In a poignant farewell show, The Who roared a majestic goodbye to the city that has given them ‘nothing but fabulous audiences’

The Who finally made it to South Philly, three weeks after originally planned.

“Sorry we’re late,” Roger Daltrey said as he walked on stage at the newly renamed Xfinity Mobile Arena on Wednesday. That was preceded by a recording played of Eric Burdon introducing the band at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival as “a group that will destroy you in more ways than one.”

The band — Daltrey and Pete Townshend, plus six backing musicians — then belatedly began their “The Song Is Over — North American Farewell Tour" show with “I Can’t Explain” and “Substitute,” two songs from that brash pre-Tommy era when The Who were Mod style icons, hard-rock pioneers, and a bloody brilliant singles band.

Townshend then offered his own apologies for the postponement of the show which was scheduled for Aug. 21, and then two days later at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. Those shows were postponed due to illness, with the A.C. show now scheduled for Friday.

“We were a bit sick,” the guitarist and songwriter said. “I hesitate to say we’re fit and well now. We’re f— old! And if we’re fit and well, it’s by some kind of miracle.”

Townshend has, of course, always had the passage of time on his mind, going back to when he wrote the “I hope I die before I get old” lyric for Daltrey to sing on “My Generation,” the 1965 raging youth culture anthem that often ended with the band smashing its equipment to smithereens.

Rather than dying, Townshend has often considered quitting being in The Who, with the former art school student and frequently self-contradicting intellectual famously first throwing in the towel with a 1982 farewell tour. It played Philly’s JFK Stadium, the site where Xfinity Mobile Arena now stands.

As with their contemporaries, the Rolling Stones, every time The Who has come to town in recent decades, the question of whether it will actually be the band’s last time, has hung in the air.

This time, though, the long goodbye feels like it’s for real.

Townshend is 80, and Daltrey, 81. The death of their original drummer Keith Moon in 1978 was followed by bassist John Entwistle’s in 2002. And while Townshend has been diffident, Daltrey, a former sheet metal worker, has always been up for taking the show on the road.

But, earlier this year, the singer spoke about losing his hearing and eyesight. Townshend, once famous for his aerodynamic leaps on stage, had a knee replacement this year. “We’re saying farewell because touring is grueling on the body,” Daltrey recently told the New York Times.

» READ MORE: The Who was my first favorite band. I’m seeing them one more time at Citizens Bank Park

So did that give Thursday’s show an air of poignancy, as a bold, now diminished British Invasion band, whose accomplishments measured up to outsized ambitions on rock opera meisterwerks Tommy and Quadrophenia, did its level best to roar majestically, one last time?

For me, it did. What can I say? The Who was my first favorite band, though I never witnessed them in their eardrum-shattering heyday, and the best Who show I ever saw was actually in 2002 at the then Tweeter Center in Camden, just a month after Entwistle’s death. Pino Palladino filled in on bass and Zak Starkey ably filled Moon’s shoes on drums.

This tour, The Who feels (more than ever) like Townshend and Daltrey and a bunch of other people playing behind them, than an actual band. That’s partly because Starkey, who played with the band for 29 years, is now gone. It’s in dispute whether he was fired or not.

The drummer has been replaced by the perfectly capable Scott Devours, and includes Pete’s brother Simon Townshend, who is 16 years younger. Plus Jon Button on bass, Loren Gold on keyboard, Jody Linscott on percussion, and John Hogg on vocals.

This show also had a secret weapon in violinist Katie Jacoby, the Delaware native who has played live with the band in recent years, but is not listed as a regular member on this tour.

Still there she was, emerging from the wings for the frenetic solo that took “Baba O’Riley” over the top as the two-hour show reached its crescendo, with her energetic presence perking up the two Who principals, who are more than twice her age.

Earlier in the show, which was opened by a pleasant 50-minute set from singer-songwriter Leslie Mendelson, Townshend recalled a 1993 promotional tour stop in Philadelphia for his solo album Psychoderelict during which Mayor Ed Rendell presented him with the keys to the city.

“But they don’t fit the lock!” Daltrey quipped. “So if somebody knows what to do with the keys to the city of Philadelphia,” Townshend added, ”you can have ‘em.”

That patter preceded “Who Are You,” the gurgling synthesizer-driven title track from the 1978 release that was Moon’s last with The Who. The song is getting a new hearing, as so many Who warhorses have, as a TV commercial: It’s soundtrack to Walmart’s new Walton Goggins-starring ad campaign.

As you would expect, Daltrey’s rock star voice is thicker and not as powerful as it used to be. It’s no longer as supple as Tommy’s “Pinball Wizard” wrist.

But this was a good night for him, as signaled early on in “The Seeker,” when he sang of “searching low and high,” and was able to reach up on the scale to finish that phrase. His microphone twirling skills are intact, as well.

And most importantly for Who watchers, he was able to bellow a ferocious “Yeahhhh!” in “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and convincingly appeal to the heavens on “Love Reign O’er Me.”

Townshend’s guitar playing was sharp, whether squeezing out leads in “See Me, Feel Me” or laying down blues licks in “Eminence Front.”

He backed himself acoustically on the sparkling Quadrophenia showcase “I’m One,” though his voice too has grown less elastic over the decades. His vocal duties on “Going Mobile” were handled by his brother, who sounds much more like 1971 Pete than Pete does in 2025.

The evening ended elegiacally. The tour takes its name from a 54-year-old song in which Townshend was already thinking about endings (and new beginnings). “The song is over, it’s all behind me,” he sang in the au revoir to a love affair. He and his lifelong band mate joined together in the coda to sing of “one note, pure and easy, playing so free, like a breath rippling by.”

That was followed by the last song The Who will presumably ever play in Philadelphia. “Tea & Theatre,” from 2006’s Endless Wire, is a sentimental look back The Who two performed with Townshend seated playing acoustic guitar. Daltrey stood at his side, teacup in hand.

“We did it all, didn’t we?” he asked, “Lean on my shoulder now. This story is done.” It ended the performance on a sentimental, somber note, but Daltrey didn’t let the crowd get away just yet.

He told the crowd “we’ve had nothing but fabulous audiences in Philadelphia all these years,” and plugged Teen Cancer America, the cause he and Townshend have ardently advocated for decades. And then ended with his trademark sign off, one last time: “Be happy, be healthy. And most of all, be lucky!”