POP MUSIC REVIEW : Poi Dog Pondering Takes a Round-World Trip on Stage

Swinging a lighted spinning globe about on a darkened stage while singing “take a trip around this great big world,” Poi Dog Pondering front man Frank Orrall pretty much summed up what the group is about at Bogart’s on Wednesday.

The eight-piece Austin-by-way-of-Honolulu outfit tried, and generally succeeded, at incorporating just about every type of music on the orb. The band appears at the Coach House tonight.

Seamlessly combining Led Zep’s “Immigrant Song” with the “Get Smart” theme was the least of Poi Dog’s undertakings. The 19-song set also melded the textures of Van Morrison’s “Astral Weeks” with African high-life rhythms, the effervescence of Jonathan Richman’s preteen pastorals with the mood of the Stones’ “Midnight Mile,” and Celtic stomps with West African bass figures.

Instead of the layered acoustic folk approach that prevails on the group’s debut album, the band’s live show went for an electric, highly Africanized world-beat sound, spiced with violin, fluegelhorn, accordion, tin whistle and other esoterica. And unlike the sterile approach of many U.S. world beaters, Poi Dog played as if it were trying to foment a playground riot, and probably could have with a pumping soul revue encore version of Elvis’ “Burning Love.”

One thing setting the group apart might be its experience at performing on sidewalks for change. No matter how diffuse its musical sources might have been Wednesday, the Poi Dogs never seemed to lose touch with the ground-level notion that they were playing for people.

There was some complex gear-shifting going from the Irish-bent “Living With the Dreaming Body,” to the “Physical Graffiti” guitar lines of “Wood Guitar,” to “Postcard From a Dream,” which could be a distant kin to the Seekers’ “Georgy Girl.”

While an exuberant performer who possesses a quirky kinetics somewhere between David Byrne and Jimmy Stewart, Orrall was also a factor in the band falling short of utter nirvana, due to his limited voice and light lyrics. Like Morrison and Richman, his songs express a wonder for life and a celebration of elemental things, but unlike them, his attempts seemed largely without the poetry or vocal abandon necessary to convey the magic he sang of. But then, few people reach that in their first time at bat, and Orrall and his band come close enough to warrant support and future attention.

Poi Dog Pondering plays tonight at 9 at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. Tickets: $10. Information: (714) 496-8930.