POP MUSIC REVIEW : A Blistering L.A. Finale by Guns N’ Roses : The band lives up to all the signs of promise generated on stage and on record the last : six years during a marathon concert reminiscent of U2 or Springsteen.

Guns N’ Roses ended its week of headlines and controversy in Southern California with a memorable performance Saturday night at the Forum that was reminiscent of the great Bruce Springsteen and U2 marathon affairs of a decade or so ago.

Remember how Guns N’ Roses was so badly mismatched when pitted against the Rolling Stones in those 1989 shows at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum?

It was easy to wonder in retrospect how someone was able beforehand to even think of the concerts as a showdown to determine who was the world’s greatest hard-rock band.

Well, it is time for a rematch.

Living up to all the signs of promise generated on stage and on record the last six years, Guns N’ Roses--whose concerts have been averaging about 2 1/2-hours--put on a blistering and absorbing display of rock ‘n’ roll passion that lasted 3 hours and 36 minutes.

Known for a tough, combative, sometimes socially insensitive attitude, Guns N’ Roses even demonstrated a bit of personal enlightenment.

Last Monday and Tuesday, the first two nights of the group’s four sold-out “homecoming” Forum shows, the band’s closed circuit video camera panned the audience during intermission, concentrating on the revealing outfits of many of the young women in the crowd.

Because the scenes were shown live on three huge screens, dozens of women both nights couldn’t resist the exhibitionist instincts to lift their blouses. A few even dropped their pants to moon the camera.

But the band discontinued showing the audience on the closed circuit system after receiving complaints from fans.

“The key thing to them (stopping the practice) was that it wasn’t parents complaining, but their own fans,” Bryn Bridenthal, a spokeswoman for the band, said Saturday.

Rose did don briefly a policeman’s cap during Friday’s Forum concert, only to quickly discard it in favor of an N.W.A cap--possibly a sly reference to the hoopla last Tuesday night when his limousine was given a traffic ticket on the way into the Forum parking lot.

But before a celebrity crowd Saturday that included Cher, Billy Idol and Keanu Reeves, he concentrated on music, demonstrating that the band isn’t dependent on outbursts or outrage to be effective.

Expanding the repertoire by adding rarely played old songs to the first preview of some tunes from the group’s two new albums due Sept. 17, the band--known for its outrage and aggression--showed that rock ‘n’ roll energy and excellence can also come from a difference source: celebration.

Where the themes of the band’s music, which updates the classic Stones’ blues-rock stance, often reflect frustration and regret in dealing with relationships and vices, there was a sense of optimism in both the music and attitude that the darkness can be overcome.

Rose, who moved to Los Angeles about 1980 after what he has described as a repressive childhood in Indiana, even had some nice words for his adopted hometown.

“Los Angeles can be one of the hardest . . . places on the Earth sometimes, but . . . L.A. offers you something that a lot of places don’t.

“If you’re different or you’ve got different ideas or something, you can come out here and you can find some people similar. L.A. offers you opportunity .”

The group begins a brief European tour on Aug. 14, returning to the United States for more dates next month. The band may play additional Southern California shows next year, possibly in a stadium.