Roger Daltrey, left, and Pete Townshend jam Friday during a benefit show at the House of Blues. Daily Herald Photo/Mark Welsh

It’s hard to believe greed would play a factor in a charity benefit, but it did Friday when The Who played the first of two much-hyped shows for the Maryville Academy in Des Plaines.

It was the fourth time Who auteur Pete Townshend arrived at the House of Blues to raise money for the orphanage.

This time, though, it was clear charity promoters decided to milk The Who’s name for all it was worth: the $300 tickets were obviously oversold, which meant about twice as many people had to cram inside the club.

In a situation the city fire marshal would have been interested in, the mostly male crowd stood chin to chin and had nothing to do except pound beers, light up a few joints and push each other while on their feet for five hours straight.

Tickets could have been limited or a larger venue could have been booked. General admission shows have a history of turning ugly, from this summer’s maligned Woodstock concert to another infamous show in Who history: Cincinnati, 1979, when the crowd fought to get a good spot near the stage.

Eleven people died.

No one must have thought about that. Because, hey, even though that high price brought with it intensely hazardous conditions, it was still worth it to see such a legendary band, right?

Wrong.

The Who showed up Friday but proved to be there more in body than in spirit. No big surprise. The band last recorded in 1982.

Since then, they’ve aged not so gracefully: regrouping for hire, selling most of its catalog to TV commercials, and lending old musical ideas to be refashioned for garish, Broadway musicals.

Singer Roger Daltrey looked lean, tan and clearly showed the most energy. His surviving bandmates John Entwistle and Townshend slagged through the first part of the show, the look of misery pasted clearly on their faces.

Joined by drummer Zak Starkey (Ringo’s son), the band bumbled through most of its catalog. Daltrey nursed a hoarse voice with tea but that didn’t help him from frequently forgetting lyrics. Their disregard for rehearsing was obvious, searching out moments where to begin and when to stop.

Mostly, the show made you want to flock back to your old movies of the band when they were once one of rock’s most menacing forces.

Some dignity was re-gained near the end: Townshend’s command of “Eminence Front” and he and Entwistle’s solo bravado during a slash-and-burn take of “5:15.”

Even “After the Fire,” a song Townshend wrote for a Daltrey solo album, sounded convincing, probably because the lyrics’ intelligent look at middle age meant something to the people playing it.

Sure, it was nice money went to a charity. But it would have been nice if charity organizers acted with some of their own.