POP REVIEW : CLUB NOUVEAU, SYSTEM PERFORM IN ANAHEIM

In live performances, dance music groups risk withering under the extra scrutiny that a concert setting automatically focuses on songs designed essentially to motivate denizens of discos.

But Club Nouveau deftly sidestepped that potential trap on Friday at the new 2,500-seat Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim.

By relying on energetic choreography and theatrics, as well as snappy--if occasionally corny--repartee about love and relationships, the six-member group injected a welcome human element into the extended synthesizer-and-drum machine-heavy rhythmic grooves of “Lean On Me,” “Jealousy” and “Situation 9” and other songs off its debut album, “Life, Love & Pain.”

Singer and group founder Jay King produced Timex Social Club’s 1985 hit “Rumors,” so not surprisingly Club Nouveau also reprised that hit, and the new version had more staying power than its novelty-rap predecessor. This was largely due to Club Nouveau’s more inventive structuring of songs and especially to Valerie Watson’s frequently soaring, Patti LaBelle-like vocal power that both complemented and offset the sing-rap deliveries of King and Samuelle Porter.

In stark contrast, the System, which opened the show, often appeared to be in motion but ultimately never covered much ground, much like the revolving stage on which both groups performed.

After a false start because of technical problems, System lead singer Mic Murphy promised to return and “start all over again.” More than an hour later, the four-man group did just that: Murphy repeated his scripted introductory patter almost verbatim as the group reprised “Come As You Are (Superstar),” which had been interrupted on the first try.

The lack of imagination and inability to improvise was as obvious in the rest of the System’s act as in its lame response to adversity. Displaying persona, but no real personality, Murphy and his keyboard-playing partner David Frank ran through 40 repetitive, uninspired minutes that displayed little knowledge of how to relate to an audience of sentient beings.

On the technical front, loss of electrical power on stage forced System band members to retreat to their dressing rooms for more than an hour. Even when the group returned and found voltage restored, the sound was pushed to distortion throughout the set.

For Club Nouveau and even during prerecorded music played between sets, however, the theater-in-the-round’s sound quality improved considerably.

Adding to the Celebrity Theatre operators’ list of opening night surprises was the appearance of four members of Local 504 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), who set up an informational picket line on the sidewalk outside the facility before the concert. The union, which never established a contract with the theater during its short life as the Freedman Forum, is still attempting to open negotiations with the theater’s new Phoenix-based operating group.

IATSE business representative Jerry Weaver said Friday that he had been unable to reach any top Celebrity officials to open discussions on a contract. “We just want to save our jurisdiction,” Weaver said, adding that concerts at other major theaters and concert facilities in Orange County--including the Pacific and Irvine Meadows amphitheaters and Anaheim Stadium--use IATSE technical crews.

“Ideally we’d like to have a full crew of four permanent people here. But if they can’t afford that, we are glad to work with them,” Weaver said. “The important thing is getting to talk with them.”