MUSIC REVIEW

Christobal Perez / Chronicle Guitarist Pete Townshend shows the same old magic during the Who’s Tuesday performance at The Woodlands. Lead singer Roger Daltrey is in the background.

The Who proves it’s no oldies band

By MICHAEL D. CLARK

Houston Chronicle

Tuesday’s the Who show officially sealed 2000 as the year of the reunion tour.

In the ’80s, the arena rock of U2 and Whitesnake ruled the concert season. The ’90s featured rock festivals with cutting-edge upstarts like Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains. This year, concert ticket buyers have forgotten both eras and jumped back to the ’60s and ’70s.

And with good reason. The early legends are producing superior concerts.

Earlier this year the coupling of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band was a heartland rock sanctuary. The reincarnation of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young was a folk-rock treasure.

Tuesday at the Woodlands Pavilion, the Who launched a second (or third? or fourth?) assault of the British Invasion and proved that its self-prescribed rumors of demise have been very exaggerated.

For the final show on this leg of the “Blues to the Bus” tour, gone were the rock-opera histrionics that brought original members Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle together for a Quadrophenia revival tour four years ago.

In its place was two-plus hours of maximum R&B by three mid-50s rock/legends who didn’t succumb to the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle even as they defined it. Without John Lennon to complement Paul McCartney and the degradation of both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’ vocal chords, Daltrey and Townshend represent rock’s most hallowed and familiar dual harmony still on the road.

Shouting about bad reviews in the papers and playfully scolding the audience for conversing when he was speaking, Townshend acts — and seems to relish — the part of cranky grandpa. Deftly maneuvering through inspired melodic ax grinds and fast-fleeing blues riffs on I Can’t Explain and Substitute, the songs acted as a fountain of youth.

“We’ve been here for 15 minutes, and there’s no cake for me or flowers for Roger,” Townshend bellowed to a tightly packed audience of boomers, many with teen-agers in tow. “And Roger always likes to get a bra.”

Daltrey, looking fit, tan and aerobicized (not only would most 56-year-olds envy his toned abs, most 26-year-olds would, too), has been accused of losing some of his high range on songs like Behind Blue Eyes and Real Me. Maybe he has or