POP MUSIC REVIEW : An Easy-to-Take Eddie Money

Since singer Eddie Money has been serving up an unvariegated diet of mainstream, meat-and-potatoes rock ‘n’ roll for 11 years now, it wasn’t surprising that his performance at Anaheim’s Celebrity Theatre on Thursday came off as somewhat processed and microwaved.

Having recently experienced his share of both career and personal shallows, Money now (as he has confirmed in recent interviews) is even more of a good company boy, essentially recording what his label tells him in the radio-ready manner they specify.

That compliance with the path of least resistance carried into his 19-song show (also scheduled for Friday at the Wiltern Theatre), making it easy to enjoy but easier to forget. While he and his five-piece band performed competently, the show seemed pre-cooked, a notion reinforced by the occasional use of taped rhythm tracks and background vocals.

Money was all over the stage throughout the show, shedding jackets, high-fiving audience members, blowing adequate sax from a variety of heroic postures, and ending nearly every song with an arms-spread, “Love me, huh?” gesture. But, despite all the motion, his voice never broke free sufficiently from the recorded versions of his songs to convince you that there was much emotion behind it.

While that lack of live presence scarcely mattered on such persuasive pop-rockers as “Let Me In” and “No Control,” more vocal-dependent numbers like “Baby Hold On” came off as lifeless. Though he was stronger on the anti-drug “Dancing With Mr. Jitters” than on most numbers, even that close-to-home lyric seemed to be lacking in vocal conviction.