Public Image, New Order, Sugarcubes: Attitudes in Irvine

The red-hot triple-decker tour that hit Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre on Friday and was due to return on Sunday--with New Order joined by Public Image Ltd. and the Sugarcubes--was in need only of a name to burn its memory into the thousands of young, impressionable minds on hand.

Monsters of Post-Modern? Puh- leeze . Wash your mouth out with soap and write new wave on the board 100 times, young man.

Woodenstock? Might fit the rather stiff ostensible headliners, New Order, but not the two wiry openers.

How about Arrogancefest ‘89?

Friday’s show offered textbook-like, sharply contrasting examples of Attitude in Action. The cocky defiance of Iceland’s Sugarcubes is certainly the reverse image of New Order’s stately indifference. Somewhere in between, and much harder to figure out, is John Lydon’s Public Image Ltd., which seems bent on simultaneously mocking and embracing rock cliches--perhaps parodying its audience and itself, the ultimate ironic cruelty.

Both New Order and PiL, for all their original inventiveness, give the impression of being trapped at the ends of their envelopes; the latter outfit is struggling against it, however distastefully at times, while the former band seems to have tastefully given in to its limitations.

PiL’s Lydon seems to get a kick these days out of riling his old fans by being as “mainstream” as possible, and certainly his music has never been more mass-appeal. The band’s new album, “9,” features slick production complete with appealing female backing vocals. On a florescent-designed stage, clad in blinding green, the Day-Glo ex-Sex Pistol delighted in leading clapping to the beat and bellowing--with a straight face--admonitions like “I can’t hear you!” Does he mean any of this? Moreover, does it matter?

If he’s having fun being a caricature of himself, fine. But then where does he get off swiping in interviews at other artists who make the same sort of moves, only with sincerity? Lydon’s greatest talent these days may be as a rock raconteur , not a musical mover and shaker, but the set was longer on self-conscious silliness than wit.

If Lydon seems to be floundering around at his dead end, at least he’s a one-of-a-kind personality and always changing, always eminently watchable. New Order, on the other hand, will never, ever resort to self-parody because there’s hardly any self there to parody. Here is a group that delights in revealing as little of itself as possible to the audience, at least in a live context. What fun.

On record, there is a loveliness to much of the quartet’s forlorn post-punk, which is neatly divided into two alternating styles, guitar-based minimalism (with live drums) and Eurodisco (with drum programming). In concert, nothing whatsoever is added to this mix. The same effect can be achieved at home by spinning the record and waving colored flashlights at a photo of the band.

The Sugarcubes weren’t necessarily any friendlier than either of the two headlining bands. When lead singer and trumpet player Einar repeatedly told the crowd in his thickly accented English to “Have a nice day! Have 10 nice days!,” there was no reason to suspect sincerity or a language barrier on his part; most likely, he was just being a jerk.

Yet the crowd--or what crowd had yet made it into the amphitheater from the traffic jam outside--responded quite enthusiastically, and understandably so. This young Icelandic quintet has an unerring sense of rhythm and propulsion and, in pixieish fellow lead singer Bjork, a wonderful, soaring, catching female voice.

In response to the bouncier songs, Einar and Bjork--looking for all intents and purposes like a European ice skating champion--did indeed bounce, unafraid to be a bit goofy. Bjork sings with real emotion in songs like “Motorcrash” and “Birthday,” emotion you might get caught up in if you didn’t know that these were actually unemotional, ambivalent anecdotes about, respectively, an automobile accident and a possible case of child molestation.

Perhaps it’s too much in this relativistic age to demand morals to their stories, which seethe with a cool, amoral detachment under the hot, riveting surface. In this show, at least, that compelling surface was enough.