POP REVIEWS : King: ‘70s Soft-Rocker Gets Tough for the ‘90s

On the cover of her signature album, “Tapestry,” Carole King appeared as a serene Madonna for the soft-rock early ‘70s, dressed in denim and wool and surrounded by her knitting and her tabby cat.

On stage Wednesday night at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa, there were moments when a miniskirted, black-booted King resembled a Madonna of a different sort--or, to pick someone closer to her own age, perhaps a high-stepping Tina Turner. For significant segments of her two-hour show before a scaled-down but extremely happy house of about 2,500 fans, this 47-year-old mellow-pop icon strutted and pranced and behaved like a frisky, fun-loving rocker.

Not a minute of it was forced: Doing the Locomotion for all she was worth, King seemed like a Natural Woman--and the fun she was so clearly having proved infectious.

This unexpected strong suit as a confident rocker gave King a thoroughly winning hand that she played with command and finesse. When she wasn’t bopping out in front of her sharp, young, seven-member band, she could retreat to her reliable grand piano and play those sure-fire selections from “Tapestry”--10 in all, sprinkled judiciously through the set, most of them in crowd-pleasing, close-to-the-original form (the one major departure was an inspired, funk-rap recasting of “Will You Love Me Tomorrow?”).

King balanced those mostly introspective “Tapestry” songs with an even older, but more exuberant batch from her ‘60s days as a Tin Pan Alley hit-generator (along with lyricist/ex-husband Gerry Goffin). Splice in seven well-placed songs from her solid new album, “City Streets,” and the result was a show that was familiar without being dated and that shifted constantly in musical focus and emotional mood as it built to a wonderful concluding sequence: a feisty, sexual “I Feel the Earth Move,” touching solo encore readings of “A Natural Woman” and “You’ve Got a Friend,” and a romping finale with “The Locomotion,” in which King and her band were helped out by opening act Wayne Toups and Zydecajun. Accordionist Toups’ warm-up set wouldn’t have pleased cajun-zydeco purists, but it should have satisfied anyone interested in zestful, well-played roots rock.