THE WHO HOLDS UP

MARK ADAMS / Staff

Together once again: Pete Townshend (right) and the Who perform Wednesday at Lakewood Amphitheatre as the British foursome’s “Quadrophenia” reunion tour dropped in on Atlanta.

’60s rockers still have the spark at Lakewood

By Steve Dollar

POP MUSIC CRITIC

It’s been eons since the Who, once part of Great Britain’s mighty triumvirate of 1960s supergroups that included the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, has been on the pop charts, let alone mattered as more than a core influence on generations of rockers. Pete Townshend’s windmill guitar moves, Roger Daltrey’s street-tough wail, Keith Moon’s demolition-derby drumming and John Entwistle’s eternally stoic bass pulse always gave the band a collective sense of drama that not only fed rock ‘n’ roll’s myth machine, but provided a natural platform for the group’s ambitious leaps into rock as amplified theater.

But only Moon lived up to the group’s adolescent battle cry — "Hope I die before I get old!” — which left the rest of the Who to age, charged with defining the band’s relevance against the unsubtle shifts of rock fashion.

They’ve held up surprisingly well, if compelled to work at a decidedly calmer pitch. The Who’s reunion tour, which stopped Wednesday at Lakewood Amphitheatre, has built-in hedges against the ravages of time. Daltrey is astonishingly fit, Entwistle impossibly solid, and Townshend, if tragically deaf (occupational hazard, mind you), remains the spiritual core of the outfit, even if his guitar playing lacks the old manic spark and has to be supplemented by brother Simon’s own fretwork. (Zak Starkey, Ringo’s kid, more than ably fills in for Moon’s crash-bam-boom attack, and the stage is littered with horn and keyboard players.)

CONCERT REVIEW

The Who With drivin n cryin

Wednesday night at Lakewood Amphitheatre

The verdict: Not the Who they used to be, but who can argue with material so classic?

The Who’s strategy is wise: a staging of its classic 1973 rock opera “Quadrophenia” (not to be confused with the considerably cheesier 1969 rock opera “Tommy”). A monumental staple of 1970s FM radio, the original two-LP set is one of those touchstones of baby boomer reality, later made into a movie that enjoyed a brief vogue in the early 1980s. It’s the saga of an archetypal Mod (read: ’60s Who fan) in conflict with rival Rockers (also known as Teddy Boys, greasers who preferred rockabilly music), and in the throes of an identity crisis aggravated by amphetamine use, teenage riots, sexual frustration and a habit of riding motorcycle scooters at all hours.

What business 50-year-old men have reliving this stuff is anyone’s guess, but even in its now-nostalgic frame, “Quadrophenia” is emotionally affecting. Mounted as a quasi-dramatic production with walk-on actors (including an Elvis-ian turn by former British pop idol P.J. Proby) and an overhead screen that featured new video clips adapted from the album, live performance footage and archival scenes from the Who’s early-’60s heyday, the show could easily have subbed for a Theatre of the Stars production at the Fox. The strategy allowed the musicians some grown-up, theatrical distance from the material, which ranged from the sweetly cathartic (a climactic “Love Reign O’er Me”) to the merely prosaic (the occasional dull instrumental interlude).

Yet the band wanted to enjoy the best of both worlds. So an encore set briefly uncorked some fireworks: Townshend playing the indelible riffs to “Can’t Explain” and “Substitute” (the best rock song ever written about class difference), looking every bit the tweedy scholar to Daltrey’s muscle-shirted centaur.

“I think the Who is forever,” said Doug Teper, 38, a Georgia state representative from Atlanta. “The first time I ever went to Europe, I got on a bus and went straight to Brighton, England, [where “Quadrophenia” is partly set] to check out the Mods and Rockers.”

He was somewhat disappointed, as the scene the Who documented was long gone. But the band itself still possesses an integral spark. Watching Daltrey and Townshend trade a sloppy duet on an acoustic “Won’t Get Fooled Again” was an emotional moment for unwary fans, the act of musicians less worried about their legacy than just having a good time.