Even at a benefit concert like Thursday’s star-studded performance of “Tommy,” put on by the Who at the Universal Amphitheatre, it’s easy to find cynics.

Mindful of the current Who tour’s controversial brewery sponsorship, one wag suggested that maybe the rock opera’s troubled title character could appear in a beer commercial—as in, maybe, “That deaf, dumb and blind kid sure can knock ’em back!”

Cheap shot. Uncalled for. Irascible.

But then, “Tommy” itself was a fairly acerbic work, especially for its dreamy, idealistic year, 1969. If the Who’s world-weary anthem “Won’t Get Fooled Again” later served as the final benediction for