FIRM: BETWEEN ROCK AND A SOFT PLACE

Imagine that you’re tuned into a typical dinosaur-FM rock radio station--say, KLOS--listening to a typical dinosaur-rock song when, suddenly, the music is interrupted by a spotty transmission that keeps drifting in and out from outer space.

You don’t really know what this spacey interruption is, and you’re not sure if it’s even very good, but you know you’d rather be hearing it than the stuff that usually is served up by the station.

That’s sort of what it was like Thursday night at the Forum, as the Firm, which is an “arena band” if ever there was one, launched into earthbound song after song, punctuated by solos from guitarist Jimmy Page that only can be described as out there .

Whether through cleverness or carelessness--and there was some evidence for the latter--the ex-Led Zeppelin guitarist seemed to prefer to play whacked-out improvisational parts that bore the most minimal relation to the songs they were plopped into.

And that was good, because when faced with songs as brutally banal as the Firm’s (banal, that is, unless the fact that “Money Can’t Buy Love” comes as news to you), one takes whatever anarchic distractions one can get.

In the midst of such moderately mannered, spirit-crushingly mediocre music, and such dull stage presences as that of singer Paul Rodgers, Page’s sloppy, crazed outings came as somewhat endearing.

Endearing, that is, unless you wanted to kick a decaying horse by comparing the Firm to certain older bands. The players didn’t go out of their way to foster any unflattering comparisons: No Zeppelin tunes were trotted out, nor did Rodgers resurrect anything from the days of Free and Bad Company.

If there were no familiar songs for Led-heads, there were familiar sights, such as the crowd-pleasing moments when Page commandeered the stage alone for long solos consisting mostly of shaking the guitar body or striking the strings with a violin bow--tricks well worthy of retirement.

As long as his wilder guitar work was clashing with the rigid confines of the Firm, it was fine, but his psychedelic silliness was a lot less bearable--and much more revealing about the state of his talent these days--when he stood alone.