TORONTO (CP) — Capping a three-song encore, Pete Townshend waved to a packed stadium of rock faithful Saturday night and shouted, "Thanks, we'll see you soon."

An off-hand comment perhaps, but a curious one nonetheless given that Townshend and company — the venerable British rock group The Who — had just ended one more show in what has long been billed as their farewell tour.

Guitarist Townshend and singer Roger Daltrey have hardly kept it secret in recent interviews that, after weathering the better part of two decades at the top of the rock heap, The Who was falling victim to both time and personal differences.

But it didn't surface in front of upwards of 65,000 fans at the open-air Exhibition Stadium on Saturday — at least, not overtly.

Townshend's bye-for-now inference, Daltrey's polite patter about, gee, how it only seems like yesterday that they were last here, and nary a murmer about this tour being a swan song affair, all made it seem like just another routine exercise in energy from these masters of rock drive.

But many fans undoubtedly were there for the express purpose of taking part in an EVENT, to be a part of what might be considered a slice of rock history.

Townshend, for all his patent leaps and windmill sweeps at the guitar, managed only a fraction of the enthusiasm he has previously shown, and bassist John Entwistle, who turned 38 on Saturday, seemed moribund.

Introduction of the keyboardist recruited for the tour was lost amid the vocal fervor of the crowd, which almost seemed fitting considering that much of his work suffered similar fate.

As was the case with their last two albums, The Who's Toronto concert merely recalled a greatness, but couldn't quite match it.

Earlier in the day, Joe Jackson and his band — who only two nights earlier had played a critically-lauded concert at Toronto's Massey Hall — cut short an opening set that saw them frequently dodging refuse hurled stageward by an impatient few.

The incident, which left an ugly feel, occurred several songs after the singer had produced a camera and snapped the audience, "seeing as how this is such an auspicious occasion."