THE WHO — Entwistle, Daltrey, Moon and Townshend. Winterland show confirmed their brilliance; the devoted audience couldn't get enough.

Magnificent — that's Who

By Philip Elwood

Britain's formidable rock quartet The Who roared through Winterland, presenting Saturday and Sunday night concerts before 5000 fans each night — the shows were the final scheduled pair for their "American Tour, Part II."

The Who played a total of 21 numbers during their hour and 45 minutes on stage; of these, nine were included in the medley from guitarist Pete Townshend's remarkable rock opera, "Tommy."

Staging, pacing, dynamics, musical variety and careful attention to apparently haphazard and informal hi-jinks have made The Who one of the most popular and most venerable, groups in rock-history; with the same personnel for over a dozen years and an unmatched ensemble cohesiveness The Who remain distinctive, musically exciting and theatrically magnificent.

They began, Saturday, with "I Can't Explain," followed by "Substitute," both used as warmup numbers, especially allowing singer Roger Daltrey a chance to swing his mike, lasso-style, in arcs of ten feet around and over and under.

Six massive arena spotlights and over a hundred computerized stage spots (mostly red and blue) illuminated Daltrey and his colleagues. Backlighting, heavily white, seemed to enlarge drummer Keith Moon and his percussion battery. Moon was playing at stage level this time, not perched on a pedestal as in the past; He has fallen off too often. His hair blew in strange configurations, whipped by the strong breezes of a large fan planted amidst his cymbals.

With "My Wife" the beat began to swing, Townshend's leaping about the stage increased, and the crowd roared; "Baba O'Riley" with its schottische-like beat brought Daltrey and Townshend into duet-dancing and Moon going crazy at the drums. Meanwhile, the stoical John Entwistle stood stage right playing as forceful a bass line as exists in rock, contemplating the excesses of his Who associates.

Occasionally during the performance Townshend cut-in pre-taped synthesized accompaniment sounds and a couple of times (noticeably on "Magic Bus" and "Join Together") a strong gospel sound came into the Daltrey-Townshend-Entwistle vocal lines.

The a capella inserts in "Dreaming From the Waist," the astonishingly complex instrumental lines on "Behind Blue Eyes," with its accelerated meter at the end, and the nostalgic flavor to "Summertime Blues" were especially tasty moments … and Townshend's Spanish guitar style interlude during "My Generation" was an audio respite.

But it was the "Tommy" sequence that blew the concert wide open. From the overture through "Amazing Journey," "Acid Queen," "Pinball Wizard," Keith's "Fiddle About" and "Tommy's Holiday Camp," then to the climactic "See Me, Feel Me," the presentation was something to behold. Hundreds of blue, green and red laser beams provided a lattice of lights overhead. The climax came with brilliant white spots flooding stage and arena — we were, just for a few minutes, all a part of The Who.

Traditionally, the concert ended with "Won't Get Fooled Again," Townshend said "good night," Moon fell down on stage and was dragged off.

As happens at the end of a tour, there was some stage tenseness brought on by fatigue. Daltrey, sick with flu, was occasionally violently out-of-sorts and there was frequent audio feedback.

The crowd, most of whom had been around Winterland all day (in or out) assumed an encore; getting none, their cheers turned to chants of protests.

The Winterland performance, in fact, was virtually identical with all those on the tour — encores have seldom been part of the Who performance.

The warmup set by the Steve Gibbons Band went by unnoticed except by those who kept booing and shouting "We want the Who," the same rowdies who complained at the end of the evening, no doubt.