On May 1, it'll be 50 years since veteran rock icons The Who first appeared at this enduring enormodome next to Wembley stadium. On that occasion, they played alongside the Beatles and the Rolling Stones at the 1966 NME Pollwinners' Party.

Here, they were kicking off the final leg of a world tour they've been billing as their last, warming up for a 28-date trawl across North America, which opens in Detroit on Saturday week.

The band's irascible guitarist and lyricist, Pete Townshend, now 70, jokingly noted in the run-up that The Who Hits 50 Tour was undertaken “to demonstrate that even this particular gang can grow old – not necessarily gracefully, but ungracefully, or whatever it is that we’re doing”.

The show has already been greeted feverishly around the world, for providing the kind of no-nonsense barrage of unassailable rock classics, which, in this heritage-rock era, only the Stones and Paul McCartney can rival.