A grand rock institution like the Who should go out in grand style. Instead, the group's farewell-tour performance Saturday at the St. Paul Civic Center was a typical Who concert: explosive, energetic, eardrum splitting and slightly erratic.

What was really less than grand about the 2¼-hour concert was not so much what the band did as what it omitted. Too many important Who songs were missed: the signature "My Generation," the current single "Athena," the classics "Magic Bus," "I Can See for Miles" and Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues," and the recent hits "You Better You Bet" and "Squeeze Box." Certainly some of those numbers would have been more welcomed than a couple of the marginal selections from the new "It's Hard" album because, after all, this was the Who's swan song in the Twin Cities. (Actually, the band appeared again Sunday night.)

Nonetheless, what the Who played was powerful and stirring. The quartet started so ferociously with two early hits, "Substitute" and "I Can't Explain," that it was doubtful that the players could sustain it. However, guitarist Pete Townshend, the visual centerpiece and creative leader of the band, gave perhaps his most consistent and finest Twin Cities performance. From his first flying leap in "Substitute" and his initial patented windmill strum in "I Can't Explain" to his bouncing his guitar off the stage at the end of the night, Townshend commanded the attention of the sellout crowd of more than 17,000.

Singer Roger Daltrey, an "un-suave" matinee idol, gave a mostly strong farewell performance, too, even though his marching around in circles and twirling the microphone like a lariat are hardly what turns on a rock crowd.

Yet what quietly made the concert so solid was the drumming of Kenney Jones, who replaced the late Keith Moon in '79. If Jones was irritatingly erratic on the Who's last tour in 1980, he was consistently formidable Saturday. He may not perform with the clowning, madcap exuberance of the inimitable Moon, but Jones, formerly of the Faces, played with power, punch and precision. He certainly made it easier for stolid bassist John Entwistle to improvise without losing impact.

Although the Who's popularity and influence is rivaled by only the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, this 19-year-old British band has never had the mystique of the Stones or their penchant for staging spectacles in concert. Instead the Who offers a straightforward presentation augmented only by a smoke bomb here and there and a big but ordinary light show.

You will never see a hard-rock band control a potentially volatile crowd the way the Who can. Saturday during "Baba O'Riley," the predominantly teen-aged fans went wild during the opening synthesizers notes rendered by guest sideman Tim Gorman. The fans waved their fists in the air as Daltrey screamed about the "teen-age wasteland", and they hollered along.

Never, though, did the fans' behavior or the Who's performance reach the breaking point of chaos. It was simply an aging band, which has championed adolescence more vehemently than any other, giving a heartfelt, professional performance.

Daltrey's raging screams on "Love, Reign O'er Me" and "You Won't Get Fooled Again" brought shivers and made one forget that he had sung offkey on "Who Are You" and the "Tommy" medley.

There were a couple of other off moments for the Who, including the new "A Man Is a Man," the uneventful "I'm One," from "Quadrophenia;" the sluggish "Sister Disco" and the poignant "Long Live Rock."

A review

In fact, the lackluster ending to the "Long Live Rock" seemed so inappropriate for the occasion that Townshend independently launched into an unplanned reprise of the last chorus so the important thought could end on an emphatic note.

Townshend, 37, played with an astonishing, renewed sense of purpose for a bandleader wanting to disband his vaunted band. (The band is scheduled to record one more album after this tour.) His guitar work was plaintive on ballads, evocative on blues and riveting on the rockers. His playing combined with his kicks and frog-leaps left little doubt about his stature in rock: He is the consummate rock guitar showman whose histrionics match his playing, prowess.

His penchant to surprise and outrage was a big part of his finale Saturday. The Who closed the show unexpectedly with a rousing version of the Isley Brothers "Twist and Shout," a tune made famous by the Beatles. That seemed quite out of character

Staff Photo by Regene Radniecki

Singer Roger Daltrey of The Who

for a band that refused to play its own theme "My Generation." Yet Townshend did break a guitar string, kick over his microphone and finally slam his guitar off the foot of the stage, which was the closest he has come to self-destruction on the Who's farewell tour.