60,000 Fans Celebrate the Who at Coliseum

In interviews before the start of the Who’s 25th-anniversary reunion tour, Pete Townshend often sounded apologetic for the tour’s crass commercialism, the lack of new material and the need to augment the group with horns and singers. But on Saturday at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, no apologies were offered. Or asked for.

Not by Henry Amrhein, a 19-year-old receiving clerk who said he appreciated this first--and probably last--chance to see the group. “I’ve always got their records to listen to,” he said, with only a hint of resignation.

Not by actress Whoopi Goldberg, who, as the band played its majestic “Love, Reign O’er Me,” noted that “I saw them back when they was bustin’ up (stuff)--and I was bustin’ up (stuff). It’s nice to see we could all grow up so well. . . . Who knows if I’ll be alive in 20 years to see if they come back?”

For the 60,000-plus on hand, this was a time to celebrate, not bury the Who. And if middle-aged men singing “creepy-creepy-crawly-crawly” in “Boris the Spider” seemed a bit silly, watching them do such teen anthems as “I Can’t Explain” and, indeed, “My Generation” didn’t at all. But if they do have the nerve to come back in another seven years, then it may be time for a scoffing chorus of “Why don’t you all f-f-f-fade away?”

Or maybe not.