POP MUSIC REVIEW : Ex-Band Players Danko, Hudson at Bogart’s : Ex-Band Members Rick Danko and Garth Hudson at Bogart’s

“We been rehearsin’ for this,” announced a smirking Rick Danko at the beginning of his and Garth Hudson’s first set Tuesday at Bogart’s in Long Beach, as if rehearsing was the exception rather than the rule. (That could well be the case, given the reputation for erratic performances from the two ex-Band members, who have both been in states of semi-retirement since the Band’s “Last Waltz” a dozen years ago.)

So you say, “oh / you wanna know / the shape they’re in,” these Band alumni? Not bad. Certainly this looked (the standard uniform: jeans, cowboy boots) and felt (the sound: slightly bluesy American rock) like a combo for whom the ‘80s might as well never have happened. And in a battle of the bar bands, this one wouldn’t necessarily stand out as having the immutable stuff of legend. Yet Danko and Hudson did admirably roll out more new songs than old, and with neither player pretending to be pursuing a major music career right now, a three-quarters-hearted effort from likable old friends is better than none.

Rehearsal or no, at least one element of the show seemed predictably spontaneous: Hudson’s busy, wandering hands, which flitted from electronic piano to organ synth to quasi-celestial synth and back, usually within a few scant bars. Later, when Dr. John (who opened the show with a set of buoyant boogie piano) joined the pair and their four accompanists for a jam session, Hudson looked lost and unsure of where to put his own keyboard fills--until he suddenly popped a tiny saxophone out of its case and began to doodle beautifully. Were Hudson’s talents to play a more consistent role in the set, this band-with-a-lower-case-b could transcend its weekend warrior status.

Danko and Hudson will play the Palomino on Thursday.