The Who’s Final North American Performance: Setlist, Moments, and an Emotional Farewell

Quick takeaways

• The Who closed their North American Farewell Tour—“The Song Is Over”—on October 1, 2025, at Acrisure Arena in the Palm Springs area.
• The 23-song, career-spanning set opened with “I Can’t Explain” and ended with “Tea & Theatre” performed by Daltrey & Townshend alone, after “The Song Is Over.”
• Onstage, Pete Townshend told the crowd: “For this kind of thing, it’s goodbye.” Roger Daltrey thanked American fans for making the band’s 1960s dream real.
• The finale capped a run announced in May and expanded in September with this added “final public show.”

The night, song by song

Across two potent hours, The Who stitched six decades into a single arc. Early Mod fire (“I Can’t Explain,” “Substitute,” “The Seeker”) gave way to widescreen epics (“Pinball Wizard” → “See Me, Feel Me,” the Quadrophenia suite, “Love, Reign O’er Me”), then the stadium roar of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Baba O’Riley.”

For the coda, the set turned elegiac: “The Song Is Over” into an acoustic “Tea & Theatre,” just Roger and Pete—a quiet, perfect goodbye.

Full setlist (Oct 1, 2025 — Acrisure Arena)

1. I Can’t Explain
2. Substitute
3. Who Are You
4. The Seeker
5. I Can See for Miles
6. Long Live Rock
7. Pinball Wizard
8. See Me, Feel Me (with “Listening to You”)
9. Another Tricky Day
10. Behind Blue Eyes
11. Eminence Front
12. My Generation
13. Cry If You Want
14. You Better You Bet
15. Going Mobile (Simon Townshend lead vocal)
16. The Real Me
17. I’m One
18. 5:15
19. Love, Reign O’er Me
20. Won’t Get Fooled Again
21. Baba O’Riley
22. The Song Is Over
23. Tea & Theatre

What they said onstage

• Townshend: “We will do stuff together … in bits and pieces, but for this kind of thing, it’s goodbye.”
• Daltrey: “It was every band’s dream in the ’60s to make it in America… thanks to you guys, you made it happen for us.”

Those valedictions balanced finality (no more continent-spanning Who tours) with the slightest crack in the door for one-offs or different formats down the road.

How we got here: from announcement to added final date

• May 2025: The band announced “The Song Is Over” as a North American farewell, framing it as a definitive goodbye to the Big-Room Who.
• Summer 2025: The broader farewell kicked off in Europe first, with an Italian opener in July.
• September 2025: After mapping a Vegas finale, The Who added one last show—Acrisure Arena on Oct 1—and labeled it the “Final Public Show” of the North American tour.
• Oct 1, 2025: The curtain fell in the California desert.

Why this finale matters

The Who have flirted with farewells before, but this time the intent—and the staging—felt conclusive: a canonical setlist, a plain-spoken goodbye, and a finale that honored the band’s theater-sized ambition and club-born punch. If the long arc of The Who is rebellion refined by adulthood, then ending with two men and a microphone was the most Who-like move of all.

FAQ

Was this the last Who show ever?

It was billed as the final public show of the North American Farewell Tour. Onstage, Townshend emphasized that touring like this is over; limited future appearances remain an open question.

Why call it “The Song Is Over”?

The title nods to the closing-time reflection at the heart of The Who’s catalog—accepting endings while refusing to dim the volume of what