POP REVIEWS : A Reverence for Rock at Weekend Concerts : Byrds Retain Grace in Benefit Reunion

“I don’t know what to call them,” said the emcee who introduced Roger McGuinn, David Crosby and Chris Hillman at the Wiltern Theatre on Friday night.

Actually, it was easy to find a name for McGuinn, Crosby and Hillman when they served as the finale to the first of two weekend shows held to benefit the new Ash Grove nightclub, which is under construction at 6820 Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood. The name: The Byrds.

The three musicians were charter members of that seminal Los Angeles folk-rock band, which was in its prime during the years in the ‘60s that the original Ash Grove flourished.

And as a fitting conclusion to an evening of folk-oriented music--old, new, borrowed and blue (grass)--the three devoted their brief set to a bona fide Byrds reunion, performing the hits “Eight Miles High,” “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Turn, Turn, Turn” and “So You Want to Be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star.”

McGuinn has been singing much of this material in his own show for years, and Hillman occasionally joined his Byrds colleagues on stage or on record.

But Crosby, better known for his days with Crosby, Stills and Nash, rarely returns to his Byrds days, and his presence gave this lineup an emotional edge that previous “Byrds reunions”--and there have been lots of them--seldom had.

To their credit, the songs still had a grace and a kick that transcend nostalgia, while all three singers fell easily into their old roles. McGuinn provided the chiming 12-string guitar that was the Byrds’ instrumental trademark, while Hillman was authoritative and solid in a return to his original position at bass guitar. (Gene Clark, a fourth member of the original quintet, was in the audience but could not perform because of recent surgery.)

For the 15 minutes that McGuinn, Crosby and Hillman were on stage, the Ash Grove benefit was a spirited and emotional salute to the music that the old Melrose Avenue club used to showcase. And while it would have been easy for the show to deal exclusively in that kind of musical remembrances, other moments during the almost four-hour event were more forward-looking.

Hillman’s set with his new tight, seamless Desert Rose Band, for instance, showed a musician who is doing much the same thing now that he was doing 25 years ago: invigorating his pop music by falling back on an older style, in this case bluegrass.

Earlier in the show, Rosie Flores, who combines a commanding voice and an intelligent mix of intimate and invigorating tunes, had already laid claim in an acoustic set to a spot as another important participant in country music’s future. Though Crosby did two CS&N; oldies, the ballad-oriented singer-songwriter who once seemed to be drugging his way to oblivion also performed two promising new songs.

Like Crosby’s set, the whole show was a mixture of old and new: Sabia and the Greene String Quartet showed off their new directions, then David Lindley and Richard Greene displayed the stringed-instrument wizardry that made Lindley’s ‘60s band Kaleidoscope so heady. A bluegrass revival segment trotted out some old moves, until newcomer Jim Lauderdale took the microphone and brought things into the ‘80s.

Certainly, the concert was longer on nostalgia than new directions, and sometimes the revue format was frustratingly skimpy. But at its best, the show was a reminder that there’s plenty of common ground between the folk and country music of a two-decade-old club and the currents that drive this town’s music scene.

A second Ash Grove-sponsored concert, this one featuring blues and gospel music, was scheduled at the Wiltern on Sunday night.