The Who. English rock group's farewell concert at Shea Stadium Tuesday night and last night. With the Clash, and David Johansson.

When the Who sang "My Generation" in 1965, the group had no way of knowing that the song would become an anthem for the next generation — and the next generation. But the band's Shea Stadium concert Tuesday night, the first of two sold-out shows that drew more than 130,000 people to the home of the Mets and the Jets (remember them?), was testimony to the Who's power to unite the now-fragmented rock and roll audience, many of whose members weren't even born when "My Generation" came out.

Among the hordes entering Shea from the Long Island Railroad were Suzanne Brady, 15, Robert Brady, 11, and Jackie Flynn, 14, from Port Washington, who were escorted by Suzanne and Robert's mother. "I always wanted to come see the Who, but before, I was too young," Suzanne said.

"I hope they don't break up," Jackie said. With quick confidence, Suzanne said, "No, they won't."

It was the Who's announcement that this was to be its farewell tour that has made this band the focus of international attention. Despite such widely acclaimed triumphs as a bravura performance at the Woodstock festival in 1969, and its rock opera "Tommy" — which became the first rock concert at New York's Metropolitan Opera House — the band has never had the fame bestowed on both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

Partly, that is because the Who was not successful in America during the years of the British Invasion (1964-1965) that established the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. And while the Beatles expanded their audience by expanding the boundaries of rock, and while the Rolling Stones became darlings of the jet set, the Who never belonged to anything but rock and roll. Which is why, in 1982, rock and roll belongs to the Who.

The show began an hour earlier than scheduled. There were already so many people — an estimated 20,000 — in the stadium by 7 PM that David Johansson went onstage for a tepidly received 20-minute set. At around 8:30 PM, the Clash performed. There was irony in that group's presence, since some connect the rise of the Clash, the popular, politically oriented punk-rock band, with what has been perceived as the tiredness of such "dinosaurs" as the Stones and the Who.

But this was the Who's crowd, and for the first time in years, the Clash found itself not preaching to the already converted. That challenge gave the band an extra cutting edge as it played a lean, aggressive set that included such political songs as "Police on My Back" and "Career Opportunities," as well as celebrations of the rock and roll life like "Janie Jones," "The Magnificent Seven" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go."

The Who's set comfortably spanned the group's 18 years of recording. It opened with the 1966 flop "Substitute," and immediately one discerned the value of Shea Stadium's multi-million-dollar "Diamond Vision" video screen. During baseball games, there is too much light, too much glare for the screen to be very useful. But in the darkened stadium, the clarity of the giant picture gave even those behind home plate a good view of the ant-sized creatures on the stage in deepest center field.

You could see Pete Townshend doing his windmill guitar stroke on another early song, "Can't Explain," and you could see bassist John Entwistle's gray hair clearly as the band performed his "Dangerous." You could see the conservatively suited Roger Daltrey uncharacteristically playing guitar rather than spinning the microphone chord on the title song of the new Who album, "It's Hard." You could also see Daltrey looking bored and skeptical singing Townshend's words on the new "A Man Is a Man."

Not unexpectedly, it was the Who's familiar material that most thrilled the throng. Peak moment: "Baba O'Riley," which had many of the nearly 70,000 screaming excitedly along with the refrain: "teenage wasteland, it's just a teenage wasteland — we're all wasted!" That, too, has become an anthem, so it made perfect sense that the Who followed it with "My Generation," seizing the energy of the youthquake the band helped create and which, to this day, has not dissipated.