The other movie used the Who only as background music. "Quadrophenia," a movie version of the Who's second rock opera, took a look at the mid-'60s English Mods and Rockers movements in England. The Mods and Rockers were rebellious young adults looking for meaning in a crazed world and finding it in rock and roll.

That's what the Who has always been about: the release of pent-up aggressive energy through music.

The band hung in the background for a couple years while the Beatles and Rolling Stones got most of the attention, but when the Who concluded its 1967 Monterey Pop Festival performance by destroying its instruments in the midst of exploding smoke bombs, it had made its mark. The Who's Woodstock appearance in 1969 reconfirmed the band's primal energy and spread the word to anyone who hadn't already been deafened.

The group has had its share of hits, selling 20 million records worldwide, yet no recording or film can capture the power of the band in person. The amazing thing is that their sound is based on the most simple of instrumentations, just bass (John Entwistle), drums (Kenney Jones replaced the late Keith Moon) and guitar (Townshend) backing up Roger Daltrey's singing.

On the East Coast leg of the Who's latest tour, the band was augmented by a keyboardist and a horn section for several songs, and will probably do the same for its Western shows.

While most rock bands do their fighting in private and try to maintain a good image in public, the Who has lived out its ups and downs in the public eye. When one member has complained about the others in a magazine interview, another member has attacked him in a later interview. Daltrey and Townshend have more than once come to blows.

"We've been breaking up since the day we started," Daltrey once said. Despite the fights, the Who has outlasted most of its contemporaries. Who performers are the group's biggest fans and its strongest critics. Although all have done solo projects, they say that as a group the Who is something wonderful beyond even their comprehension.

Living on the edge, taking their music to the point of anarchy on stage and trying to make sense of their lives at home, the Who seemed like they would quickly burn out.