Photos by WALT BATANSKY

Pete Townshend proves he can still get up for a concert.

Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend share the spotlight during The Who’s Tangerine Bowl appearance.

ORLANDO — The Who has accomplished more with the basic elements — bass, drums, voice, electric guitar — than any band in rock music history.

And armed with those bare essentials, one auxiliary keyboardist and a mammoth stage show, the legendary hard rock group quashed the rumors of its supposedly decaying talents during an electrifying set Saturday at the Tangerine Bowl before a sellout crowd of more than 60,000.

Saturday’s concert was the first show of the last leg of the group’s “final” tour. And to almost everyone’s surprise, the first sounds to explode from Pete Townshend’s guitar were the chords of “My Generation,” a song the band ignored on the first part of the tour.

For the next two hours, The Who rampaged through 21 songs from its 18-year existence, most of them classics of some sort, including “I Can’t Explain,” “Who Are You,” “Baba O’Riley,” “Love, Reign O’er Me,” “5:15” and “Pinball Wizard.”

The stage, from speaker-laden scaffold to scaffold, was framed by a 40-foot screen that spelled WHO. The stage was located at the bottom of the “H.” A large screen was hoisted above the stage, and closeups of the band were projected onto it throughout the show via three video cameras, a boon to those sitting in the end zone.

Revolving spotlights and fireworks added to the extensive light show. But none of those frills could steal attention away from the group itself.

Unlike many rock acts, The Who isn’t a playful band, camping it up for screams and cheers. While drummer Kenney Jones and staid bassist John Entwistle methodically perform their duties, Townshend and singer Roger Daltrey grind out their roles with a compelling tenacity that doesn’t merely attract attention — it demands it.

Both are intense performers — their antics are more for punctuation than for show. Townshend’s right arm flails away at his guitar like a windmill caught in a hurricane. He doesn’t fly through the air as often as in the past, but even with his feet on the ground, he more than lives up to his title as rock’s greatest living guitarist.

The close-cropped Daltrey struts about the stage, twirling the microphone cord like a lasso. When his gruff voice reaches for sustained notes, as on “Behind Blue Eyes,” he raises the microphone close to his mouth and tilts his head as if trying to guzzle every last drop from a bottle of champagne. That pose has become, and will remain, a trademark.

Townshend and Daltrey are The Who’s main attractions, two men creating excitement that full bands often can’t approach. And though rumors of hostilities have followed the band since its inception, the pair shared microphones and worked in tandem more than one might have expected.

See THE WHO, Page 2D