POP MUSIC REVIEW : Feat Don’t Fail at Pantages

It just goes to show that every once in a while you are glad they’ve gone and breathed life into a corpse. The resurrection of Little Feat has turned out to be a rock reunion with integrity (this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no Doobie Brothers, this ain’t no foolin’ around)--and if the band’s first post-Lowell George / post-’70s album, the new “Let It Roll,” is a qualified success, the group’s first of two nights at the nearly full Pantages on Friday was an unqualified jolt of joy.

Hardly a “dance” band, but hardly a band that it’s possible to sit still through, Little Feat and its funky-Southern-boogie-R & B-blues harkened back to the days when studio musician wasn’t a pair of dirty words and groove wasn’t an exclusively black province. But these aren’t Grateful Dead grooves and the jams do always have an end in sight; given the rabidity of the reaction (the near-gospel fervor of “Dixie Chicken” got the few remaining holdouts on their feet), it wouldn’t be surprising if in years to come these guys turn out to be the Dead of the clean ‘n’ sober set.

Opening act John Kilzer has one of the year’s quirkiest and best mainstream rockers serving up the Soviet-themed “Red Blue Jeans.” Some of the more heartlandish humables from his debut LP may recall certain raspy reference points, but Friday’s fairly sizzling set had Kilzer covering Al Green’s “Love and Happiness” and sounding less like John Mellencamp or Bryan Adams and more like the rhythm & blues-blooded Memphian he is.