The Who racked up a smashing finish while Iron Butterfly scored a heavy showing in a superb concert Monday night at Memorial Auditorium.

Tremendous theatrics were in evidence when England's The Who took to the stage in the triple-header show before a surprisingly mediocre-sized crowd of about 2,000 persons.

But a 17-year-old from Boston named Erik Brann, the lead guitarist with Iron Butterfly, and one of his groupmates, drummer Ron Bushy, brought the house down with brilliant displays of musicianship.

The show was righteous. Roger Daltrey, The Who's lead singer, swung his hand mike like a lasso, lead guitarist Peter Townshend flamboyantly pumped his arms and jumped around like a rabbit and drummer Keith Moon uninhibitedly knocked over his equipment throughout the set.

Disappointment was in evidence that The Who quartet did not perform its soaring hit, "I Can See for Miles." The set of a dozen songs, however, included "Happy Jack" (their first U.S. coup), the rock-classical-Western casserole of "A Quick One While He's Away" (from the comic mini-opera on their first album) and assorted two-ton heavies.

The obvious highlight of The Who's rebellion against blase band business was the closing number, "My Generation" — Daltrey's stuttering song that shouts out for youth. While the lights throbbed, destruction ensued and The Who boldly and blatantly attacked, toppled and beat equipment in the glorious maneuvers of close combat for which they are renowned.

Iron Butterfly, which immediately preceded The Who, came on like a supersonic locomotive-blizzard-earthquake. The Los Angeles-based quartet, which includes organist leader Doug Ingle and bassist Lee Dorman, rates as one of the hottest, heaviest groups ever to storm Sacramento.

Normally, base guitarists seem to just hang around, but Dorman stood out in a fine, adept manner.

And if guitarist Brann is great at 17, think about what he'll be doing when he's 21. Hitting control buttons with his foot, he fuzzed-distorted-echoed his way perfectly through intricate chord maneuvers. As one observer was heard to comment, "He must've started playing when he was 3."

The dynamic, electric group scored a knockout with the 17-minute epic, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida." The traditional "Iron Butterfly Theme" closed the show in a burst of flames, literally, with four pans bursting into fire at the foot of the stage. The frenzied finale was akin to an ancient fire ritual. In fact, the only things missing were a virgin and an altar.

The first group on the bill, The Neighborhood Childr'n, played overly long songs that weren't particularly inspiring and could certainly use more tonal variations instead of just being loud.

With The Who and Iron Butterfly at the head of the class, however, the Childr'n hopefully learned a lesson or two.