POP MUSIC REVIEW : PWEI’s Personality Saves a Prefab Show

On its album, “This Is The Day . . . This Is The Hour . . . This Is This! “ Pop Will Eat Itself has a grand time chomping on as many different electronic tidbits as it can fit on one party platter.

But at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano on Thursday, the pantry looked unpromisingly bare. No drummer to drive in the punk and metal edge that is a staple of the British band’s sound. No disc jockey to deliver the rap-style record scratching that adds to PWEI’s impressive abrasiveness. All of that was prepackaged on backing tracks that played behind PWEI’s two singers and two guitar players. So were the audio bites that the band lifts from records and broadcast sources to add humor or an interesting sonic touch.

At first, it appeared this techno approach to live performance was going to be a letdown. Singers Clint Mansell and Graham Crabb were capering about and barking and intoning with enough force to keep the show from resembling one of those dismissable dance-pop “track shows” where all the music--and maybe a good deal of the singing--comes in a can. But for the first few songs, it was a case of too much sound coming from tape, and too little coming from human hands.

One of the year’s best pop joke numbers, “Not Now James, We’re Busy,” lost something in translation to the stage: The rap-style song’s punch line--an audio snippet of James Brown--works perfectly on record. But on stage, where vision reinforces sound, it is less likely that taped sound bites will come across well, especially amid the rapid-fire rap delivery of “Not Now James.” To make the number work, PWEI would have needed to bring on a good J.B. impersonator.

Before long, though, the instrumental team of Adam Mole and Richard March started to make itself felt with some good, noisy guitar grunge and driving bass lines that gave the show before a half-capacity house more real-time impact. They also punched up some riffs and rhythm effects on sampling keyboards, which helped diminish the aloofness inherent in the use of prerecorded material. With much of the sound canned, it was essential that the singers give vibrant, emphatic performances that would instill the show with sweat and immediacy. They delivered--especially Mansell, a manic, shirtless figure with a tangle of long, matted hair who leaped about wildly, jabbed the air with his fists, and took frequent table-top excursions into the audience.

A few more hands substituting for machines would have made the show more of a grabber, but all in all this fun performance was a good example of real personality making up for a shortage of real people.

A half-hour opening set by Electric Cool-Aide offered garage-punk that was earnestly, if sloppily, played and reasonably melodic. The best song from this young Costa Mesa foursome was a reflection on a teen suicide that seemed honest and personally felt. A song about a “Do The Right Thing”-style police melee and race riot was less convincing. Electric Cool-Aide could be worth another look in a few months--if it works hard to sharpen up.