Pete Townshend … inspirations from LSD trips and the benign guru Meher Baba.

Tommy returns and shows he’s grown up

NEW YORK, Thursday: From the first time it was heard more than 20 years ago, the Who’s Tommy divided listeners into two camps: those who admired its ambition and grandeur, and those who scoffed that the very phrase “rock opera” was a pretentious oxymoron.

But when the Who performed Tommy on Tuesday night at Radio City Music Hall, even a sceptic had to be heartened at how well Pete Townshend’s improbable hour-length work – about an abused deaf, dumb and blind boy who finds transcendence through pinball – has stood the test of time.

That Tommy works at all is astonishing, considering the spiritual quest its composer was on when he was pulling it together in the late 1960s.

Townshend’s inspirations included the benign guru Meher Baba, numerous LSD trips, and tales of a spiritually perfect race on another planet by one George Adamski.

Yet there was nothing dated or nostalgic about Tommy as performed by the core of the Who – Townshend, vocalist Roger Daltrey, and bassist John Entwistle – supplemented by a dozen other musicians forming a mini-orchestra.

And there was no sign of the well-publicised depressive cynicism from the Who’s yin-and-yang: Daltrey, in T-shirt and jeans, sang with force and delight, while the black-suited Townshend played with passion. His expression was inscrutable, as if performing Tommy was helping him solve some longstanding inner mystery.

The rock opera itself was streamlined, with the 10-minute instrumental filler Underture from the 1969 album version deleted. Video screens flanked the stage, and slides that illustrated parts of the libretto were flashed behind the musicians.

If there is any emblem of the validity of the songs from Tommy, it is Pinball Wizard, which has even outlived the now-antiquated activity it once celebrated.

Because Tommy was so short, the group played a greatest-hits set for the next 90 minutes.

The primal stomp of Can’t Explain and Substitute, among the Who’s earliest songs, had it all over later career dinosaur-gasps such as the insincere-sounding Join Together With the Band and the trivial pop of You Better You Bet.

A new tune from Townshend’s current solo album sounded like a weak Cat Stevens song. But when Townshend wound up his arm for his trademark windmill strum on Won’t Get Fooled Again, all was forgiven. Newsday