LIKE OLD TIMES: A leaping Peter Townshend wows fans as The Who performs last night at Exhibition Stadium. A second concert is planned tonight although it’s already a sellout. The Toronto shows are kicking off the rock group’s 25th anniversary tour.

Galloping out to the theme song from Bonanza, The Who arrived at Exhibition Stadium last night, looking and sounding none the worse for wear.

The veteran British band opened its silver anniversary farewell tour with a rousing exclamation mark – the “Overture” from the group’s 1969 rock opera Tommy, a thunderous cue that sent the crowd of 48,000 into paroxysms.

Peter Townshend, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle have been widely scorned for dusting off their ancient roadshow for one more lunge at the cash register. But the original trio – and its 10-piece support band – seemed less like burnt-out mercenaries than seasoned pros intent on ending their turbulent career on a high note.

Townshend, his hair flecked with gray and tugged back into a discreet ponytail, may no longer be the incendiary force who singlehandedly changed the way electric guitar was played in the 1960s.

Due to hearing loss and other debilities, he has turned over the electric chores to young sideman Steve Bolton, focusing instead on the less taxing demands of acoustic guitar.

But he quickly showed how effective and intense even an acoustic instrument can be with his patented manic strumming on the lead-in to “Pinball Wizard,” another song from the Tommy canon.

Entwistle, the group’s bassist, is still the best technician in the game, underscoring The Who’s melodies with fat, dexterous designs that surged into the foreground during many of the best numbers.

Only Daltrey, the tiny blond Adonis, seemed diminished by age. His voice, once among the most powerful in rock, has lost some of its range and elasticity in the upper registers, leaving classic anthems like “I’m Free” sounding forced and a little parched.

Happily, Daltrey still has a knack for youthful inflection, lending raspy credence to the defiant “We’re Not Gonna Take It” and swinging his microphone cord high into the air just like old times – notwithstanding a slight case of the dropsies.

“It’s a lot to get used to,” he sighed after the Tommy segment reached its explosive finale.

As a stage show, last night’s performance – to be repeated this evening and already sold out – was an exercise in jazzy pop art.

In last night’s exhaustive, 38-song survey, there were moments of genuine exhilaration, marred only by the occasional sonic dud. “Magic Bus” was strangely limp and uninvolving, but the action picked up again with “Baba O’Reilly,” the clarion cry from Who’s Next.

By the time the group launched into a tough, uncompromising version of “My Generation,” it was as if the years had peeled back and The Who was the only rock band that mattered again.

It was an illusion, of course. But it worked for three hours.