CLEVELAND — The old guys were all right.

In fact, they were more than all right. Wednesday night, on the Who’s 25th Anniversary Tour, seven years after its “farewell tour” ended in Cleveland and 10 years after 11 young fans died in the pre-concert crush of a Who show at Riverfront Coliseum, the middle-aged British band mustered up enough of the old magic to rock a sold-out Cleveland Municipal Stadium.

In the ’60s, the Who was one of the biggest bands of the British Invasion, right behind the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The most Mod of the English bands, the quartet inspired generations of punks and heavy-metallers alike with its “hope I die before I get old” attitude and Pete Townshend’s crunching guitar chords.

Despite the death of drummer Keith Moon in 1978, the band’s appeal remains undiminished. The reunion of the three surviving members of the Who — Townshend, 44, singer Roger Daltrey, 45, and bassist John Entwhistle, 44, was, until the announcement of the Rolling Stones reunion and tour, the biggest music news of the summer.

Scott Heile says it still is. For the 23-year-old from Delhi, rock concerts began with the Who. One of the 3,000 Greater Cincinnatians in Wednesday night’s crowd of 65,000 (at $23 a ticket, that’s a gross of just under $1.5 million), Heile’s first rock concert had been the fateful 1979 Who concert at Riverfront. “I went with my mom,” he said before the Cleveland show. “That was the last concert my parents let me go to for three or four years.”

Heile drove to Wednesday night’s show with his brother Steve, 22, and a neighbor, Rob Overberg, 19.

Like the majority of the Cleveland crowd, the Cincinnati trio was too young to remember the Who’s heyday in the late ’60s and early ’70s.

But that doesn’t stop them from being dyed-in-the-Union-Jack fans.

“It’s what we grew up on,” said the younger Heile. “They’re the best band,” said Overberg. “In the age of Poison, Winger and all the poseur bands, I’d drive 200 miles to see the Who anytime.”

Some drove further. The parking lots around the stadium testified to the Who fans’ devotion, filled throughout the rainy day with tailgate parties and cars from New York, California and all points between.

But the show was no hit with scalpers. Ninety minutes before showtime, scalpers were hawking seats for a mere $25, only $2 more than face value.

The Who gave everyone else their money’s worth, however, with two-hours-and-45-minutes of music that stretched from their earliest hits

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