HERALD FILE PHOTO Back on the magic bus – The Who, led by singer Roger Daltrey and guitarist Pete Townshend, perform tonight at the Ice Palace in Tampa.

So he's doing it for the money. And, oh, why not? Bassist John Entwistle has plenty of ways to scratch his musical itches, and if hitting the road with The Who means he can make a little dough while he's doing it, well, good thing.

"When you've got a big house and a studio to support, you have to go out and work," says Entwistle, 52. "You can't afford to sit on your bum and say, 'What a great career.'"

The Who will perform along with Drivin N Cryin at 8 p.m. tonight at the Ice Palace.

"We didn't make anywhere near as much money as people thought we did," recalls Entwistle, who says the group's sporadic touring in the '70s, along with England's searing income tax and a few bad investments, left members without the financial reward you'd expect for one of rock's A-list acts.

No word on where The Who goes when this tour wraps up, but it is certain that some rock purists don't like where the group has been the last few years.

The question is a tired one, lurking at least since the group's lush and glittery 1989 tour, and, for some fans, since the 1978 death of drummer Keith Moon: Is The Who selling out?

Entwistle concedes that The Who, the band that defined guts-to-the-

IF YOU GO

Who: The Who with Drivin N Cryin

Where: Ice Palace, 501 E. Kennedy Blvd., Tampa

When: 8 p.m. today

Tickets: $35.75 and $47.75

Information: 1-813-223-1000

"That Broadway kind of thing wasn't The Who. It's fine. If that's where The Who are now, that's where I am."

John Entwistle The Who bassist

wall rock 'n' roll in the late '60s, isn't the same group anymore.

"That Broadway kind of thing wasn't The Who," he says. "It's fine. If that's where The Who are now, that's where I am."

Anyway, if Entwistle feels like really jamming, he's got his own four-piece outfit, formed early this year for a U.S. club tour.

"If I want to play loud, growling music, I have to use my own band," says Entwistle. "It's a different mentality. That's why I get a different feeling from my own band because it's just the four of us."

Onstage with The Who now, "it's more regimented, and you can't go off on a tangent — like you can with a smaller band — when you've got to take another 18 people with you."

The late Moon — possibly rock's No. 1 all-time wild man — may not have dug these big, streamlined performances from The Who's latest decade.

"I don't know that he would have fit in into a large ensemble," Entwistle says. "His playing wasn't that kind of playing. It might not have come to this anyway if Keith was still alive. I'm really not sure what we'd be doing now. It probably would have gone in a completely different direction.

"I guess Keith would probably be in my band."

Meanwhile, the man whose full, punching bass lines became a melodic jackhammer under The Who's cacophony, keeps his mind on the tool that made his name.

"I'm playing better than I ever played before," he says.

"My fingers are even more nimble. It's hard work, and I'm trying to keep ahead of myself. You have to really keep playing to get better."

And he'll keep playin 'til . . .

"Until I drop, I guess!" he says with a laugh. "I mean, I'm working on three different careers now, and I don't seem to have as many hours in the day as I should have."