Abominable Sound, Man! : Distortion Does Disservice to Cocker, Lobos at the Pacific

If you’re not in the mood for unpleasantness, consider turning the page. This is going to be ugly.

Not half so ugly, though, as the sound quality at the Pacific Amphitheatre on Tuesday night. Atrocious mixes had roughly the same impact on two worthy acts--Joe Cocker and Los Lobos--as an 18-wheeler rumbling down the freeway has on some poor, small creature unlucky enough to be frozen in its path.

Both performances were rendered virtually unlistenable by badly exaggerated bass guitar and kick-drum sounds that exploded like cluster bombs over the musical terrain, turning it into pitted unloveliness. The lower-end sounds--even some of the left-hand parts played on a solo, unaccompanied piano during Cocker’s headlining set--throbbed with distortion. During the louder rockers, basses and drums dealt brain-buzzing blows to the skull.

It would have been just the thing for an evening with a headbanger speed-metal band like Slayer, where the whole object is to inflict physical and auditory punishment on the listener. But applied to the music of Cocker and Los Lobos, performers who like to rock, but always with nuance, clarity and a blues-informed soulfulness, such distortion was an act of vandalism.

Among the images that came to mind during the worst passages (and they were many):

* Punishment by the Mafia. You’ve been stuffed into an industrial drum, the lid has been sealed shut, and the goons have commenced banging on the metal hull with baseball bats.

* A night at the bowling alley.

* A 2 1/2-hour traffic jam, spent idling next to one of those sociopaths who rides around dealing death from an over-amped stereo.

* An evening spent lost on the Tarmac at a major metropolitan airport.

Under such conditions, a reviewer has to think first of surviving the experience without suffering shellshock. For the sake of self-preservation, and in hopes that the sound would improve, this correspondent retreated for part of both sets from a seat close to the source to a spot in the second tier of seats. It didn’t help much.

Los Lobos’ 55-minute set was almost a total loss in which everything turned to sonic mush. Anybody who has given the East Los Angeles band’s albums a fair hearing knows they are adept players who can communicate joys and sorrows in a striking array of styles--blues played with a powerful rock edge or with an R&B; jump; Mexican folk music, applied to sad ballads and rousing, accordion-driven tunes; Cajun fiddle music, and anthem rockers such as the band’s stirring signature song, “Will the Wolf Survive?” None of that came across at the Pacific. Fans who reacted to the music must have been responding to their memory of it, and not to the corrupted real-time version they were hearing.

What’s really discouraging is that the sound was almost as bad on the opening night of Los Lobos’ series of shows last October at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano. Maybe it’s time for the group to send its sound engineer to the audiologist. The musicians themselves are ultimately responsible for their sound, and on both occasions Los Lobos sounded atrocious.

Things were marginally better for Cocker. There was enough separation of highs and lows to pick out some appealing elements. Among them were the rolling, trilling, barrelhouse piano of Chris Stainton, Cocker’s longtime sidekick; some strong second-slot keyboard work by John Miles, a former solo contender on the British rock scene; and the gospel-streaked wailing of backup singers Cydney Davis and Maxine Sharpe. Their hooting highs complemented Cocker, who sounded, as always, as if he were spitting bent, rusty nails.

That distinctive rasp allowed the Woodstock veteran to avoid sounding utterly saccharine when singing schmaltz like “Up Where We Belong” and “You Are So Beautiful.” And it let him sound authentic on a Bryan Adams-penned slice of overblown corporate rock, “When the Night Comes.”

Most of Cocker’s repertoire didn’t need redeeming. He devoted most of his 90-minute show to such A-list songs as “Guilty,” and the crowd-pleasing “You Can Leave Your Hat On” (both written by Randy Newman), “Unchain My Heart,” “The Letter” and “With a Little Help From My Friends”--sticking close, in all cases, to familiar recorded versions. The strong song list was enough to take the audience of a few thousand people back to its Wonder Years, leaving most of the crowd pleased enough with the music, despite that ruinous bass-and-drums throb. Maybe nostalgia is a stronger sense than hearing.

With two acts falling so far into the sonic septic tank, one might suspect that there was something wrong with the amplification system. But a half-hour opening set by the Cruzados was passable in terms of sound clarity, which would seem to absolve the system itself and point the finger at those charged with controlling it.

Not that the Los Angeles band did much with that clarity. Cruzados went from punk rock in its former incarnation, the Plugz, to heartland sounds a la Springsteen and Petty on two mid-’80s albums, to metallic rock. Now it has switched again, serving up Stones-derived music that had some kick but little else to distinguish it. Most of singer Tito Larriva’s new songs were uninvolving reflections on the old love-is-hell theme. Mike Thompson’s sweet organ and piano playing were a highlight; two female backup singers appeared intimidated when their role should have been to lend some sassiness.