Meet the new Who. Pretty much the same as the old Who.

Earlier this year, Who guitarist and ringleader Pete Townshend insisted he wouldn’t play electric guitar on this tour to protect his rock ’n’ roll-damaged ears.

Nonsense.

Mr. Townshend, 44, was strapping on his Stratocaster before the beefed-up 15-piece band was into its second hour during Monday night’s concert at Lakewood Amphitheatre.

He also claimed he wouldn’t indulge in his legendary grands jetes, high kicks and other gymnastics because, he said, such antics would make it difficult to concentrate.

Hooey.

The hawk-nosed Britisher entered the stage leaping about like a young springbok at play, and continued disporting himself throughout the three-hour show, the first of three at Lakewood. In all, the concert, attended by about 15,000 — 3,000 under capacity — was a concentrated dose of vintage Who, 1980s-style, from the 35-minute suite from “Tommy” (complete with “Overture”) that opened the proceedings to the thunderous show-closer, “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

“Wow,” said Ronnie Edge of Lanett, Ala. “It’s everything I thought it would be. If we’d only got here earlier.”

Even some who bought tickets early enough to get reserved seats, such as Lisa Eubanks and Katie O’Reilly, both of Pensacola, Fla., found it difficult to get a good view of the band, with most of the crowd on its feet throughout the night.

“We wasted $26,” said Ms. O’Reilly, who had retreated outside the reserved seat area. Ms. Eubanks added, “It was a good concert if we could see.”

Others were thoroughly pleased. “This brings back childhood memories,” said Cyndi Hurtt of Chattanooga, Tenn. (Ms. Hurtt, 32, had never seen the Who perform before, but for her, like many of those born in the 1950s, the Who defines adolescence.)

The mini performance of the 1969 rock opera “Tommy” included “1921,” “Amazing Journey” (with vocalist Roger Daltrey, 45, slinging around his microphone like Indiana Jones), “Underture,” “Acid Queen,” “Pinball Wizard,” “Welcome” and “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” Mr. Townshend offered some tunes from his solo albums, including “Rough Boys” — he even craftily wedged some songs from his latest solo venture, “Iron Man,” into the intermission tapes — but it was the Who songs that got this crowd screaming.