The Who: Their Re-generation

One of the many high points of the Who's resuscitation of their rock opera Quadrophenia came among the encores. No, it wasn't the magnificent trio version of "Won't Get Fooled Again" -- the surviving Who-mates alone, displaying their amiable chemistry -- or the full-bodied, 15-piece-band rip through "Behind Blues Eyes," with Pete Townshend bashing and tearing at his electric guitar. It was Townshend wryly asking the audience whether they thought he, Roger Daltrey, and John Entwistle were doing this tour for the money, and then -- after a joke about donating the proceeds to a fund for dogs -- blithely admitting they were. Shit; let's give the guy points for candor.

And for putting on a very good show. Sure, the musk of rock nostalgia hung so thick it attracted even lame-duck governor Bill Weld to the first of two sold-out Worcester Centrum concerts on November 12. Townshend himself had to admit that the program -- an unreconstructed performance of Quadrophenia song by song -- is "parochial" at this point. But it's one of rock's primary texts, so why fuck with it? The story of the scrappy, schizophrenic, mod Top Jimmy is a near-perfect distillation of all of rock's primary themes: alienation, drinking and drugging, love and lust, violence, rebelliousness, and the search for some sort of satisfaction within the world.

And they played it nearly perfectly. A tad more electric guitar from Townshend, who slashed an acoustic for most of the night, and maybe a few more other Who hits at the end would have been nice. But from the opening "I Am the Sea," the Who -- augmented by keyboards, samplers, six horns, a percussionist, two backing singers, and Pete's brother Simon on guitar -- sounded terrific. The sonic mix gave every instrument its due; the instrumentation improved on that of the original recording -- which has just been well-remastered and reissued by MCA -- by nixing the cheesy synthesizer horn sounds for real brass. And everyone -- especially Entwistle, one of rock's greatest bassists, a man who can still produce an armada of fluid notes by lightly flicking his fingers -- played superbly. Even Simon Townshend; his live lead-guitar playing doesn't equal his brother's, but his more-restrained approach reproduced the feel of the recorded versions of Pete's guitar parts on Quadrophenia. (For the most part, Townshend has always been more tasteful on guitar when playing in the studio.)

Compared to the bald Townshend and silver-maned Entwistle, Daltrey looks ageless. Still buff, still blond-haired, and singing with the same macho bluster that always made one either love or hate the Who. His performance at the Centrum, while stripped of his old stage bravado save for his trademark microphone swinging, was on the mark -- strong, not straining for the high notes except on the encores (and that after 90 minutes of performance), whipping the necessary drama and passion of youth into numbers like "The Real Me," "5:15," and Townshend's six-minute mini-symphony "Love, Reign o'er Me," a brilliant ode to the opening of the human spirit.

The vigor with which this group of graybeards attacked this parable of youthful struggle for identity was surprising. No doubt it helped to have a fresh sparkplug in drummer Zack Starkey, who at first seemed to approximate the late Who drummer Keith Moon's playing, then later evolved into a generator of powerful, solid grooves. (He also looks a lot like his pop, Ringo Starr.) Drafting longtime English rocker Gary Glitter as the Punk was inspired casting; at 56, he bellowed with the same trademark gusto that made him a campy standout in the early '70s. And Billy Idol's appearance as Ace Face -- the hard-assed mod whose credibility spins down the toilet when he drops out of the scene for a job as a bellboy -- was also inspired, paralleling his own career's spin from hitmaking phony to obvious chump.

-- Ted Drozdowski