NEW YORK — The day after Jane's Addiction's last Madison Square Garden gig some 10 years ago, Perry Farrell complained that the place was just too big, and that trying to reach out and grab 20,000 people with music from a new album just didn't work.

That was then. A decade later, they're riding a legend that's grown steadily. Their albums have held up musically for an audience that's larger now than when the original band was tearing up sheds and inventing Lollapalooza. On this wave, Jane's Addiction returned to the Garden to play to an audience that reached out to them, singing along mightily with just about every song in the set.

The band opened with "Kettle Whistle," new to much of the audience as the song was available only on bootlegs until it went into the studio to record it (with Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers replacing original bassist Eric Avery) for 1997's oddment collection of the same name. Underneath sparse laser play and swathed in an expansive, billowy white skirt that hid several dancers underneath it, Farrell explained, "We all want to be beautiful too."

And so the show was launched. Into "Ocean Size," "Ain't No Right," "Three Days," "Stop" and "Summertime Rolls" they went, with Farrell in a red tux, guitarist Dave Navarro shirtless and oh-so-cut as always, drummer Stephen Perkins sporting a mohawk and touring bassist Martyn Le Noble (who played with Farrell and Perkins in Porno for Pyros) wearing a New York City tank top. The band was accompanied by a cadre of dancers, a black light clown, and staging that, as usual for Jane's, lived somewhere between pagan festival and carnival.

Then it was off to a second stage in the back of the Garden for an acoustic set, where the band served up "Jane Says" and "Classic Girl." What followed was a first for the reunited Jane's Addiction: solo tunes. Navarro performed "Hungry" from his album, Trust No One, and was followed by Farrell doing "Happy Birthday Jubilee" from his Song Yet to Be Sung. On their Relapse Tour in 1997, non-Jane's material was avoided (Farrell and Perkins had Porno for Pyros tunes available, and Navarro had recorded an album with Eric Avery under the moniker Deconstruction).

Returning to the main stage to close it hard, it was time for "Mountain Song" and the finale, "Ted, Just Admit It ...," during which Farrell tweaked a line about sex and violence, replacing the word "violence" with "terrorism." There wasn't much reference to New York's share of the September 11 tragedy, though, except for a moment when Farrell noted that those who had died were "all here." Fans who had seen Jane's Addiction in their original incarnation would have noted that there were no real rambling monologues from Farrell, no audience-baiting, and in general much less talk than in tours past, with the band instead focusing on an immaculate performance.

Having said that, Jane's reached back to their early touring days for an encore, putting down their instruments and getting into it with a line of drums for "Chip Away," which, back in the day, they would sometimes beat out on a few ice coolers. But this show of primarily decade-old material did not seem like an attempt to recreate 1991, when Jane's Addiction were the edgy and unpredictable guiding light of the art metal, alt rock heap. Sounding and acting up to date, they appear ready to record something new, together. If only.