For those who just rocked

Although it was announced last November, The Who’s performance during the Super Bowl halftime show was still a shock.

Not only was the 360 degree light-up stage and laser show one of the grandest in Super Bowl history but the remaining members of one of rock’s greatest acts managed to pull off playing songs that under other circumstances might seem more sad than epic.

With one country-themed exception, 1990s Super Bowl halftime shows were either Disney-sponsored pop acts (1991’s New Kids on the Block and 1995’s Miami Sound Machine) or soulful singers of yore (1998’s The Temptations and 1999’s Chaka Khan).

In the last decade, however, the halftime show producers have acknowledged the football event’s mostly-older, white audience and opted for more classic rock acts such as U2, The Rolling Stones and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers.

The Who fit this post-millennial bill, but instead of Mick Jagger prancing around on a tongue-shaped stage or Bruce Springsteen hyping us into “putting the chicken fingers down,” Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend played it cool and let their impressive medley trigger the surrounding visual display.

To the chagrin of epileptic football fans, The Who’s set was accompanied by green and blue lasers that shot from the rafters like a Jennifer Lopez “Waiting For Tonight” music video and the circular stage pulsated with white, red and blue neon like a Who-themed Simon.

So what if it’s weird to watch old guys belt out youth-tinged tunes like “Teenage Wasteland” and “Pinball Wizard.” Where previous halftime performances relied on flamboyant visual displays and full-frontal “wardrobe malfunctions” for entertainment, the Tommy-ending set and palpable-after-all-these-years chemistry between Daltrey and Townshend helped make this year’s halftime show a scandal-free comeback worth actually listening to.