Pop Music : Workmanlike Set Works Fine for Living Colour

“You know we’ve been waiting to get to Los Angeles!” teased Vernon Reid, the guitar hero of Living Colour, midway through the band’s Universal Amphitheatre concert on Friday night. This sounded like typical tour bravado: Band comes to town and claims this is the city with the greatest fans of all, a rock ritual repeated ad nauseam at each stop.

This being Living Colour, though, the local reference was not a lead-in to mere idle flattery.

“You know what’s been happening in this town,” he continued. “And you know we couldn’t come here and not talk about it. The funniest thing is how shocked everyone is.” And with that, in case any addlebrained fans still didn’t realize he was referring to the controversy over alleged police brutality in the city, Reid named a certain tell-all (profane) song title by rap act N.W.A.

Reid’s truncated patter left something to be desired as cogent social commentary, but he’s a better songwriter than stand-up editorializer, and the song that followed--the funk-rock workout “Funny Vibe”--is as great an explication of the fear and paranoia that are part of the minority experience in America as you’re likely to find in a few short lines: “No I’m not gonna rob you / No I’m not gonna beat you / No I’m not gonna rape you / So why you want to give me that funny vibe!”

This wasn’t the first time Living Colour touched on racial controversy in the Southland: There were the 1989 shows with the Rolling Stones at the Memorial Coliseum, during which the band addressed what it feels are racist lyrics and the subsequent non-apologies of co-billed Guns N’ Roses. Again the between-song remarks weren’t as clear and as cutting as you might’ve wished, but Living Colour is a world-class hard-rock quartet that went on to more than prove its point then by simply outplaying GNR.

Reid’s flights of fancy Saturday on numbers of punkish intensity like “Time’s Up” dazzled in the great Hendrix tradition, albeit with an enjoyable severe pop economy. And the remaining members of the power trio, bassist Muzz Skillings and drummer William Calhoun, proved appropriately heavy in metallic moments and nimbly funky elsewhere. Braid-whipping singer Corey Glover was his usual galvanizing self, pacing in restless circles or doing the obligatory audience jaunt.

On the minus side were some superfluous accouterments--sampling and keyboards from offstage (the “stings” especially distracting accompanied by light flashes in “Funny Vibe”); some New Agey instrumental links between songs; an utterly dull drum solo following “Open Letter.”

Also disappointing was the paucity of surprise: Though Living Colour has covered Talking Heads, Clash and Al Green to great effect in the past, fans had to settle for a brief snippet of Tracy Chapman’s “Talkin’ ‘Bout a Revolution” here. Still, if any band is worth hearing turning in a workmanlike performance, Living Colour is probably it.