The Who are hitting the road in North America later this year. The band confirmed it in the trailer for their new BBC 4 documentary, The Who: Quadrophenia - Can You See The Real Me? - The Story Behind The Album. The doc premiered on June 15th at England's Sheffield Doc/Fest and will hit select U.S. theaters for one-night-only on July 24th. The film gives an in-depth look at the making of -- and tour behind -- the 1973 album, featuring the Who's Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, their manager Bill Curbishley, Quadrophenia engineer Ron Nevison, early Mod "Irish Jack" Lyons, Townshend confidante and biographer Richard Barnes, and rock journalist Howie Edelson, among others. No venues or dates for the Who's 2012/2013 North American tour have been announced as of yet. Early word is that tickets will be going on sale for select cities next month.

Pete Townshend and the Who's early-1970's post-Tommy period is the subject of the new book, Won't Get Fooled Again: The Who From Lifehouse To Quadrophenia, by noted rock writer Ritchie Unterberger. Although Townshend has always stressed that Quadrophenia was a work of fiction, Unterberger believes -- as many Who fans do -- that the music and story gives us an incredible insight into Townshend's pre-fame life: "I think it really shows that Townshend's writing as close to his own life -- it's also close to the Who's collective life. Which is important, not just because you think of it as a Who record, although he wrote all the songs, but because the Who were very important to Townshend. And they were very important to all four members of the Who -- even if John Entwistle wasn't that vocal about it -- certainly the other three were. Y'know (Townshend) has said 'it's a composite, I'm writing about some different characters, I'm not always writing about myself' -- he's writing about a scene he's a part of."

We asked Roger Daltrey, who's embodied the soul of both the Who's rock operas many times live onstage, if there are any definitive similarities between singing Tommy and Quadrophenia: "Not really, they're very different pieces. Quadrophenia was much more just Pete. He had this idea, and the songs, y'know, were all Pete's songs on Quadrophenia, so it was much more a Pete animal than Tommy ever was."