X, Fishbone Lead Tribes at ‘Gathering’

With a nine-hour lineup of assorted rappers, hard rockers, acoustic folkies and funksters, the “Gathering of the Tribes” concert Saturday at the Pacific Amphitheatre in Costa Mesa 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.” For X, consolation lies in rocking out and holding on to a rebellious spirit, which is exactly what the band did in a hard-kicking home stretch filled with choice catalogue nuggets.

With its amalgam of funk, rock, soul, metal and ska music, Fishbone’s very style implies that from diversity comes 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 bleak ghetto realities of drugs, poverty and prejudice before taking that final, surmounting leap of faith.

Last year’s inaugural “Gathering” show 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 demographics about the same, the rap contingent met with no more than polite tolerance from the less-than-half-capacity house.

Yo-Yo and EPMD didn’t do much to generate excitement. Yo-Yo’s calls for women’s dignity were on target, but she made her points most effectively between raps, not during. EPMD is big on beats, not ideas.

The duo spent its disorganized, 20-minute set trying with limited success to get the audience to chant back responses on cue.

Among the day’s 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 presence--he sang in an otherworldly bleat that allowed him to express alienation by sounding alien.

That 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 the unconverted.

King’s X got bogged down by its ponderous, epic tendencies, but the band did hit a soulful peak with the Hendrix-inspired “Over My Head.” Johnny Law, a rookie band from Texas, offered ordinary vocals, but a tasty, potent guitar team that, with more experience, could cause a stir in the burgeoning non-metal, ‘70s-influenced field now ruled by Black Crowes.

On the solo-folkie side, Englishman John Wesley Harding got a good response with his gregarious manner and clever songs lampooning the pretensions of pop celebrity.

Steve Earle, the former country singer who now looks and sounds more like a biker troubadour, was less warmly received, but his songs painted involving portraits of outsiders caught up in the pain and pride of not fitting in.