CAPSULE REVIEW : A Strong Comeback for the Go-Go’s

It’s difficult to recall just how startling the arrival of the Go-Go’s on the scene really was almost a decade ago. There were other female bands around, but these were not leather girls nor mystical chiffon goddesses. That first album cover, with its aggressively cute imagery of beauty make-overs, threw it in your face, paving the way for the quintet to introduce a new, incontrovertible element into the rock ‘n’ roll--frisky, unapologetic American femininity.

If that element is in rock to stay, so, just maybe, are the Go-Go’s. The quintet, split up for five years now, put the go-go back in the Whisky a Go Go on Tuesday by playing their first reunion show there, the site of many of their early, most unpolished gigs. (The show was a little-publicized warm-up for their ballyhooed Universal Amphitheatre benefit for the Environmental Protection Act tonight.)

Much has changed in the years since the Go-Go’s got up and went--most obviously in the life, image and career of singer Belinda Carlisle, the only group member to chart a commercially viable solo career.

Once the most roly-poly and tomboyish-looking member of the band, Carlisle has slimmed down and prettied up to the point of having that untouchable supermodel look.

Ultimately, though, Carlisle proved as playful as the other members, and what incongruity there might have been between her image and the others’ worked its own purpose, if you think of her new look as the logical extension of that make-over on the first album cover. This material, too, challenges her voice; it’s nice to see a gal in an evening dress strain and growl a little.

The sound itself was expectedly raw--not so much in the manner of the old Whisky days, but more in how their recorded work was getting rougher just prior to the breakup. Their third and last album, 1984’s “Talk Show,” was easily their best, and Tuesday’s show really started to get going about half an hour in when they performed the energetic rockers “Turn to You” and “Capture the Light” from it back to back.

Far from smooth, this show isn’t near ready for the road yet, but throwaways like “California Sun” and the Ventures-inspired “Surfing ‘n’ Spying” were great fun for a one-shot, and the strength of the best original material made one hanker for new additions to their abbreviated oeuvre.

Whatever their individual fortunes, the Go-Go’s remain a case of the whole being much greater than the sum total of the parts; here’s one vote for letting the beat go on.

A full review runs in Thursday’s Calendar section.