By Scott McLennan

If this really is the last time that Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey bring The Who out on tour, they are going out on top, leaving a legacy of songs that will undoubtedly stand the test of time for generations to come.

Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend of The Who at Fenway Park. Photo: Paul Robicheau

The Who’s “farewell” concert Tuesday in Boston at Fenway Park was not perfect. The band bobbled the end of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” after singer Roger Daltrey deployed a stunning scream that is both the song’s signature and perhaps his biggest challenge as a vocalist who is now 81. Elsewhere the band’s songs from the early ’60s, which once boasted a feral menace, have calcified a bit, perhaps because The Who in concert has expanded from its original quartet format to include additional musicians on guitar, percussion, and vocals. The show itself ended rather abruptly: Daltrey and guitarist Pete Townshend stood alone on the stage and sang the tender reflection “Tea and Theater” rather than “The Song Is Over,” the titular tune of this tour and sensibly used to close out previous concerts on this trek.

But has there ever been a rock band that has so thrived on the chaotic and the unpredictable as The Who? The Who’s legendary career is marked by stratospheric highs and despairing lows, creating a tension that, even today, perfectly powers the songs written by Townshend and brought to life by Daltrey.

Pete Townshend of The Who at Fenway. Photo: Kevin Brown

And on Tuesday, when The Who soared, the band was transcendent. Even though The Who stuck mostly to big hits and beloved anthems over the course of its nearly two-hour performance, these songs were given fresh arrangements, not played by the numbers. Townshend approached his lead guitar duties with unbridled zeal (yes, there were arm-swinging windmills, no, there weren’t gravity-defying leaps). He was aided and abetted by his brother Simon Townshend on guitar, bassist Jon Button, keyboard player Loren Gold, percussionist Jody Linscott, singer John Hogg, and recent recruit Scott Devours on drums (replacing the longtime beat keeper Zak Starkey).

Before “The Song Is Over” tour even reached Boston, there was plenty to be concerned about. After launching the North American trek in Florida earlier in the month, The Who canceled two concerts because of illness. Daltrey has been vocal in interviews about the strain that touring puts on his body, and Townshend has likewise made regular cracks in the press about how old he and Daltrey are.

The two original Whosters continued on with this oldster shtick on stage in Boston, and they did so because they knew it is largely bullshit, as proven by the strength of the performance turned in on Tuesday.

After opening the concert with the Mod anthem “I Can’t Explain” Daltrey and Townshend baited the crowd early, playing “Substitute” as the night’s second song, practically begging critics to claim that The Who 2025 is a mere glimmer of The Who 1965. The band then blew away such an absurd assertion with searing versions of “Who Are You,” “The Seeker,” and a majestic “Love Ain’t for Keeping,” the first of five numbers pulled from the Who’s Next album.

While “Love Ain’t for Keeping” was given an extended treatment compared to its studio version, The Who compressed rock opera Tommy into a pairing of “Pinball Wizard” and “See Me, Feel Me,” the latter providing one of the night’s most memorable performances, as Daltrey sounded possessed as he conveyed the song’s drama of ache and awakening.

The breadth of The Who’s material continued to be on display as the band placed “Eminence Front” and “My Generation” side by side. Both songs are anchored in angst: the former is an angular piece of future-shock cautioning that Townshend sang with unvarnished snarl; the latter is an anthem for eternal youth that has turned the phrase “hope I die before I get old” into a philosophical question, given that it’s being sung by octogenarians. As has been the case for latter-day Who concerts, the band attached the song “Cry If You Want” to “My Generation,” giving one of its best-known songs a bit of swing.

Roger Daltrey of the Who at Fenway Park. Photo: Paul Robicheau

The Who lit into “You Better You Bet,” a hit from the early ’80s that benefited from the additional moving parts of the touring band. Simon Townshend took the lead on “Going Mobile,” a Who’s Next number that hadn’t been part of The Who’s concert repertoire prior to this tour.

Following that, The Who launched into the heart of the concert: a four-song run of tunes from Townshend’s 1973 masterpiece Quadrophenia. The band started with the muscular “The Real Me” before pivoting to the contemplative “I’m One,” which Townshend sang while playing acoustic guitar. Townshend and Daltrey then blew “5:15” into fresh directions, concocting psychedelic swirls for the song’s finale. “Love, Reign O’er Me” displayed Daltrey and Townshend at their best; each made impeccable individual contributions, and then wove their singing and guitar playing together into a stunning experience. The pair embraced at song’s end — the pride in not just what went down on stage but what they have pulled off for 60 years both evident and well-earned.

The Who returned to Who’s Next for “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” songs that tapped into simmering cynicism that followed the meltdown of hippie idealism. These tunes are relevant as ever today. On “Baba O’Riley,” Daltrey took on the harmonica solo that closes out the tune. He obviously ran out of breath, which led to his joking with Townshend about how they missed having a violin player from previous tours take on that solo.

Townshend and Daltrey did not supply a rote nostalgia show, but neither did they run from their past. The visual displays for the concert, flashed on giant screens around the stage throughout the entire concert, were stuffed with Who iconography that had been used through the decades, interspersed with images of original drummer Keith Moon, who died in 1978, and bassist John Entwistle, who died in 2002.

If this really is the last time that Townshend and Daltrey bring The Who out on tour — the first false “farewell tour” was in 1982, after all — they are going out on top, leaving a legacy of songs that will undoubtedly stand the test of time for generations to come.

Chris Robinson and Joe Perry of The Joe Perry Project at Fenway. Photo: Kevin Brown

The Joe Perry Project opened for The Who and, in contrast, favored the frenetic over the finessed. Which makes sense considering that the project is Perry’s pickup band when not working with Aerosmith. This iteration of the JPP has Perry playing with fellow Aerosmith guitarist Brad Whitford, Black Crowes singer Chris Robinson, Stone Temple Pilots bassist Robert DeLeo, longtime Perry associate Buck Johnson on keyboards, and drummer Jason Sutter. The band’s 45-minute set went heavy on Aerosmith cuts, including deeper tracks, such as “Get It Up” and “Combination,” and peppered in the Crowes’ “Twice as Hard” and STP’s “Vasoline.” Robinson chewed up the scenery singing Aerosmith classics “Last Child” and “Walk this Way,” and Perry, who turns 75 in September, kept the musical dynamics lean and tough through the set. As he walked off stage at the end of his band’s performance, Perry let loose a bit of Mose Allison’s “Young Man Blues,” a song The Who claimed as its own on 1971’s Live at Leeds album. The gesture came off  both as a tribute to The Who and a taunt at anyone who dares to place age restrictions on rock ‘n’ roll.

Scott McLennan covered music for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette from 1993 to 2008. He then contributed music reviews and features to The Boston Globe, Providence Journal, Portland Press Herald, and WGBH, as well as to The Arts Fuse. He also operated the NE Metal blog to provide in-depth coverage of the region’s heavy metal scene.