The Who: Touch Me, Heal Me

If ever catharsis were in the cards, it was Monday at the Hollywood Bowl, where one of rock’s most emotion-driven bands was due to perform the most emotional show of its four-decade career.

And indeed, there was the extra charge in the show-opening power-chord riff of “I Can’t Explain,” as if guitarist Pete Townshend were trying to blast a path through the decades to the days when he and John Entwistle met as London teenagers and began playing together. That early Who classic also adapted easily from expression of teenage confusion about love to one of middle-aged confusion over loss and mortality.

Less than a week ago, the Who was set to embark on another in its series of periodic reunion tours. Despite some hints from the band’s camp that it might soon record new music for the first time in 20 years, this was really just a classic-rock blip on the summer concert radar.

But when bassist and founding member Entwistle was found dead, apparently of a heart attack, on Thursday, the day before the tour was to open in Las Vegas, purpose and meaning were dropped into the band’s lap, at the greatest price imaginable.

True to the Who’s unpredictable, defiant form, Townshend and singer Roger Daltrey quickly reversed the initial, obvious decision to cancel the tour, saying they would best honor their bandmate by soldiering on.

They rushed in a new bassist, Pino Palladino, and postponed two weekend dates. That made Monday’s tour opener the most intently watched Who date since drummer Kenney Jones debuted as Keith Moon’s replacement in 1979 and probably one of the most oddly anticipated shows in rock history.

Either meltdown or transcendence wouldn’t have been out of the question under the circumstances. Who’s to say that the playing at the Bowl would have been notably different under normal conditions? You can only speculate what role the unprecedented mix of grief, uncertainty and adrenaline played in shaping the performance, but only hardened cynics would resist the temptation to read its influence into some of the night’s key moments.

The snap and energy of the opening 20-minute salvo of “I Can’t Explain,” “Substitute” and “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere” suggested a determination to rediscover the sources of the Who’s power. Much later, “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” regained the epic scale they had in the ‘70s, and Daltrey’s vocal on the “See me, feel me, touch me, heal me” refrain from “Tommy” bristled with the kind of life and feeling you just don’t expect from a veteran singer at this stage of his career.

Over the course of more than two hours, though, it appeared that the Who’s idea of paying tribute was to hunker down and plunge in and see what happened. There were no shrines at stage left, no performances of any of Entwistle’s compositions, but the capacity crowd got its share of mood swings and openhearted acknowledgments, beginning with an embrace between longtime sparring partners Daltrey and Townshend before a note was played. The night ended with a montage of Entwistle photos on the video screens.

“Tonight we play for John Entwistle,” Daltrey said early in the show. “He was the true spirit of rock ‘n’ roll, and he lives on in all the music we play.”

A little later, Townshend, perhaps sensing that the show had taken on a business-as-usual tone, stepped forward and addressed the audience. “This is gonna be very difficult,” he said. “We understand. We’re not pretending that nothing’s happened.”

That probably made it easier for the band and audience to relax into moments of humor, including Townshend’s jokes about the fragrance wafting from the crowd and his sudden discovery of the acoustical globes hanging inside the Bowl’s band shell.

Daltrey also thanked Palladino, saying that the musician “rescued us in the nick of time.”

True enough, the music stayed impressively on track considering that there had been only two days of rehearsal. Drummer Zak Starkey, Pete’s brother Simon Townshend on rhythm guitar and backing vocals and longtime keyboard accompanist John “Rabbit” Bundrick complete the lineup.

Palladino, a veteran session and touring musician who has played with such artists as Eric Clapton as well as on Townshend albums and solo tours, negotiated the Who’s often complex structures with a determined steadiness. He avoided Entwistle’s ornate designs for the most part, and he seemed to have the audience on his side from the start, earning a cheer for his stab at the famous bass solo in “My Generation.”

At the end, it all amounted to an intersection of real life, art, entertainment and big business that’s rare these days. Those were the elements that swirled around the Who in its turbulent origins, and it’s strangely appropriate that Entwistle’s loss brought them back again, even if only for a night.