POP MUSIC REVIEW : Searching for the Steam in ‘Dirty Dancing’

Sometimes a show-biz enterprise that has little to do with the creative impulse but everything to do with the love of a buck can manage to throw off a spark of life.

Exhibit A is the Monkees, the made-for-TV pop band that had its honestly engaging moments, both in the ‘60s and during its reunion tour two years ago.

Now we have the “Dirty Dancing” tour--put together by David Fishof, the man who repackaged the Monkees. The shrewd calculation here is that there is a ready-made audience for a song-and-dance show derived from a hit movie and its two mega-hit sound-track albums.

The package arrived Sunday night at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa (before a three-night Greek Theatre stand continuing through Wednesday), stuffed with dance routines and stage gimmicks that were so much worthless packing material.

Wrapped in this dross were musical segments by Merry Clayton, the Contours, Eric Carmen and Bill Medley that had enough intermittent spark to keep the 110-minute performance from being a completely cynical exercise in consumer manipulation.

In the movie--a formulaic, platitude-filled tale of Borscht Belt romance between a rich girl and a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, set in 1963 to allow for plenty of musical nostalgia--the key dance scenes were duets in which close-ups of various erogenous zones helped generate the steaminess that was the film’s main attraction.

On stage, as many as 14 dancers cluttered the proceedings with aimless routines. The Dirty Dancers, some of whom appeared in the film, were an anonymous bunch who failed to carve out individual personalities. While the dancing sometimes echoed moments in the film, it was devoid of any dramatic value that might have lent cohesion to what was essentially a four-act oldies concert.

A smaller group of dancers, each equipped with a discernible role, might have added something useful. At least they would have had a better chance of staying out of the way. The only coherent dance sequences were intrusive set-pieces in the second half of the show that were played out to prerecorded music rather than woven into the fabric of the performance. As it turned out, the dance routine that drew the most enthusiastic response from a multigenerational audience took place during intermission, when a spunky, ponytailed little girl started bopping in the aisles to “La Bamba.”

At their worst, the Dirty Dancers saddled the Contours’ zesty hit “Do You Love Me?” with an extended shtick that turned the number into a distended bore. As a result, the former Motown act, a reasonably effective group of harmony-singing journeymen, wound up logging nearly half an hour on stage--more than any of the program’s better-known performers.

Carmen’s unsatisfying, anorexic set lasted just 15 minutes and--after a passable version of his current hit, “Make Me Lose Control”--lost intensity as it went along. By his third and last song, “Hungry Eyes,” he sounded labored, and he departed without attempting any songs by his fondly remembered old rock band, the Raspberries. “Go All the Way,” a bubbly celebration of teen-age libido, would have been a perfect tie-in for “Dirty Dancing.”

Clayton, best known for her immortal wailing on the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter,” is a strong soul belter who by turns echoes Tina Turner and Aretha Franklin. Her vocal gymnastics breathed some fire into “Almost Paradise,” an otherwise turgid ballad sung as a duet during Carmen’s segment.

Medley’s closing set was the show’s saving grace. It was a hometown appearance for the tall, lean Santa Ana native/Corona del Mar resident who is the trenchant baritone voice of the Righteous Brothers.

Medley was the only figure in the ensemble who projected star-quality assurance, and he lifted the show’s capable, 11-member backing group to full-rocking tilt in a 25-minute set heavy on rock and R&B; oldies. Luckily, the dancers stayed out of the way until the inevitable grand finale, “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life.”

The evening’s high point was Medley’s soaring version of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” featuring guest harmonies from Bobby Hatfield, his partner in the Righteous Brothers. The song had nothing to do with “Dirty Dancing,” and the crowd loved it. The moment was a welcome reminder that if you have real substance--a fine singer with a memorable song--there is no need to wrap it in contrived packaging to turn on an audience.