets for massive stadium shows all over the country sold out within hours. The Who — Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle and Kenny Jones — has not performed in the United States since 1980.

Along with the Rolling Stones, the Who exploded onto the music scene in the early 1960s. The band's brand of high-energy, uncompromising rock 'n' roll has survived through a changing music business as well as personal tragedy (the death of the band's first drummer Keith Moon in 1978) and lead guitarist Townshend's bout with drugs and alcohol for the past year.

Major hits from the Who's extensive collection of album releases include the classics "My Generation," "Magic Bus," "Pinball Wizard" (from the rock opera "Tommy") and "Won't Get Fooled Again."

In this exclusive interview, lead guitarist Pete Townshend talks candidly about his personal problems and the future of the Who.

Q: Is this really the last tour? Pete Townshend: There is a considerable limit to the amount of time that the band will continue in the shape that we're now in. We have definitely decided to give a concerted effort where everyone in the band devotes their exclusive efforts to the band. To date, I've been trying to blend solo work and publishing work in with Who work, and it's not all that graceful a combination. They don't overlap all that well sometimes, and your energy gets dissipated. So we've decided to put in a good year's work and cover some territories that we've neglected badly — Australia, maybe, and see if we can hit Japan for the first time.

We've established a sort of niche in the air that just belongs to us. Even if we vacate it temporarily, it seems to be there when we go back. I do get the feeling that it's a kind of last waltz.

Q: How do you feel about going back on the road? A: I'm not looking forward to it at all. But I think this time I'll try doing it straight, as a novelty. I've tried every other way, and I've had fun doing it, but I think it would be quite interesting to do a tour awake. I hope to put in some energy and get some out of it.

Q: Why do it at all? A: If we weren't going to do a tour, then why do an album? As a writer, what's the point of me just sitting and making records at home, which I could do quite happily, and never get any feedback, except for reading dumb record reviews, or getting letters from kids?

Out on a stage you get affirmation of what you've done. You can see it, you can sense it, whether one song worked, whether people understand it, whether it's touched the spot that you originally intended to touch. And as a solo performer — I don't intend to go out and work on my own in concert — I'd be too afraid, I think. So that is one reason that I'm touring. Most writers live in a vacuum and they're just names on book jackets, but rock 'n' roll isn't like that; it's reality, not fiction. If you meet somebody like (Bob) Dylan, you know the man better than he knows himself, because rock 'n'

roll is open-heart surgery. At least it should be, at its best. I think what the music thrives on is the kind of danger that we're all living on a day-to-day basis. Rock 'n' roll needs it because rock 'n' roll is defying it — defies the possibility of a nuclear holocaust — it doesn't pretend that it's not there. It doesn't sit like an ostrich with its head in the sand.

Q: Do you think the Who is old-fashioned? A: We're eminently old-fashioned. But I don't think there's anything wrong with being old-fashioned, because there are certain time-honored structures and methods. Guitar playing as an art started in the European courts; you told the king what you thought was wrong with society, in verse. Very, very politely, but that was what the role of the court musician was; to very politely voice the wishes and the feelings of the people to the king, in front of his whole court.

Q: You once said that you were living your childhood dream and it wasn't enough.

A: Yeah, I was, and it proved to be not enough. It was not the dream that I thought it was — I didn't become what I thought I was going to become. As a kid, I saw my heroes, and thought that they lived the lives that they appeared to live. So I thought that if I was placed in that position, that I would be as wonderful and perfect as they were, or I thought they were. It was so strange for me as a kid, because so many of the things that I actually dreamt of came true. And I thought, "How can I be so cynical and frustrated and bitter, when I've got everything that I ever wanted?" And that's what I meant by it not being enough. You know, I was 19, we had a record in the charts, I'd written it, we were being screamed at on the circuit over here, I had a pretty girlfriend, and a big car, and lots of money, going 'round to fancy restaurants with our manager, and life was everything that I wanted. But it wasn't really what I wanted.

Q: You've had problems with the excesses of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle.

A: A little bit, yeah. I'm alcoholic, basically, and that has many ramifications. I hadn't realized it until about the middle of last year. When Keith (Moon) was alive, I put him in touch with many alcoholic counselors, and they all said, Keith isn't alcoholic, his problems are elsewhere, but you are. And I said, no, hold on a minute, it's Keith that's got the problems, I'm all right. That was in 1975 or 1976, when Keith was getting really ill from drinking too much. But he wasn't dependent on booze; it just made him ill, because like everything else, he took too much of it. His problem was that he was just into excess.