The Who have travelled past their maturity as a band, but not into the declining twilight. Instead, in a remarkable defiance of the norm, their current tour has shown a stunning rejuvenation and renewal of the group’s energy and impact.

The result Saturday night at the Dane County Coliseum was a charismatic experience approaching the ecstasy of religious revelation for a capacity crowd of 10,100 eager acolytes.

Although sizable, the audience was (by rock concert standards at least) well-behaved — leavened with older fans, determined not to court ejection for misconduct, and conserving energy in confident expectation of complete catharsis from the music itself, rather than the chemical, alcoholic, brawling sideshows necessary to obtain release with lesser groups.

However, the music itself got off to a shaky start, with sound problems during the opening “I Can’t Explain” and “Substitute.” After Roger Daltrey good-naturedly but firmly promised “If we don’t get it together (the sound), we’ll smash it to bits . . .,” the first climax came on “Baba O’Riley,” which opened with Keith Moon’s gleefully elaborate patomine over his traps, then struck home with an effective orchestrated interplay between Peter Townshend’s reflectively rusty second vocal and Daltrey’s aggressive lead.

After the lighthearted “Squeezebox,” the band went to “Behind Blue Eyes,” which evolved from an affecting ballad into a brief but frenzied jam, and then reached back for “Magic Bus” — which was more than usually flinty and provided the framework for a fair extended jam that had Townshend alternating powerchord guitar breaks with nasty single note runs.

But good as these were, the best of the entire show was clearly the run-through of “Tommy” — now stripped back down to bare-bones rock and roll. Or, as Keith Moon introduced it: “The original, definitive version — or what’s left of it . . .”

What’s left was more than enough. The music reached a crunching climax with “Amazing Journey” and “Sparks,” and Daltrey was at his primal best on “The Acid Queen,” before yielding briefly to Moon’s leering “Fiddle About.” Then it was on to Tommy’s pinball wizardy, awakening, and gurudom, before the bitter revolt of his followers (“We’re Not Gonna Take It”) set the stage for the transcendent “Listening To You.”

With Daltrey plaintively wailing “see me, feel me, touch me, heal me,” and then triumphantly proclaiming “listening to you, I hear the music,” the crowd stood transfixed with emotion — some still and wide-eyed, some shouting in rock and roll tongues, some jerking ecstatically or swaying in a suffusion of bliss.

For the onlookers, this wave of emotion was overwhelming, but it was equally significant for the band. The rest of the show was hardly anti-climatic, featuring a powerful homage to the group’s roots on Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues,” their earliest proclamation in “My Generation” (“I hope I die before I get old”) — with outstanding bass by John Entwhistle — and the mature political determination of “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

But the crowd impact of “Tommy” was generated by its resurrection and transformation for the performers themselves. It has turned from an albatross — a good idea that got out of hand — to a genuine statement that can be made without embarrassment or hesitancy by those who would be quickest to grow jaded. Renewed by this piece and other material equally as strong, The Who are striding close to the timelessness characteristic of only the highest art.