By the time I finally saw the Who, it was already too late.

The Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend-fronted British Invasion band — who are playing Citizens Bank Park in South Philadelphia with a full orchestra Saturday on their Moving On! tour — were my first favorite band.

Never mind the Beatles. The Fab Four and the 1960s were dead and gone, part of an irrevocable past by the time I was old enough to understand music was created by actual humans who might come to play a concert in Philadelphia that you could somehow hope to get to — even if you were growing up on the other end of the Atlantic City Expressway in Ventnor.

But the Who were a living, breathing, larger-than-life entity whose music weirdly pulled in my preadolescent self. Or maybe it wasn't so weird: Townshend's songs teemed with the tumult of youth, and Keith Moon and John Entwistle created a finely controlled chaos that mirrored the emotional maelstrom.

And Townshend didn't bother writing the kind of silly love songs that I would have been too young to understand anyway. He wrote rock operas with stories you could track, including a parable about a deaf, dumb, and blind boy with a skill highly valued at the Jersey Shore — playing pinball!

So it was in 1973, when I was 11, that I remember getting my own copy of the Who's new double LP Quadrophenia from the Columbia House mail order music club. (Or maybe it was my older brother Nick's. I might have stolen it.)

I'd later understand that Quadrophenia was an ambitious opus about a 1960s Mod whose fractured self reflected the four members of the Who, written by a 28-year-old Townshend, looking back on the period when he famously declared "I hope I die before I get old" in "My Generation."

But at the time, I was just swept up in the majesty of the music on what is still my favorite Who album. Between that and Tommy, and Jesus Christ Superstar, I had all the rock opera I needed. And I was on my way to a lifetime of frustrating Who fandom.

From the beginning, it was a misadventure. The baby boomer band released the final album of their classic period, Who Are You, in 1978. Three weeks after its release, the incomparable Moon swallowed 32 sleeping pills and died.

In 1979, I got my brother to drive us to the Tower Theater to see the Who rockumentary The Kids Are Alright. Great movie, but while skipping down the steps to the Tower's subterranean bathroom I bashed my head and began bleeding profusely. (No stitches required.)

It reminded me of a 1977 Townshend quote from Rolling Stone pinned to my bedroom wall: "If it screams for truth rather than help, if it commits itself with a courage it can't be sure it really has, if it stands up and admits something is wrong but doesn't insist on blood, then it's a rock & roll. We shed our own blood. We don't need to shed anyone else's." Rock-and-roll!

Later that year, the Who were set to play the Spectrum with new drummer, Kenny Jones. I slept out at the Ticketron outlet at Atlantic City Records & Tapes.

[See THE WHO on D2]

The Who With Peter Wolf, 7 p.m. Saturday, May 25, Citizens Bank Park, 1 Citizens Bank Way. $20-$305. 215-463-1000. ticketmaster.com.

Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend hit Citizens Bank Park on Saturday.

The Who onstage in 1989 — well after the 1982 shows billed as the band's final tour. The band has played Philly a number of times since. And a funny thing has happened to their shows in recent years: They've gotten better. AP File