Roger Daltrey came out swinging last week in London during the second show of his Alive and Kicking ...and Having Fun! UK tour.
Responding to claims in the media that he had an argument with The Who's drummer Zak Starkey in a dressing room in at the Royal Albert Hall in March over Zak's playing, Daltrey said, "The last few weeks in my life, I’ve felt like I’ve been starring in an episode of The Twilight Zone. I’ve been reading about me in the press, doing things I don’t remember ever doing.”
"I must have an imposter. Apparently, according to an inside source, there was a war of words in a dressing room. It wasn’t my dressing room, that’s for sure! And, an inside source -- makes you wonder. How far inside? Up someone's ass? Anyway, all I want to say is, it’s fake news. I am not guilty. I have not got a press spokesman. I speak for myself. I don't need anybody to speak for me. And [screw] social media. I’ve never done it; I’ve never want to do it – it’s taken civilization to the pits. So that's from the horse's mouth, not the horse's nose."
There were reports that The Who had then parted ways with Zak, but Pete Townshend then announced that they worked everything out and he's still part of the band.
You can watch Daltrey's rant against social media on YouTube.
A few nights later, while on stage in Wolverhampton, Daltrey jokingly got into it with a female fan while he tried to play The Kinks' "Days."
In introducing the song he said, “I’m gonna do this … ’cause it’s a band that we forget how good they were and how great they are.”
That's the when the woman, who sounds like Sharon Osbourne, yelled for "Pinball Wizard."
Daltrey then said, “I’m fed up with that. [I’ve] done it too much.”
The woman shot back, “But we’re not!,” explaining that she's "of a generation where ‘Pinball Wizard’ was our [favorite].”
A laughing Daltrey then told her to "Shut the [hell] up!,” while adding that he's "the world’s worst pinball player you’ve ever seen in your life.”
You can watch the exchange on YouTube.
Daltrey takes his tour to Glasgow, Scotland tonight (Monday) followed by Edinburgh