Continued from E-1

Staff said there were no problems with crowd control. Nevertheless, she said officials have learned a lot since.

Blackfoot, a musical group of native Detroiters, opened the concert with their latest single, "Train, Train." It was followed by half an hour of hard-driving rock and roll, preparing the crowd for the Who's appearance.

During a 15 minute break to clear the stage, a film clip from The Who's second movie, "Quadrophenia," was shown. There was whistling and "who-ing" as the crowd waited anxiously for the group.

At 8:30 P.M. band members Roger Daltry, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Kenney Jones came onstage. The crowd on the floor of the stadium pushed closer. Ten minutes into the first set, lead vocalist Daltry asked the audience near the stage to take a step back.

The crowd eased back, but after the next song, "Teen-age Lament," he repeated it again: "Let's everybody take a step back. If something happened here tonight we couldn't face ourselves."

The admonitions were helpful but only for brief intervals. The crowd continued to surge throughout the performance. A plywood barricade and security people separated the audience from the stage.

More than a hundred people pushed into the barricade were lifted over it by security people on the stage and sent out through side exits to the floor.

Jim Mills, a security person on the stage during the concert, helped pull people over the barricade. "The people were compact for about 10 feet back," he said, "once they got up against the wall they were stuck."

Jim Port, a 19-year-old from Ann Arbor, spent some time near the stage. "It was pretty weird," he said afterward. "There was no place to go and I couldn't bend. People were standing on my legs. It was pretty intense for a while."

It was only then, Port said, that he fully realized the potential danger of the crowd. His parents, aware of the incident in Cincinnati, had told him to be careful.

The possibility of a stampede didn't affect a group of friends from Fraser, they said. "If it happens I would care," Micki said, "but I didn't really think about it."

In Cincinnati, officials are still investigating the stampede, and have blamed general admission seating for the rush to the doors.

Oblivious to the discomfort, the audience at the Silverdome was more responsive to the group's older songs: "Behind Blue Eyes," "I Can't Explain," "I Can See for Miles and Miles" and "I Won't Get Fooled Again," than the newer, less familiar songs.

The selections from the rock opera "Tommy" brought nearly everyone to their feet: "Pinball Wizard" and "See Me, Feel Me." People were dancing in their seats instead of in the streets, as one song proclaimed.

The usual number of frisbees floated through the air from balconies. From the top of the mini-dome it looked as if the stadium was carpeted with people. It was difficult to distinguish where those standing on the floor left off and the balcony seats began.

The band left the stage but only until the flicks of a few thousand Bics and nearly six minutes elapsed. They then returned for an encore.

The possibility that there might not be an encore occurred to very few; lighters and matches were held high during the wait, adding to the festive atmosphere induced by a Christmas tree lit with red lights hung from the top of the stadium over the stage.

The audience seemed satisfied with "The Magic Bus" and "Summertime Blues" played by The Who for the encore, but the crowd knew it was over.

Daltry's final words to the audience were "See you next year." Jim Port was still hanging around near the stage when the lights came on.

He and a friend were eyeing the floor, wandering through random piles of shirts, shoes, jackets, sweaters, gloves, bottles and a pair of eyeglasses, searching for Port's missing shoe and glove.

They were lost, Port explained, while he was packed like a sardine toward the front of the stage.

"I found a shoe that's a pretty good fit," he said, pointing to a shoe much different than the one on his other foot, "but I'll be bummed if I can't find mine."

His glove turned up, and after several more minutes of poking through the remains, he found his shoe.

Willing to part with his spare, he held it up to the other searchers: "Anyone lose a shoe?" Port was ready to head home with the rock music of The Who still ringing in his ears.