POP MUSIC REVIEW : Tubes’ Demise Was Somewhat Exaggerated

The sole redeeming factor of the Tubes’ farewell tour of a couple of years back was the “farewell” part, promising that listeners would never again have to endure such an empty, devitalized spectacle. But, as with Jason and Freddy Krueger, killing this band once obviously wasn’t enough. While one would hesitate to say they were alive, several of the Tubes’ alumni were indeed up and moving around Sunday evening at Irvine’s recently opened Mick’s nightclub.

When they first hit 14 years ago, the Tubes staked their fame on calculatedly outlandish, big-budget stage productions, satirizing “straight” media, and on the antic stage presence of singer Fee Waybill. But even with Waybill in tow, the “farewell” tour displayed the tired paces of a band long bereft of ideas or passion. Without him--and with the theatrics reduced to a beer-chugging contest and new singer David Killingsworth donning Day-Glo sweats for one song--Sunday’s show was scarcely an improvement.

To the band’s credit, it didn’t fall back on a pandering, greatest-hits set; little more than “What Do You Want From Life?,” “White Punks on Dope” and the mawkish AOR hit “Don’t Want to Wait Anymore” were drawn from its familiar catalogue. Less to its credit, the two-hour, 22-song show of lesser lights and new material was a grinding, undistinguished bore.

Oddly, it was writer-guitarists Bill Spooner and Roger Steen who reportedly had resisted the move to commercialize the band’s music in the early ‘80s (The two were even replaced in the studio by Toto’s Steve Lukather for much of 1981’s crossover “The Completion Backward Principle” album). Now, under the pair’s direction, the Tubes seem to be striving for the commonplace with a vengeance.

Songs from an unreleased new album, “Hoods From Outer Space,” were so middle-of-the-road that they could have been road kills, with Killingsworth and Spooner trading off faceless vocals over the band’s scarcely defined, guitar-based backing. Playing to a half-capacity audience, some of whom expressed doubts that it was even the Tubes on stage, Spooner’s mid-show announcement of “We’re going to play until you have fun,” was threat enough to hasten the steady trickle of persons toward the exit.

When he first came along in the late ‘70s, opener Greg Kihn was considered by many to be as promising as his contemporary, Tom Petty. While Petty now headlines amphitheaters and Kihn is stuck opening for the likes of the Tubes, the disparity in their fortunes doesn’t seem to have affected Kihn’s sense of fun. If his loose, easygoing solo acoustic set didn’t push for rock nirvana the way Kihn may have back in the days when Bruce Springsteen touted his talents and penned songs for him, Kihn at least still knows how to enjoy himself and how to convey that enjoyment to his audience.

Kihn’s voice has grown raspy, sounding as if he has a few of Eric Burdon’s teeth lodged in his throat, and his lone guitar was no match for his tight band of old, but he still turned in motivated versions of his “(Our Love’s in) Jeopardy” and “I Can’t Stop,” Springsteen’s “Rendezvous,” and rock oldies including Tommy Roe’s “Sheila” and Johnny Horton’s “The Battle of New Orleans.”

Opened two months ago, and christened as a name rock venue in early July with a Busboys show, Mick’s (attached to Irvine’s McCormick and Schmick’s restaurant) shows potential as a music club. With a large dance floor abutting the stage, limited sight lines from its seats, and far fewer seats than its 380-person capacity rating, the club is clearly best suited to dance-oriented bands. The sound isn’t bad; the fern-bar atmosphere doesn’t clash much with the rock ‘n’ roll posters and other trappings (except perhaps with its unintentionally ghoulish stained-glass window depictions of dead rock stars), and there is an open-air patio one can repair to if things get too heated.