POP MUSIC REVIEW : Sexy Fun and Sophistication From the B-52’s

“It’s 1990--let’s shake those heinies!” lead singer Fred Schneider exhorted, prefacing the B-52’s’ sold-out four-night stand at the Universal Amphitheatre on Tuesday with a call to the “honey buns” further addressed in the opening “Cosmic Thing.”

And if this doesn’t seem all that far removed from bumping disco booty, you haven’t been paying enough attention: The B-52’s, in the midst of a huge, richly deserved comeback, offer giddiness, sweetness and real sophistication with their sexy fun, and the songs have staying power rarely found in the realm of dance music.

That latter trait is due partly to the fact that though the band has beautiful, unerring rhythmic solidarity--especially between guitarist Keith Strickland (who used to play drums) and tour drummer Zach Alford--the music is full of dynamics and climaxes. And the Day-Glo generation’s house band’s conscience doesn’t end with its calls to visit the Greenpeace and animal rights booths in the lobby, though singers Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson ask little more in concert than to be your party girls.

The 90-minute show was dominated by seven oldies from the first two albums (highlighted early on by Wilson’s emoting on “Give Me Back My Man,” one of the few great, brooding torch songs one can shake one’s brains silly to) and an equally weighted seven choices from the recent “Cosmic Thing” album, with only a couple of selections from the near-decade in-between; it’s a tribute to the band’s indomitability that the new stuff packed even more punch than the “classics.”

What fans may remember most from these concerts, though--an attribute as yet unexploited by the band’s fine recent videos--is how Schneider and fringe-bikinied Pierson are this outfit’s Fred and Ginger, expertly frugging their way through some of the infamous 16 dances of “Dance This Mess Around” and some new ones too. We can only dream of the humidity and humanity promised in their Shangri-La-like Southern “Love Shack,” but this week, at least, they give us the Universal a Go Go.