POP MUSIC REVIEW : Touch of Class From Hitless Joe Jackson

The first time Joe Jackson played the Universal Amphitheatre it was 11 years ago, the joint was roofless and the front rows were filled with honest-to-gosh punks who had mistaken Jackson for one of their own and were affectionately spitting on him, much to his enraged chagrin.

There were, of course, no misdirected punks in sight on Tuesday at Universal as Jackson made a less contentious appearance at the hall. This time, the performer-audience dynamic was a virtual love fest, with Jackson (who hasn’t had a hit in some time) earnestly thanking the nearly full house for turning out en masse during what has been a notoriously soft touring season even for superstar acts.

Either the thinking man’s Billy Joel or the common man’s Elvis Costello, Jackson has specialized this past decade in acerbic ballads, which were played Tuesday by a large ensemble that sounded like a good, powerful version of the sort of band you might hear backing an Off Broadway musical production.

Obviously it all bespeaks “class,” but not just in quotation marks. Despite forays into overwrought sentimentality on one hand or lingering angry-young-man-isms on the other, Jackson really does reek of a likable, musically learned gentility, and not only because he wears a tuxedo jacket and drinks tea on stage now. Mixing new tunes with typically re-re-rearranged versions of the old, he brings a raconteur’s revue sensibility to his tight, bantering shows.

Newer highlights included “The Other Me,” tender and peppy schizoid pop and “Jamie G.,” the most obvious of his light Latin entries. Reworked oldies worked or didn’t to varying degrees, the weakest being a Phil Collins-ish “You Can’t Get What You Want,” the best being “Real Men” (which wondered aloud about masculinity seven years before this Robert Bly craze), given a two-violin treatment.

Opener Jill Sobule, whose under-heralded LP was one of last year’s best debuts, won a well-deserved encore for a fine solo acoustic set.