ORANGE COUNTY POP MUSIC REVIEW : Doobies’ Rock Is Just All Right

Reunite a famous ‘60s band, and all sorts of questions arise.

Was it right for the Who, perhaps the best exemplar of that decade’s fiery creativity, to come back for one last gravy run?

Could the Jefferson Airplane, which fed off the cultural and generational schisms of the ‘60s, recapture their old passion, now that the times had a-changed?

And how about the Rolling Stones? Are they back to write a new chapter in rock or just to cash in with one more collector’s edition of a book everyone has read?

But reunite a ‘70s band like the Doobie Brothers, and there’s hardly a need to ask anything.

The Doobies, like many of their high-profile ‘70s brethren, retreated from the ‘60s vision of rock as a cultural battlefield, or a burgeoning movement to be infused with high creative ideals. The Doobies, who took their name from a slang term for a marijuana cigarette, saw rock as a backing track for an easygoing good time. The one-time bar band from San Jose did not sing about how the storm was threatening their very life today or about people putting down their generation.

No, the most telling line from the Doobies’ signature song, “Listen to the Music,” went like this: “What the people need is a way to make ‘em smile / It ain’t so hard to do if you know how.”

Given that limited vision, the reunited Doobie Brothers don’t have to carry the extra-musical burdens under which the returning ‘60s vets have labored. The only question they had to answer Friday night at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa was the one common to all bar bands and nostalgia acts: Do they still have the skill and enthusiasm to breathe some momentary freshness into a batch of old favorites?

The answer was good enough to get a few thousand nostalgic thirtysomething types up and dancing through much of Doobies’ brisk, 1 1/2-hour set of tightly and faithfully rendered hits. Led by Patrick Simmons and Tom Johnston, the band’s two founding singer-guitarists, the nine-man lineup capably reproduced the Doobie Brothers’ distinctive high-wall-of-voices harmonies, rolling rhythms and commercially glossy synthesis of country, soul and rock ‘n’ roll roots. Simmons and Johnston both made the evening a rewarding one for guitar lovers, turning out plenty of melodic solos played with facility and bite.

The Doobies did play six songs from their successful reunion album, “Cycles.” But the new material hews to the band’s old style, the Doobies having been sufficiently honest--and market-savvy--to stick with proven old ways, instead of trying to sound falsely “contemporary.” Certain songs from “Cycles” convey a depth that the Doobie Brothers’ early music lacked, a sense of life lived with struggles and disappointments.

Simmons brought a feeling of troubled yearning to one of those songs, “Take Me to the Highway.” Otherwise, it was pretty much good times as usual for the Doobies, a way to make the people smile.

While the “Cycles” lineup is drawn from the Doobies’ early-’70s incarnation that centered on Simmons and Johnston, with their country and down-home rock ‘n’ roll influences, the show included a few songs from the later period marked by Michael McDonald’s sophisticated white-soul style (McDonald, the only Doobie Brother who went on to solo success in the ‘80s, is not part of the reunion).

Sidemen Cornelius Bumpus (a late-period Doobie) and Richard Bryant helped carry the McDonald songs off, but the Doobies were at their best with more rocking material, including feisty renditions of such chestnuts as “Rockin’ Down the Highway,” “Jesus Is Just Alright” and “Long Train Runnin.’ ”

Simmons and Johnston had little to say in perfunctory song introductions, but they probably realized that their songs alone had enough to give the show a ready-made sense of connection and familiarity.

That, of course, is the problem with rock nostalgia: The whole experience is ready made. Real excitement comes from watching a band, new or old, that still has the capacity to surprise itself and its audience.

The Doobies can’t be accused of playing by rote. But they were a band enjoying a smooth outing over a safe, old route, not one trying to find new scenery at some risk of getting lost. The Doobies’ safe, familiar rock was just alright--and that’s about all.