Riverfront Coliseum accomplished its purpose Monday evening. Long before the gargantuan, white, batbox-shaped structure's grand opening in September, its owners announced plans to book pop music's supergroups.

The Coliseum's owners are men of their word. They presented The Who to a capacity crowd Monday night.

WHILE COLISEUM officials control the quality of the acts appearing on their stage, they, unfortunately, have little influence over the behavior of the people attending these events. The crowd's performance Monday evening contained one of the worst displays of discourtesy this observer has ever witnessed.

Law, an R&B flavored group, opened the concert. Even though it possessed the paltry musicianship of a college bar band, the group was politely received throughout its 35-minute set.

Pop Music

The same could not be said for the reception the audience gave the second act, Toots and the Maytals. By the time the seven-piece reggae group from Jamaica finished its third song, "Pressure Drop," boos began to drown out the applause.

THE LONGER the group played, the louder the boos became. During the last three songs, Toots Hibbert, the group's lead vocalist, had to dodge paper missiles.

When Hibbert stomped off after only 23 minutes on stage, the audience booed its loudest. They must have expected the group to passively take the abuse.

Toots and the Maytals, obviously not masochists, did not return. When the house lights came on, the audience cheered.

Toots and the Maytals are not the world's greatest musicians.

Their music, however, is entitled to a proper hearing. Instead, all they received was an outpouring of xenophobia.

The agony: the crowd dumped on Toots and the Maytals turned to ecstasy as The Who appeared on stage. For the next hour and 50 minutes the Coliseum buzzed like a massive beehive.

EVERY TIME lead vocalist Roger Daltrey whipped his microphone through the air like a yo-yo, the audience "oooed" and "ahhhed." Lead guitarist Peter Townshend's spontaneous mid-solo leaps always drew applause.

From their opener "I Can't Explain" and "Substitute" (both from The Who's 1965 beginnings) through a brilliantly staged medley from "Tommy" and the closer "Won't Get Fooled Again," the quartet totally mesmerized the audience.

Daltrey and Townshend's acrobatics were outstanding, but they did not permit them to overshadow the music. The lighting for the "Tommy" segment, pinpoint spots backstage projecting filaments of cardinal red and peacock blue light on the Coliseum's ceiling, eight banks of spotlights beaming on the audience, one above-stage spot focused on each musician, merely augmented the varied lyrical and melodic themes contained in the creme de la creme of rock operas.

Not to be overlooked were the performances of bass guitarist John Entwistle and Roger Moon on drums. Like their counterparts in the Rolling Stones, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts, Entwistle and Moon provide a solid background for vocalists and soloists. Entwistle's imaginative lines behind Townshend's solos showed that his talents remain largely untapped.

When the applause abated after The Who's fifth song, "Squeeze Box," Moon told the audience, "You are one of the finest crowds we have ever played before." The same crowd that had booed and pelted Toots and the Maytals off the stage minutes before, cheered in agreement.