Blasts From ‘70s ‘Earth Dogs’ Are a Breed Apart : The Ted Nugent-led Damn Yankees crank and strut at Irvine Meadows, but the generic-sounding Bad Company is but a shadow of its former self.

Some earth dogs still can have their day. Others would be better off just rolling over and burying their bones.

“Earth dog” was the term that radio programming consultants coined for arena bands of the ‘70s and early ‘80s whose rock was generally unimaginative, unambitious, but meaty and beaty enough to keep disco-hating middle-American consumers well-satisfied.

Damn Yankees, a conglomeration of earth dog all-stars built around mad mutt Ted Nugent, showed lots of bite if not a bit of brains during a fun, energized opening set Tuesday night at Irvine Meadows.

Headliner Bad Company had moments when it replicated the solid, no-nonsense style of rock that it coined on a strong 1974 debut album. But the hollow husk of a band on stage had almost no legitimate link with that past, and its charmless, workaday set held out no promise for the future.

On the surface, Damn Yankees is a calculated attempt to revive the flagging careers of Nugent, for whom the ‘80s were a long, dry spell; singer-guitarist Tommy Shaw, whose solo career sank after his old band, Styx, called it quits; and Jack Blades, former singer of Night Ranger.

On Damn Yankees’ successful debut album, the corporate slickness of Shaw and Blades often staunches Nugent’s abundant animal spirits. But on stage, a nice symbiosis took place. Nugent’s fire heated up his partners, while the melodic pop craftsmanship of Shaw and Blades provided structure that kept Nugent from firing off in every direction, as he is prone to when left on his own.

Nugent is without a doubt one of the most obnoxious figures in rock, but he is also impossible to truly dislike. He reveled in the role of the flashy guitar hero, striking gladiatorial poses, casting wild-eyed looks. But unlike just about everybody else, Nugent’s gleeful, macho antics are more endearing than affected. If he’d only been born with an ounce of smarts and reflectiveness to go with the wildness, Nugent could have been a real contender instead of an amusing sideshow.

His playing was fleet and honed yet customarily unruly, too, as he whanged and danged with whammy bar screeches and feedback. He only misfired in a solo guitar spot intended as a tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan: It offered little in the way of melodic ideas or dynamic buildup.

The set avoided the slicker, more turgid songs on the “Damn Yankees” album and stuck to the spirited stuff. Nugent’s solo hits “Free for All” and “Cat Scratch Fever” both were highlights, and one of Styx’s more tolerable pomp-rockers filled out the set. Blades--a tiny fellow dwarfed by the strapping Nugent--frolicked about, showing more spirit than you’d expect from a Night Ranger alumnus. He and Shaw both sang with serviceable, husky yowls.

Damn Yankees were best off sticking to songs about rampant hormones. Their other theme, rampant jingoism, is something we can all do without. Shaw and Nugent expressed their enthusiasm for our forces in Saudi Arabia by uttering ethnic slurs against Arabs--or “towel-heads,” as Shaw called them. If our Arab allies , or anyone else, would like to refer to Damn Yankees as “lunk-heads,” or something similar, they would be right on target.

The lunk-heads did have just enough wit for some enjoyable slapstick humor. Nugent grabbed Shaw’s acoustic guitar after he strummed and crooned the introduction to Styx’s treacly ballad “Babe” and smashed the offending instrument to bits. The show ended with Shaw and Blades dragging a still-soloing Nugent out by his feet.

Bad Company resembled one of those ‘50s or ‘60s nostalgia acts that play games with their audiences by touring under a famous name, playing the old hits while trying to disguise the fact that only the bassist or drummer actually remains from the original ensemble.

On its current album, “Holy Water,” guitarist Mick Ralphs and drummer Simon Kirke are holdovers from the original four-man Bad Company lineup--enough, perhaps, to somewhat justify continued use of the name in the absence of original front man Paul Rodgers. But Ralphs is not on tour with the band (a spokeswoman for Atco Records said Ralphs remained in England because of family responsibilities--a newborn child and the illness of his father).

Kirke or singer Brian Howe should have played straight with the audience and announced what was up with Ralphs. Instead, they performed their 90-minute set with three supporting players who received no introduction. Geoffrey Whitehorn, a solid replacement lead guitarist for Ralphs, took solo after solo without ever getting the spotlight. Instead, it stayed perpetually on Howe, even when he was doing nothing and had his back turned.

Howe did his best singing when echoing Rodgers’ old parts, though he lacked that fine singer’s depth of feeling and invention. Half of the 14 songs were drawn from Rodgers’ era; the rest were from the three albums Bad Company has made since Kirke and Ralphs reformed the dormant band with Howe in 1986. On newer songs, most of them cliched, inflated corporate rock, Howe sounded generically husky--a little Rod Stewart, some Eddie Money, and a whole lot of Foreigner’s Lou Gramm.

Howe’s performing persona was as generic as his singing style. Lacking anything of substance to say, he cussed to be cool, claiming macho points for himself by threatening to beat to a pulp somebody who was throwing wads of paper at him (maybe they had “Where’s Mick?” written on them). When he wasn’t acting tough, Howe was making a beggar of himself, wheedling applause from the audience with cupped ear or outstretched hands.

For all that, Bad Company had its moments. The band showed off the old Bad Company’s sinewy, lean style early on with “Movin’ On” and “Rock and Roll Fantasy.” Kirke, who is built like Conan the Barbarian, powered everything with thwacking that was concise, precise and mighty. He also took a spirited turn singing a solo acoustic guitar version of “Shooting Star” that he dedicated to Stevie Ray Vaughan. After that, the show settled into mid-tempo sameness from which it never recovered. Bad Company threatened to ignite when it finally launched into a fast rocker that included a smart, speeded-up quotation of the bass line from Free’s “All Right Now.” But the spark quickly fizzled into a by-the-numbers hard-rock drum solo.

With Bad Company in decline, fans would do better to seek out some real riches in its ancestral past--look for albums by Free, the excellent, bluesy British hard rock band of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s that featured Rodgers and Kirke.