Missing a Few Cylinders, Airplane Sputters

Even during its best moment Saturday night at the Pacific Amphitheatre, the Jefferson Airplane inadvertently raised the question of just what it was doing out of the hangar after all these years.

“Volunteer for anything you like, volunteer for anything you need,” Grace Slick urged as she improvised at the end of the strong, hard-driving rendition of “Volunteers” that closed an uneven set for the reunited San Francisco band.

Back in the ‘60s, there was nothing so open-ended about the Airplane’s call for volunteers. The ideological lines were clearly drawn between generations clashing over drug use, the Vietnam War and changing sexual mores, and the Jefferson Airplane drew much of its lift and thrust from its role as a musical banner-waver for the new counterculture.

The Airplane’s 2 1/2-hour show included eight new songs that showed a continued willingness to volunteer in service to such old ideals as revolutionary change and fear and loathing of conservative political authority.

But neither those nor the other rabble-rousers among the evening’s 27 songs gave the concert the kind of center and focus that the Airplane could automatically draw upon during the turbulent times (1966-71) in which it originally flew.

With charged performances, the five veteran Airplane members (augmented by four other musicians) might have compensated for changed times. But the times aren’t all that have changed. Slick, who will turn 50 next month, could not approach the vocal clarity and muscularity of her prime in a performance strewn with missed notes and wobbly control. Marty Balin, the Airplane’s other main voice, was less diminished but still sounded brittle at times. With Paul Kantner joining in, the Airplane got inconsistent results as it tried to re-create its distinctive three-part harmonies.

Finding a coherent concert structure is admittedly no easy task for a group with four lead singers and songwriters and a wide range of styles--encompassing folk and blues, psychedelic rock and mainstream pop anthems and ballads. But the Airplane let much of the show progress in mix-and-match fashion, leaving potential unities of theme and style unexplored.

Exceptions were the hard-rocking ending and a nicely conceived post-intermission folk-blues segment featuring guitarist Jorma Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady.

For all the lesser-known oldies it worked in, the group omitted its most famous, most-requested song, “White Rabbit,” the drug anthem. Just saying no after all these years? Or, more likely, just acknowledging Slick’s vocal limits?

Also missing was “We Can Be Together,” the grandest expression of the Airplane’s harmony sound and revolutionary philosophy.

As inconsistent as the show was, it featured steady excellence from Kenny Aronoff, late of John Cougar Mellencamp’s band. Aronoff continues to be one of the most exciting drummers in mainstream rock. The scraggly looking Kaukonen also provided fine guitar craftsmanship on demand.

Befitting a San Francisco psychedelic band, the Airplane, which will play Tuesday and Wednesday at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, had an inventive light show featuring lovely colored backdrops and five unusual on-stage pillars that served as giant lighting fixtures.

With some creative spark remaining, the ‘89-model Airplane does not quite belong in mothballs. But with some misfiring and poorly meshing parts, it fell short of a fully satisfying re-creation of the powerful, soaring ride of long-ago missions flown in cultural combat.