In its concert Wednesday night at the Glens Falls Civic Center, The Who will feature a slew of songs from the late 1960s and early ’70s, a selection that should please the group’s many older fans, according to two prominent rock ’n’ roll journalists.

But with lead guitarist Pete Townshend relegated to the rhythm section, and with unfamiliar faces thronging the stage, the classic hits are bound to sound different, the writers said.

In its heyday, “The Who was four guys making the biggest racket they could,” said Steve Pond, a freelance writer from Los Angeles. “That’s not The Who anymore.”

“It’s going to be a different version of The Who,” said Steve Morse, a rock critic with The Boston Globe. “They’re going to have a 15-piece band: a horn section, backup singers.”

Post-Star Music Critic Mike Curtin on The Who: See Page C6

But Morse, one of a handful of national reporters invited to the “warm-up” concert Wednesday night, said he expected to enjoy the show.

“It’s a chance to hear those songs again,” Morse said. Even if the band has changed with time, “it’s still going to be a hell of a show,” he said.

The Glens Falls concert is unique in two ways, he said: It’s the first live performance by The Who in six years; and the civic center, with room for just 5,000, is the smallest hall on the tour.

“You’re going to get a little bit more intimacy,” Morse said. “More the spirit of the band rather than the polished, professional side I’m sure will take over when the tour’s two months old.”

Both writers based their predictions on recent interviews with band members. Morse met them in New York City, where they stopped before heading up the Hudson River. Pond, who wrote a cover story on the band for Rolling Stone magazine, talked to them in England, where he sat in on three days of rehearsals for the tour.

If the concert resembles those studio sessions, Pond said fans can expect to hear “just about everything the band has recorded, more of the oldies than they’ve done live in quite a while.”

This includes songs from all the early albums, from “My Generation” (1965) through “Who’s Next” (1971) and the soundtrack “Quadrophenia” (1973), he said.

The band is also expected to play songs recorded by Townshend on his own, including numbers from new album, “The Iron Man.”

The Who made its mark two decades ago with distorted, ear-splitting performances of legendary anthems such as “My Generation” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

In the early days the band earned a bad-boy image, sometimes bashing their guitars to pieces on stage with amplifiers at full volume. Today, the 43-year-old Townshend has lost part of his hearing and says he sometimes experiences ringing in his ears during performances. In concert, Townshend will reportedly stick to strumming an acoustic guitar and let a stand-in on an electric instrument handle his patented leads.

Pond — who compared old-time Who concerts to “standing next to a jet aircraft taking off” — said Townshend was already taking precautions during the studio rehearsals.

“It’s very strange to see The Who when Pete Townshend is in a booth by himself playing rhythm guitar,” Pond said. “It took me aback.”

“That’s the mystery to me,” Morse said, “that the tickets have sold so quickly even though Townshend is playing mostly acoustic guitar. That’s not The Who as everybody knows The Who.”

Most journalists were sent to Toronto

By William Hammond Staff Writer

The Who concert Wednesday night at the Glens Falls Civic Center — the band’s first live performance in six years — has already won national media attention and might have sparked a journalistic frenzy if tour organizers hadn’t ushered some reporters away.

“We were trying to sway the majority of the press from that particular show and trying to get them to review the opening show on the 23rd (Friday) in Toronto,” said Brian O’Neal, an assistant publicist at Mahoney, Wasserman and Associates, the Beverly Hills firm handling public relations for the tour.

“The 23rd will be much more of an extravaganza as far as the press being there,” O’Neal said.

The Glens Falls concert is considered a “warm-up” and not officially part of the tour, he said. Only nine or 10 publications outside the area will be invited, he said.

“The band hasn’t been together for a long time,” O’Neal said. “They want to familiarize themselves with playing on stage in front of a large group of people.”

The news that Glens Falls would host The Who’s 1989 debut appeared on the front page of USA Today’s Life section.

“Why Glens Falls?” the June 8 article asked. “Organizers speculate that the band sought a quiet Northeast hideaway that would allow them to test-drive the show without fanfare.”

“Nobody’s going to review it with full sabers rattling,” said Steve Morse of The Boston Globe, one of the few national critics allowed into the event. “Any first show, no matter where it is, is going to be a little bit problematic.”

As of last week, nine media outlets were on O’Neal’s list for admission to the Civic Center. There was one wire service (The Associated Press), two magazines (Newsweek and Billboard), and six newspapers (the Globe, The Detroit Free Press, The Chicago Sun-Times, Newsday on Long Island, The Philadelphia Daily News and Waterbury (Conn.) Republican).

Local media are being coordinated through Northeast Concerts, a Rocky Hill, Conn., firm promoting the Glens Falls show. A spokeswoman said all the local newspapers will be present, as well as crews from the local television stations, which will supply video coverage for their national network affiliates.

TV and still photographers will be asked to leave the Civic Center after the first two or three songs, the spokeswoman said.

The event might have put Glens Falls on the map, but apparently not the one they use in England.

When told their opening date was in upstate New York, band members made plans to visit a favorite music shop in Manhattan, said Steve Pond, a writer for Rolling Stone magazine who interviewed the musicians before they left for the United States.

“The tour manager had to explain to them that Glens Falls was a long way from New York City,” Pond said.