O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : X, Fishbone Steal Show at Gathering of Tribes

With a nine-hour lineup of assorted rappers, hard rockers, acoustic folkies and funksters, the Gathering of the Tribes show Saturday at the Pacific Amphitheatre went on the assumption that diverse tastes can be bound together in a single pop community.

The day’s best performances, and its most interesting commentaries on the concept of community, came from a couple of indigenous tribes, Los Angeles bands X and Fishbone.

Top-billed X’s hourlong set was dotted with songs about the breakdown of community. It climaxed with a soaring version of the bitter elegy, “See How We Are,” which decries America’s deterioration into “this so-called community,” ridden with injustice and shallow consumer values.

For X, consolation lies in rocking out and holding onto a rebellious spirit, which is exactly what the band did in a hard-kicking home-stretch filled with choice catalogue nuggets (the set also included a couple of new songs). Rather than finish with the plaint of “See How We Are,” X struck a more defiant closing note with “What’s Wrong With Me,” a careening rocker that finds humor and pride in maladjustment: “What’s wrong with me? It’s none of your ---damn business.” After a break for solo albums over the past few years, X’s vocal duo of Exene Cervenka and John Doe sounded stronger than ever, promising good things for the band’s next round.

With its amalgam of funk, rock, soul, metal and ska music, Fishbone’s very style implies that from diversity can come harmony. With singer Angelo Moore wading far into the audience to lead the crowd in a pledge against racism, the show ended on a hopeful note. But the set’s strength lay in Fishbone’s willingness to look hard into the bleak realities of drugs, poverty and prejudice before taking that final, surmounting leap of faith.

The show peaked in a set-closing sequence memorable both for its thematic and stylistic progression. “So Many Millions,” the cry of a ghetto kid who knows he has no chance at a decent life, wafted along in a thick, lethargic haze--inspired, no doubt, by the harrowing aural landscape of urban decay from Sly & the Family Stone’s album, “There’s a Riot Goin’ On.”

Then came “Sunless Saturday,” still downcast, but with its rumbling, determined anthem rock implying that there is at least some reason to hope. Finally, “Everyday Sunshine,” with its jubilant, gospel call-and-response, envisioned a triumph of goodness and community (tellingly, Fishbone’s new album, “The Reality of My Surroundings,” ends with “Sunless Saturday,” a much more chastened end note than the unambiguous uplift the band went for in concert).

Fishbone’s show was almost a case of overload. Aurally, there was that clash of metallic guitar, tart Jamaican-style horns, funk rhythms, and multiple-part, tag-team vocals. Visually, there was a tumult of frenzied movement. It’s a near-miracle that Fishbone’s players didn’t collide, let alone miss a musical clue. Fishbone’s energized act could stand a bit more focus and simplification, particularly on the musical side. But that would be more a matter of fine-tuning the band’s obvious strengths than making major changes.

Last year’s inaugural Gathering at the Pacific was a triumph for rap, with Queen Latifah and Ice-T igniting the predominantly white, KROQ-oriented crowd. This year, with the audience demographic about the same, the rap contingent met with no more than polite tolerance from the less than half-capacity house.

Maybe that’s because Yo-Yo and EPMD didn’t do much to generate excitement. Female rapper Yo-Yo’s calls for women’s dignity were on target, but she made her points most effectively between raps, not during. Yo-Yo showed a knack for self-deprecating humor during “I Got Played,” but canned elements (including training-wheels tracks that doubled Yo-Yo’s live vocals) took the spark out of other raps.

EPMD is big on beats, not ideas. The duo of Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith spent its disorganized 20-minute set trying to get the audience to chant back responses on cue. Game troupers, they didn’t give up and were rewarded by some reasonable crowd participation on their last rap, “Rampage.” Instead of quitting while ahead, EPMD’s act continued with an anticlimactic concluding display of scratching prowess by the group’s D.J.

Among the day’s three hard-rock acts, Primus was the crowd favorite. The Bay Area trio’s act is based on strong, funk-metal musicianship and singer-bassist Les Claypool’s weird, cartoon-like streak.

The long-legged Claypool stomped and skittered about while thwacking coolly at his bass and singing in a nasal, other-worldly bleat that allowed him to express alienation by sounding alien. It gave Primus a novel twist on the now-common alternative funk-metal style, but this is still a one-note band, and 45 minutes was more than enough for a non-convert.

The faithful loved it, crowding down front and showing approval by screaming “Primus sucks,” in keeping with the sense of strange inversion that the band cultivates.

King’s X, another trio, got bogged down by self-consciously weighty philosophic musings and ponderous, over-extended arrangements that sometimes recalled the noxious pomp rock tradition of Styx and Kansas. But it would be a mistake to write the band off: it pulled off some good, Beatles-inspired three-part harmonies, and Doug Pinnock hit a soulful peak with his Hendrix-inspired vocal on “Over My Head.”

King’s X needs to rein in its epic tendencies and learn to play it earthy and direct.

Johnny Law, a rookie band from Texas, is another in the line of ‘70s-inspired hard-rock guitar bands, led by the Black Crowes, that eschew metal for a Stones-and-blues foundation. Erik Larson’s vocals were ordinary, but he and Brady Hughes formed a potent guitar team. Johnny Law seemed intimidated by the big stage, huddling close together instead of exploring open spaces. But the playing was strong, and there is promise in the fact that this young band’s debut album offers more substance and less outright imitation of sources than those more flamboyant Crowes.

On the solo-folkie side, Englishman John Wesley Harding (the only tribesman not from the United States), won the crowd with a gregarious manner and clever songs lampooning the excesses and pretensions of pop celebrity. Much as Mark Russell deflates Washington politicos, Harding seems well-equipped to make a living as a jester tweaking pop star vanities--if he wants to settle for such easy game.

Steve Earle, the country singer who now looks and sounds more like a biker troubadour, was less witty, trendy and ingratiating than Harding, and his middling tempos were less brisk. Consequently, most of the crowd was indifferent--or worse--toward Earle’s solo set. Too bad, because his songs, delivered with aggressive strumming and a raw, nasal, whiskey-throated twang, painted involving portraits of outsiders caught up in the pain and pride of not fitting in.