THE Who’s current outing is billed as The Kids Are Alright tour, begging the question, what about the venerable gentlemen celebrating silver anniversaries every other week?

There is something disconcerting seeing all these troupers 25 years on. Roger Daltrey still throws his mike lariat-fashion and Pete Townshend musters up a passable windmill on the Fender Strat but an obsession with nostalgia is unhealthy, no matter how much energy is invested in the act.

To his credit Townshend has the grace to admit that “it isn’t the same any more”, while Daltrey is patently sick of Substitute, Pictures of Lily et al and more interested in the bluesier passages which were the highlight of the show. There is nothing

THE WHO Wembley Arena

wrong with having good songs and letting them rest in peace.

The Who haven’t lost their musical ability or their power and the new large band whipped up a monstrously vicious sound. Sadly, they have no idea how to edit themselves. Three hours plus was an hour too long and the selection from Tommy was disastrously dull. God help us, they’ll be reviving Hair next.

At least The Who haven’t become a tiresome self-parody like the Stones, even if it is hard to take the blistering rhetoric of Won’t Get Fooled Again from a chap who farms trout for a living and a fellow who publishes books.