The Who

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On the pop charts and radio programming.

Where the Who’s songs were once filled with teen angst, now they are crammed with concerns about global destruction and such matters as fears about fitting into middle age life. The old and new songs fit together in a meaningful context Saturday.

When the Who last appeared at the stadium, in 1976 on a double-bill with the Grateful Dead, the two scheduled shows failed to sell out (only 50,000-per day in a 60,000-capacity ballpark). Those shows were excellent (with Moon on drums — he died in 1978), as were the Who’s 1980 Coliseum Arena shows. But after it got rolling, Saturday’s show was a far better concert.

The Who hit the stage at 6:15 p.m. and played until 8:30, knocking off 25 songs, a tight and excitingly-presented 19-year-history of some of the best music in rock, before a fireworks display ended the event.

As the group had two years ago at the indoor Coliseum, it opened with “Substitute” and “I Can’t Explain,” the latter its first single released in 1964. Then it moved into new material from the “It’s Hard” album. All good.

But the show kicked into high gear with “Behind Blue Eyes” and “Baba O’Riley,” as Daltrey madly swung his microphone in circles above his head, holding it by a length of cord, and Townshend unleashed his famed windmill-style arm swings as he bashed out solos of white noise on his electric guitar, all the while leaping and spinning around on the stage.

From there on, it only got better. The new “Cry if You Want” featured one of Townshend’s all-time great guitar solos. A medley of “Pinball Wizard,” “My Generation” and the “See Me, Feel Me” section of “Tommy” were as powerful as rock gets.

Several tunes from “Quadrophenia” were also included, not as well-known as Who anthems like “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” but equally impressive. Townshend threw in a Chuck Berry-style duck-walk across the stage during “Long Live Rock.”

And the band knocked off a 20-minute encore section with four songs performed without break, beginning with “Magic Bus,” including the obscure but beautiful 1971 “Let’s See Action,” and the only non-Who song of the show, the Isley Brothers’ “Twist and Shout,” with Entwistle taking the main vocal part.

As is often the case, the real focus of attention was on Daltrey, with his charismatic stage presence and non-stop calisthenics, and an equally athletic Townshend. They are the epitome of rock musicians. They don’t prance and shake their fannies like Mick Jagger, or barely move like Keith Richards (the Stones guitarist). There is no overly fancy staging, it’s music, pure and easy.

If tonight’s show is the final local appearance by the Who before it throws in the towel, it will have been a wonderful end to a band that has given rock its heartbeat.

It is also interesting to look at what went into making this a big event, where previous shows were less in the public eye.

In the two months prior to the tour, Townshend appeared on the cover of literally every rock publication in the country, and in “exclusive” interviews expressed his belief that this would be the final tour by the band, hedging his statement by adding that they would decide after the tour.

As each year passes, the bands that have survived, like the Stones and the Who, only seem to attract bigger crowds. It is a testament to the effect of the Who’s music that it still attracts a very young crowd that finds its music not tired, boring and over-the-hill, but necessary as the soundtrack to growing up in a hostile world.