The venerable British rock band The Who put on a bloody good show at Madison Square Garden Thursday evening. They haven’t been here in three years, and all five shows sold out instantly, with scalpers netting $150 for a pair of tickets. When they took the stage there were suddenly 20,000 empty seats at the Garden as the ecstatic young audience leaped to its feet and stayed there for most of the two-hour set, chanting “Who, Who, Who” that sounded like “Boo, Boo Boo” to the uninitiated.

The Who (isn’t that the silliest name for a band?) began their American tour in Passaic last Monday, and I understand that good as that show was, the Garden gig was tighter and better. The band was in fighting trim. No doubt about it: they came to play. Roger Daltry, the singer and sometime blues harp blower, looked like a Greek statue come to life with his close-cropped curly blond hair and lithe athletic form, attired in blue jeans, black T-shirt and white jogging sneaks. He must have jogged 10 miles around the stage, leaping into the air, whipping the mike around like a lasso.

Peter Townshend is one of the greatest guitar players and composers ever put on God’s green earth. Simply spectacular and unique. Everything he played at the Garden can only add luster to his name

The ascetic, waifish-looking Townshend worked like a windmill in a hurricane, constantly in motion, a string-bean in green trousers and green shirt, black jacket, cradling a gold-topped Gibson guitar, bouncing across the stage like a pogo stick, performing death-defying slashing those power chords, cueing the band, improvising bluesy guitar runs or delicately weaving his way through the trickier, more complex material.

The stately, staid John Entwhistle was a Gibralter on bass, looking like a toreador in a splendid brocade vest, white shirt, white trousers and high boots. His playing is awesome, but I am sorry to say that he only took one little solo all night (on “My Generation.”). Kenny Jones, the replacement for Keith Moon, was most impressive, sweating in secret behind the drums, all in white.

The Who played all the songs that made them famous. Everybody knows them so I won’t itemize. It’s an exciting blend of Eddie Cochran rock (“Summertime Blues”), Bo Diddly bop (“Magic Bus”), boogie ’n’ blues jams, Motown soul and melodic art rock.