O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : New Wave Veterans: Big Splash in Irvine

In concept, the “Escape From New York” tour seemed a dubious attempt to turn rock’s New Wave into another oldies extravaganza.

It packages the Ramones, Deborah Harry and an almost-the-Talking Heads version of Tom Tom Club, a musically diverse crowd linked only by propinquity. All are veterans of the mid-’70s glory days of the New York rock scene that sprang from a seedy nightclub called CBGB.

But the crowd that turned up Friday night at Irvine Meadows was young, proving that the New Wave’s old guard matters to a fresh generation of fans. And the performances, though oriented toward old songs, were lively enough to dab colorful musical graffiti over any sepia tones of nostalgia and historicism suggested by the packaging. The escaped New Yorkers made the show work by playing it for fun--this was a nightclub, this was CBGB, this was some fooling around.

Leading off the show (the three acts rotate night by night between opening, middle and closing slots, with each playing a 55-minute set), Harry established the evening’s light, unpreten tious tone with a combination of broad comedy and musical bite.

The first half of her set offered serviceable but dispensable renditions of big hits from her old band, Blondie, plus a couple of dance-oriented tunes from her 1989 solo album, “Def Dumb & Blonde.” Harry was weakest during the disco-beat “Rapture.” She got away with her tepid rap delivery in 1981, when the novelty song hit No 1. But in 1990, we all know how rap is supposed to sound.

Harry and her tightly wound band, which included longtime collaborator Chris Stein on lead guitar, fared better the deeper they plunged into the fast, gritty style that Blondie developed in its CBGB days. The energy level peaked with the pairing of an old Blondie raver, “Detroit 442,” and “Bike Boy,” a new song done in the old thrashing style. “Cautious Lip,” another oldie, was suffused with Harry’s humor as she played one of her favorite roles--a sultry femme fatale with fangs, prowling about a stage lit dimly to evoke a place like CBGB.

When Harry decided to pay homage to the New York New Wave’s past, she reached back a decade before Blondie and sang a hilarious version of the Velvet Underground’s “I’m Waiting for the Man.” Lou Reed’s original rendition found deadpan humor in a junkie’s mean-streets existence; Harry expanded that into broad comedy, crawling and clawing until she received her “fix”--a shot from Stein’s guitar, which dispensed terse, sardonic licks as he pressed it to her arm. To her credit, Harry was also respectful of the song’s multifaceted nature, reining in the farce at the end to finish with a touch of hard-edged realism. “Waiting for the Man” was a fine way for Harry to honor the New York underground tradition without becoming smarmy and nostalgic about it.

Nobody expects the unexpected from the Ramones, who played in the second slot. The band is a long-running cartoon that maintains its leather-jacketed following by blasting out hard, fast monolithic grunge. For non-cultists, the Ramones’ appeal lies in their ability to wrap their concrete slab sound in a candy coating of bubble gum pop melody. For a half hour or so, the combination of zippy hooks and single-minded crunch on songs like “I Wanna Be Sedated” and “Beat on the Brat” made the set a lark.

As ever, the Ramones were a caricature of themselves. Johnny Ramone hunched over his guitar with an impassive, concentrated look, hair flopping over his face. Joey Ramone, tall, scrawny and pallid, never strayed from the center-stage spot where he growled out his vocals. Surrounded by a pocket of four sound monitors, leaning determinedly against his microphone stand, he looked like some leather-jacketed, undernourished Custer making a last stand. The Ramones did benefit from an infusion of new blood: C.J. Ramone, the replacement for founding bassist Dee Dee, was a manic, grinning, bug-eyed performer with a gleeful enthusiasm for his role.

Every so often, the Ramones are capable of branching out from their usual dead-end-kid stance to bring a hint of variety to their style. “I Believe in Miracles,” an anthem from their current album, “Brain Drain,” had a glimmer of poignancy. After Joey Ramone attacked musical censors, the band paired a couple of songs that drove home his comments--the defiant affirmation, “I Wanna Live,” and “Bonzo Goes to Bitburg,” a surprisingly moving song about Ronald Reagan, the loss of historical memory and the betrayal of ideals.

The Ramones’ blitz through “Bonzo” was too fast and sloppy to have much impact, though. After 30 minutes or so of the Ramones, you’ve gotten the point and, unless you’re one of the black-clad faithful, the rest is repetition that can grow tiresome when the hooks run out. With an awful sound mix blurring and burying the music, much of the show’s second half became an undifferentiated drone.

Tom Tom Club came out looking as if its set would be a thorough hoot. Done up in colorful togas, robes, tassels, beads, turbans and, in bassist Tina Weymouth’s case, a remarkable rag-shop stovepipe hat, the eight-member ensemble looked like a band of Gypsies that had gone on a shopping spree in a Moroccan bazaar--or bizarre.

But a comically exotic look and high energy level couldn’t make up for the unremarkable recent material that hampered the first half of the set. Part of the song list was drawn from the latest album by Tom Tom Club, the dance rock ensemble led by Talking Heads Weymouth and Chris Frantz. Other songs were from the solo albums of Jerry Harrison, who is touring with Tom Tom Club under the premise that three Heads are better than two.

By the second half, the A-material surfaced. Tom Tom Club’s “Wordy Rappinghood” and “Genius of Love” and Harrison’s “Rev It Up” kicked the show to life with an irresistible funk pulse and catchy pop melodies delivered by a chorus of up to five voices. Weymouth and three backup singer-dancers provided perpetual motion. Drummer Frantz bellowed jovial interjections. Harrison blissfully generated sinuous solos on his keyboard, often getting a thin, otherworldy-bent sound with a percussive plink. It could have been an earthling’s first sampling of Martian clavinet.

The show ended with three Talking Heads hits: “Life During Wartime,” capably rendered by Harrison, and “Psycho Killer” and “Burning Down the House,” sung by Weymouth. The three less famous Heads undoubtedly need David Byrne to carry on the band’s work, but they had no trouble throwing a party without him.