“So we put together a very different piece for us. It’s very much a theatrical show for arenas. It tells the narrative using film and stage action. That’s not to say we’re all dressing up in funny clothes or that we’re just the pit band for a full-length feature film. . . . It’s very much an interactive show between the stage and the screens.”

The touring “Quadrophenia” band includes British rockers Gary Glitter and Billy Idol and Townshend’s brother, Simon. Ringo Starr’s son, Zak Starkey, plays drums. The group also includes longtime Who collaborators percussionist Jody Linscott and keyboardists Jon Carin and John “Rabbit” Bundrick.

“It’s a big challenge to pull it off,” says Daltrey. “But it seems to be working very, very well. It might not be quite what people are expecting but they are going away extremely happy. The addition of the orchestral brass section gives it a totally different sound. We never really performed ‘Quadrophenia’ on stage the way it should have been. The audio-visual technology was just too substandard back in the ’70s.”

Daltrey says the band does several songs at the end of the concert that are not on “Quadrophenia,” including acoustic renditions of “Who Are You” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” But he says fans shouldn’t come to Wednesday’s concert expecting a “Who’s Greatest Hits” show.

“I personally am not interested in doing that kind of greatest hits show,” he says. “And I don’t think Pete is either. It would be very successful, I’m sure. And the fans would love it. But it has to come from the heart. The other songs that we do in concert are done very differently than the Who has ever done them before. They gain incredible strength by stripping them down.”

Could the “Quadrophenia” tour possibly lead to a new Who album? “I really don’t know,” says Daltrey. “You just don’t know with Pete day to day unfortunately. It’s like playing a game of soccer and he’s continually moving his goal post. It’s incredibly difficult. It’s very frustrating. There is a possibility we may do an ‘Unplugged’ album. But who knows? It’s a terrible thing because it’s all up to one person in this band. We’re all equal, except that Pete is more equal than everybody else.”

Whatever happens, Daltrey says he’s quite content with life outside the Who.

“I’m not the kind of guy who could retire,” he says. “I do a lot of work as a character actor. I just did an episode of ‘Superman’ and I’ve got a couple of film and TV projects in the pipeline for next year.”

Daltrey says he is also working on a new solo album, a rootsy rock and blues record that he calls a labor of love.

“It’s a very different album for me,” he says. “The Who started out as a blues band. I was very much influenced by all that early, early blues and very early rock ’n’ roll. And I want to take it back there, strip it down and do music that I really love.”

For your information

The Who performs “Quadrophenia” at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Gund Arena. Tickets, $45 and $30, are available at the box office, at Ticketmaster locations or by phone at at 241-5555 or 1-330-945-9400 in Akron. The Heads open.

MUSIC

Top ticket cost $4.50

THEN FROM 16

“I’m a fan, I just wanted to hear the Who play,” he said later.

That was the show where young fans wandered up on stage, stuck paper flowers on Moon’s drum and took pictures. “Tell him I’m your cousin,” pleaded John Ticknor of Strongsville, then 21. “He’s me cousin, leave ’im alone,” Moon told the policeman. Later, Moon and road manager Ben Pump played claves (wood percussion instruments) for a new song, “Magic Bus.” It went over big.

The next year the Who broke the first successful rock opera, “Tommy,” to the Music Hall, and the audience gave the English quartet a two-minute standing ovation. This paper ran a rock writer’s and classical writer’s review, side by side. Classical music reviewer Robert Finn called it “sheer public relations trickery,” adding that “it was no opera at all, but rather a string of rock numbers held together by a story line. There is no staging, no action save that provided by the gyrations of the performers themselves.”

The Who’s Decca record of “Tommy” sold 3½ million copies.

Two years later, in 1971, at a sold-out Public Hall show, Who members were more sensitive to crowd activities. Townshend came to the front of the stage and said, “Oh, what a horrible cacophony! You almost make as much noise as we, but not quite.”

Music was the message then, with the “Who’s Next” album and Daltrey dancing out with the bright new single, “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” No one seemed too interested in acoustic artist James Taylor.

Daltrey and drummer Kenney Jones had one of their most attentive audiences at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in 1978. “Their eyes just shone when Daltrey and Jones came out and gave them autographed albums,” said Linda Nicholl of Strongsville, then hospital development director. Jones had taken Moon’s place.

Moon’s overdose death at 31 on Sept. 7, 1978, broke up the continuity of the band, together without a personnel change for 15 years. He was known as “the mad drummer.” He shredded hotel rooms and once drove a limo into a swimming pool, according to wire reports, en route to becoming a beloved character.

The next year, the Who played to a sell-out crowd of 19,000 at the Coliseum without the gimmicks. The crowd was exuberant but controlled. Stuart Geller, president of the Coliseum, talked to the crowd about the 11 Who fans trampled to death in Cincinnati on Dec. 3, 1979, at a concert that featured festival (non-reserved) seating. “We don’t intend to ever have that happen here,” he said. Cleveland did not have festival seating.

That Coliseum show began 15 minutes late because of the huge crowds. The start was film clips from the band’s new movie, “Quadrophenia,” which is “yet to be shown in Cleveland,” the promo said.

It will be sung Wednesday at Gund Arena, along with other Who favorite songs we love.

The Who disbanded in 1982 with a “Who’s Last Hurrah” tour, then reunited for the monumental “Live Aid” tour in Philadelphia in 1986. Then on July 19, 1989, the Who gave a three-hour reunion concert in the Stadium with a five-man horn section and three back-up vocalists. It drew more than 64,000 fans.

As Townshend, 51, who once referred to his group as “grandpas,” told Rolling Stone magazine that year, “It’s what the audience feels about this band that’s important.”