Pop Weekend : Too Little, Too Late From Bon Jovi in Irvine

Let it never be said that Bon Jovi didn’t play with spirit and honest directness Saturday night at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre.

The only problem was, it wasn’t until the encore that those qualities emerged, and more than half the band was off stage taking a breather at the time.

The high point of the show was “Ride Cowboy Ride,” a simple, straightforward acoustic strum-and-harmony number played and sung by leader Jon Bon Jovi and guitarist Richie Sambora.

On that number, Bon Jovi dispensed with the flash pots and white phosphorous explosions that the band found necessary at several points in the show. It also set aside the overdone synthesizer and organ flourishes, the thudding beats and the metal-guitar whinnying that are the staples of the Bon Jovi sound. It was just two guys singing into a microphone together with a lot of heart and enthusiasm.

The moment proved fleeting: Sambora, backed by wind machine synthesizer effects, was soon off on a mannered, portentous acoustic guitar snooze that led into “Wanted Dead or Alive.” But a good, tough run-through of “Bad Medicine”--the show’s second and last highlight--put a decent cap on things.

There were no such peaks during the body of the concert. Bon Jovi churned out routine arena rock, filtered through a murky sound mix. Songs like “Wild in the Streets” and “Blood on Blood” found this multiplatinum New Jersey band recycling Springsteenesque themes of comradeship and singing with a Bruce-like husk. But those songs were overblown and formulaic.

Bon Jovi (which headlines the Forum on Tuesday and Wednesday) seems to have its eye on some of the musical roots that underlie Springsteen’s music and other rock traditions apart from pop-metal. The show included brief snippets of “Save the Last Dance for Me” and “Walk Away Renee,” as well as instrumental allusions to the O’Jays’ “For the Love of Money” and Eric Clapton’s pomp-and-circumstance arrangement of “Little Wing” by Jimi Hendrix. Mostly though, it sounded as if Bon Jovi were trying to speak a language without fully knowing yet what it means.

Opening band Skid Row’s front man, Sebastian Bach, spoke a language that can’t be printed. The Jersey metal band’s set was a poorly sung, indifferently played recitation of nearly every bad-boy rocker cliche. Skid Row likes to claim an affinity for “the street.” Indeed, this obnoxious band had as much originality and personality as a slab of asphalt.