THE OLD MEN ARE ALRIGHT

David Hinckley

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Watching Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey together raises the distinct possibility that for all the grumbling they’ve done about each other over the last 40 years, they get along.

That ruins a lot of good headlines, though it does have the small advantage of explaining how, 42 years after they started making good music together, they’re still doing it.

Sitting in the studio of Sirius Satellite Radio, which has been running a whole channel dedicated to Who music and conversation, Townshend talks about how pleased he is to be back onstage with Daltrey for a Who tour.

The tour – which makes a stop at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City tonight – has also now been joined by the long-awaited new Who CD, “Endless Wire,” which blends material Townshend has been assembling for years into the band’s first new album since 1982.

It’s an ambitious record, partly acoustic, and one thing Townshend and Daltrey both say they find encouraging is that audiences seem to be willing to listen to it — not, as is the case with many classic rock audiences, simply drumming their fingers until they hear the hits.

“I can only remember one time when the audience got restless,” Townshend says. “I was explaining one of the new songs, probably at more length than I needed to, when someone yelled, ‘Shut up and play.’ ”

“That was me,” interjects Daltrey.

Daltrey and Townshend have arguably been

See THE WHO, B6