taken to using click tracks and instrumental backing tapes to augment the sound on tour, which weren’t a good mix this time with Moonie.

“Keith, who had been so brilliant playing along with stage tapes on ‘Who’s Next,’ couldn’t seem to cope with the stage tapes we’d put together for ‘Quadrophenia.’

“What followed,” he adds in the book, “were some of the most shameful performances in our career on stage. I was utterly bereft that although we had made a great record it had not provided us with the new rock opera performance piece we so badly needed.”

The biggest disaster took place on opening night of the U.S. tour in San Francisco when the drummer took three “elephant pellets” and nodded off at the kit — twice — forcing Mr. Townshend to ask the audience, “Can anybody play the drums?” A 19-year-old fan stepped up to help on a few hits before they gave up on the show. Amazingly enough, you can see it on YouTube.

THE TWO

Moon stuck around for two more albums before checking out for good in 1978 of a drug overdose, after a long bout with alcoholism. “Keith had been a pain in the ass,” Mr. Townshend writes, “but he had also been a constant joy.”

The guitarist’s immediate reaction, surprising even himself, was to tour

The Who enlisted Kenney Jones of the Small Faces for the “Who Are You” tour in May 1979, which was marred by the stampede in Cincinnati that killed 11 fans before the show. The Who was sent on stage without being alerted to the tragedy, in order to keep the fans in place while police dealt with the turmoil outside.

– The farewell tour in ’82 turned out to be a false alarm when The Who reunited for Live Aid in ’85 and then

I don’t know how many more years I’m going to be able to sing this music. My voice is great at the moment, so I’m just going to explore the possibilities that one time I might sing ‘Quadrophenia’ and it’s a little bit easier.”

— Roger Daltrey

the BPI Awards in ’88, before waging a full-fledged 25th anniversary reunion tour in ’89 (that played Three Rivers Stadium) and found Mr. Townshend, beaten down by tinnitus, sticking mostly to acoustic guitar.

The ’96 tour coincided with the remastering of “Quadrophenia” and was perceived as a vehicle for pitching the rock opera, which had been made into a movie in 1979, for the same kind of treatment “Tommy” got on Broadway.

“The North American Quadrophenia tour was a blur for me,” Mr. Townshend writes. “The press maintained that The Who had lost their way. I played acoustic guitar most of the time; my playing was what really held the rhythm together and defined its subtlety. Acoustic was far better for this purpose than electric. Who fans were irritated by me, however, and there was much talk of everyone being improved if only ‘Pete would strap on an electric guitar?’”

To this point, The Who had toured soon after the death of Moon, it had played the night after Cincinnati, and in 2002, it faced another predicament when Entwistle died of a cocaine-induced heart attack in a Las Vegas hotel room on the eve of the tour. The rock world was convinced it was over. Instead, The Two, as some would call them, enlisted bassist Pino Palladino,

AP

Members of the rock band The Who, from left, Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon, are shown in an undated file photo.

very different in style from Entwistle, and opened the tour just four days later in Los Angeles. According to Mr. Townshend, they were heartbroken over the loss of their bombastic bassist but didn’t want the crew or the fans to suffer.

Since then The Who has carried on for three more tours and one more album, 2006’s forgettable “Endless Wire.” There has been only a handful of appearances since wrapping up a tour in early 2009, including the much-derided Super Bowl halftime show in 2010 that seems to have killed the momentum for classic rock bands on that all-American stage.

Over the past few years, Mr. Daltrey, 68, has been working with his solo band (which played a solid show here opening for Eric Clapton in 2010) and Mr. Townshend, 67, has been busy with the 515-page “Who I Am.”

In lieu of something new, they chose to pull “Quadrophenia” out of mothballs, in part because the guitarist considers it to be the band at its

peak. Also, he noted at the teleconference, “For me it’s very easy When I wrote it, I wrote it pretty much all on guitar — there are a few keyboard bits — but so everything falls under my fingers, it flows very naturally.”

He acknowledged that for his curly-haired counterpart, it’s “a taxing vocal piece,” a challenge the singer embraces.

“I don’t know how many more years I’m going to be able to sing this music,” he said. “My voice is great at the moment, so I’m just going to explore the possibilities that one time I might sing ‘Quadrophenia’ and it’s a little bit easier.”

The Two are joined by Pete’s brother Simon on guitar, Mr. Palladino on bass, drummer Zak Starkey (Ringo Starr’s son), two horn players and, oddly enough, three keyboardists. The band is playing the 90-minute “Quadrophenia” straight through, with vintage video clips of the band, social uprisings and the sea, then closing with a five-song encore that has included such classics as “Baba O’Riley,” “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “The Kids Are Alright,” “Behind Blue Eyes” and “Who Are You.”

Echoing San Francisco ’73, Mr. Townshend made headlines on opening night in Sunrise, Fla., when he stormed off the stage during the encore, yelling that the sound on stage was “too loud.” Since then, he’s hung in there till the end.

Based on reviews and fan comments, Mr. Daltrey, who had vocal cord surgery in 2010, is in good voice and The Who is playing “Quadrophenia” with precision and with tributes to its fallen mates. There were a few complaints that the energy lagged in the middle and that the show was short on “hits,” but they were from people who may have been confused that they paid to see The Who play its “other” rock opera.