Pete Townshend, left, and Roger Daltrey perform as the veteran rock band The Who appears in concert Friday night at the Inglewood Forum.

The Who, relegated in recent years to chasing the ghost of its own early greatness, caught up with that greatness Friday night at the Inglewood Forum with a masterful display of energy and commitment.

The veteran rock band still relies too much on old material, but the power of its performance surely convinced both the curious and the cultists in the audience that The Who deserves its ranking as one of the half-dozen best bands ever in rock.

The curious were out in large numbers, underscoring the fact that The Who doesn't really play for its generation any more. Most of the 18,000 people on hand for the band’s first local appearance in four years weren’t even in grade school 15 years ago when The Who surfaced in England with such teen-directed anthems as "My Generation."

Whether uncomfortable in arena

POP MUSIC REVIEW

THE WHO LIVES UP TO ITS REPUTATION

By ROBERT HILBURN

Times Pop Music Critic

settings or unwilling to scramble for the usually hard-to-get tickets, the over-30 crowd rarely attends major rock shows. That leaves the seats to youngsters, many of whom Friday seemed hazy about the specifics of The Who’s history.

Except for the rock opera “Tommy,” the teen-age couple from La Canada couldn’t come up quickly with the names of any Who albums. When pressed, the girl finally mentioned “Houses of the Holy” — a Led Zeppelin LP.

Still, she clutched a $5 souvenir program in one hand, an $8 Who T-shirt in the other, and she was eager for the show to begin. She and her friend had heard all the talk about the “legendary” Who and they wanted to judge for themselves. Were The Who as good as their favorites, Aerosmith and Kansas?

To veteran fans, mentioning the classic Who and commonplace Kansas in the same breath is rock ’n roll heresy. Along with Elvis Presley, Little Richard, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, The Who defined rock.

It’s hard to go through a week of

shows without seeing evidence of The Who’s impact, from the band’s uplifting themes about youthful self-affirmation to such visual trademarks as lead singer Roger Daltrey’s stallion-like poses and Pete Townshend’s windmill guitar strumming.

But today’s rock audiences want results, not history — and that’s as it should be. Given the enthusiasm for tickets, the initial audience response was bound to be respectful. The group’s seven Los Angeles shows sold out so fast (110,000 tickets) that promoter Jim Rissmiller could have probably added four or five more dates. (The Who moves over to the Sports Arena tonight for five nights.)

The danger in such a high expectancy level is that the early cheering will disappear quickly if the band isn’t in top form. It was clear from the start at the Forum, however, that The Who wasn’t about to let the enthusiasm wane.

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