The Who announce new album, 50th anniversary tour dates

LONDON, June 30 (UPI) -- The Who announced the first dates of their 50th anniversary tour Monday.

The English rock band kicks off The Who Hits 50 in Glasgow, Scotland on November 30. December dates in England and Wales will follow, with a North American leg planned for 2015. Sets will include "all the classic anthems" in addition to "deeper cuts from their catalogue."

The Who plan to record a new album this summer before they embark on tour. The album will be their first since Endless Wire in 2006, and guitarist Pete Townshend revealed it may be "more prog rock than pub rock."

"Trying to stay young," the 69-year-old musician said of the tour. "We are what we are, and extremely good at it, but we're lucky to be alive and still touring. If I had enough hairs to split, I would say that for 13 years since 1964 The Who didn't really exist, so we are really only 37."

Townshend formed The Who with Roger Daltrey and former members John Entwistle and Keith Moon in 1964. The band has only released eleven studio albums in fifty years, but has sold more than 100 million records. The Who Hits 50 is not being explicitly billed as a farewell tour, but 70-year-old frontman Daltrey said in a statement that it is "the beginning of a long goodbye."

"We intend to go on doing music until we drop, but we have to be realistic about our age," he said last year. "The touring is incredibly grinding on the body and we have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. This will be the last old-fashioned, big tour."