POP MUSIC REVIEW : HEARTFELT IDEALISM FROM SIMPLE MINDS

Simple Minds is a rock band that has its heart so much in the right place that you want to like it--despite its shortcomings.

Even before the Scottish quintet stepped on stage Sunday night at the Universal Amphitheatre, it told its sound crew to play the “Sun City” album for the sold-out crowd during intermission.

That certainly puts the band one up on timid radio programmers, most of whom have underexposed the powerful anti-apartheid statement--even though “Sun City,” with its marvelous mix of rock, rap and jazz artists, may just be the year’s most commanding LP.

The playing of the album was in keeping with the spirituality-tinged idealism that runs through many of Simple Minds’ songs. Indeed, the group’s loftiest songs deal with searching for integrity in a world where corruption seems so commonplace that cynics ridicule such crusades as only for the simple-minded.

But heart is only one test of a great band. There are also the matters of originality of sound, craft of songwriting and excitement of presentation. While scoring well in all areas at times Sunday, Simple Minds didn’t demonstrate the consistent excellence in any of them to earn a nomination as one of rock’s top-level forces.

And make no mistake about it: This tour and the group’s hot-selling album “Once Upon a Time” are bids to establish in this country the sales and critical respect the band enjoys in Europe.

The challenge with the tour was to hold both the new MTV fans who loved “Don’t You (Forget About Me”)--the “Breakfast Club” single that the group didn’t write and has dismissed as “inane”--and the slightly older, more sophisticated fans that see in Simple Minds’ idealism a kinship with U2.

If the music is aimed at the more sophisticated fans, the bright, high-tech staging Sunday was designed to dazzle everyone. There were enough crisscross lighting effects on stage to guide a spaceship back to Earth.

Despite this show-biz extravagance, lead singer Jim Kerr was a likable and energetic front man, graciously accepting the considerable adoration of his audience without letting the affection distract him from the business at hand. He reached out generously to the crowd, both in manner and in his singing.

Some songs did display considerable punch, notably “Ghost Dancing” and “Alive and Kicking,” both of which are from the new album.

“Ghost Dancing,” which Kerr dedicated to jailed South African black leader Nelson Mandela, among others, is an angry look at injustice. “Alive and Kicking,” the band’s current single, is an equally powerful expression of determination and hope that includes the lines, “What’s it gonna take to make a dream survive?/Who’s got the touch to calm the storm inside?”

Other songs--from the vigorous “Up on the Catwalk” to the rousing if nondescript “Sanctify Yourself”--were forcefully delivered by the group, which has moved in the new album from hazy atmospheric arrangements reminiscent of Roxy Music to a harder and more focused musical approach.

But the songs and the playing (augmented nicely Sunday by a percussionist and backup singer Robin Clark) didn’t blend together to establish a single, compelling vision--the hallmark of a great band. The biggest problem is the songs: too many of the compositions are lyrically vague and musically conventional.

Think of it this way: In the Inspirational Rock sweepstakes, U2 is at a stage of development where it is now searching for its “Hey Jude.” By contrast, Simple Minds is still in need of a cohesive “Pride,” or even an “I Will Follow.”

Sunday’s concert was opened by Shriekback, the funky, dance-oriented British band (reviewed recently in these pages) led by singer Barry Andrews, who leaped across the stage with a road-runner-like agility and speed that would make him the favorite in any rock ‘n’ roll triple jump competition.