Auburn Hills — It’s not often that one of rock’s warhorses can actually improve upon a piece of music it created more than 20 years ago. It’s not often The Who gets back together, either.

But it has, the occasion being the resurrection of the 1973 rock opera “Quadrophenia,” an ambitious album that never got its due on the concert stage. Until now.

It’s not that there was some hue and cry for this. The revival is the glorious result of three happenings. Singer Roger Daltrey’s 1994 solo tour included some of the album’s rarely performed songs. Guitarist and writer Pete Townshend successfully recast his 1969 rock opera “Tommy” as a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical. And The Who chose the Prince’s Trust benefit concert last June in London to debut the revivified “Quadrophenia.”

Now The Who has taken the “Quadrophenia” show on the road, stopping Sunday night at The Palace for a performance that was nothing short of spectacular.

Make no mistake. “Quadrophenia” is a rock ’n’ roll spectacle with scene-stealing guest stars (hammy Gary Glitter as the Godfather and sneering Billy Idol as Ace the Face), a narrator and a huge, 12-piece backing band to help flesh out Townshend’s cleverly orchestrated music.

“It is,” Townshend told the crowd of 14,000 (the show was not sold out), “a different kind of concert.”

Indeed. “Quadrophenia” is the story of Jimmy, a fashionable, conflicted pill-popping young Mod, circa 1964 London. Jimmy isn’t sure who he is or what he wants, but his four distinct personalities (thus the title) duke it out among themselves until Jimmy realizes that all he wants is to be loved. It takes him 17 songs and nearly 90 minutes to figure it out, but Townshend fills those songs with enough angst, confusion, pain and redemption to make it work.

But it didn’t work 23 years ago when The Who tried to foist “Quadrophenia” on an unsuspecting and unfamiliar public. The band resorted to lengthy explanations of the story and relied on taped keyboards back then, before dropping the idea entirely after only a few shows.

Now they’ve got Phil Daniels, the actor who played Jimmy in the 1979 movie version, narrating his story on three video screens. That Jimmy tells his story, set amid the Mods/Rockers gang violence in early 1960s England, in the past tense assures us that, like the writer, he’s older and wiser and has found the deliverance promised in the album’s spirited

finale, “Love, Reign O’er Me.”

JOURNAL PHOTO/TODD WHARTON Who guitarist and composer Pete Townshend is in the spotlight as he plays some of his music from ‘Quadrophenia.’

REVIEW

But looking back on “Quadrophenia” was less a nostalgia trip for The Who than a chance to get it right. Performing with far more conviction and precision than it did nine years ago, this reconstituted big-band version of The Who may be tamer than it was in its heyday, but the musicianship is first-rate and the dogged devotion to the material itself impressive.

“Quadrophenia” paled in comparison to its successors, “Tommy” and “Who’s Next,” but time has been good to it. And true to the spirit of Townshend and the band, this tour is all about making the work bigger and better by moving it forward.

The video narration by Daniels provides linkage for its 17 songs and a valuable subtext about Jimmy’s four-sided personality and the life he’s chosen.

The band treats the material with reverence, but doesn’t worry about re-creating it note for note. With the hearing-disabled Townshend reduced to playing acoustic guitar, little brother Simon Townshend steps up as lead guitarist but works from his big brother’s blueprint, rather than copying it. Ditto for drummer Zak Starkey, Ringo Starr’s son, who uses Keith Moon’s work as a base, not cause for a note-for-note recitation.

Guest shots by Glitter, as a leather-clad rock ’n’ roll godfather, and Idol, as the sneering Mod turned bellboy, inject humor and energy into a show that almost takes itself too seriously.

The band stays faithful to the 1973 record but doesn’t try to recreate it. The musicians are given some free reign to improvise, which is impressive considering the large number of video and lighting cues. Bassist John Entwistle’s febrile solo at the end of “5:15” was a show stopper on Sunday.

Townshend did some show-stopping himself with a couple of trademark windmills and impassioned vocals, especially on an acoustic version of “Drowned.”

The encore included an acoustic version of the anthem “Won’t Get Fooled Again” that featured only Townshend, Daltrey and Entwistle, the three surviving members of the band. They were rejoined for a glistening rendition of “Behind Blue Eyes” and a rousing finale of “Who Are You,” with audience members providing most of the vocals.

Townshend, who’s been opposed to Who reunions in the past, obviously enjoyed himself Sunday night. He reminisced about breaking a guitar on a guy’s head at the Grande Ballroom and praised Detroit’s role in the band’s history.

“We’ve always loved playing here,” Townshend told the crowd.

So don’t make us wait so long next time.