CAMDEN — First the good news: If you missed the Who’s lush “Quadrophenia” production in arenas last summer and fall, this summer’s shed tour was catch-up time.

Now the bad news: The Who duped us into thinking this was a greatest hits tour, which they hadn’t done since their 1989 stadium jaunt.

And still haven’t.

Last year’s advertising campaign was billed “Quadrophenia,” with four Who hits tossed in for the encore. This year’s advertising merely hails “The Who,” with no mention of the 1973 rock opera. That left the explaining to concert promoters, who’ve been clearly telling us to expect “The Who: The Hits” — not “Quadrophenia.”

Nonetheless, it was “Quadrophenia” again here at the E-Centre Wednesday night, for 95 solid minutes — with more hits crammed into the added half-hour at the end. Even one of the most influential bands in rock history is never ashamed to milk a good thing. We won’t get fooled again.

But the “Quadrophenia” presentation was different. The theatrics have been toned down while the musical aspect has been bolstered. The Mod who previously narrated in the flesh is now a talking overhead video projection image. Billy Idol has been smartly replaced by a spunky, crowd pleasing pug named Pat Walters. But Gary Glitter’s over-the-top, cartoonish gang leader has been handed over to P.J. Proby, a lumbering, Elvis impersonator lookalike who moves like he ate way too many fried banana and peanut butter sandwiches.

There is one less backup guitarist, enabling Pete Townshend to return from his ear-protecting love affair with the plugged-in acoustic as an effective electric guitarist for the first time in over a decade.

Pete Townshend qualified the difference after the first round of hits — “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “Behind Blue Eyes,” “Substitute” and “I Can’t Explain.” He explained that the Who screwed up “Quadrophenia” last year, and that it’s taken them this long to get it right. The guitar work by kid brother Simon Townshend, whose own solo album, “Among Us,” goes to radio next week, allowed Pete to move back to electric guitar and made possible “what was impossible to me.”

“I don’t know what any of you expected tonight,” he announced, “but we played ‘Quadrophenia’ the way we would have played it in 1973…. We got it right now.”

But…

The show was uneven. Daltrey’s singing was consistently painful all night. Though the vein-popping effort was there, he never mustered much more than a hoarse gargle most of the night. Last year, he sounded wonderful. The hits portion, plugged and unplugged, was ragged, though “I Can’t Explain,” “Substitute” and “Who Are You” still managed to muster up some spirit.

But…

Townshend, looking tired in the early going, woke up as the show moved into high gear and a rousing “515” became the first of a few highlights. Entwistle went off on a noodling tangent and Townshend started windmilling. Zack Starkey’s rolling drum work is right out of the Keith Moon School and probably more consistent.

The real joy in watching the Who comes when Townshend joyfully digs in and lets his masterful compositions take over his body.

There still is no denying the music, which, in composition alone, has yet to be matched a quarter century later. And the show had enough moments to make it worth seeing. The crowd ate it up, which probably mattered most to the band. The Who still didn’t play any music recorded since Keith Moon died (19 years ago!), which was smart, too.

But for as much as they gave, over 2 1/2 hours, they don’t have the stamina to work as hard as they have the past two years. Now that we’ve seen them again and again, it’s time for the Who to go back to doing what real bands do — join together to see if they can write more inspired music.