POP MUSIC REVIEW : Wowing Audience Is Still No Sweat for Steve Miller

Water buffalo have no sweat glands. This lone fact, often and inexplicably emphasized by my 10th-grade geography teacher, is one of the few things I remember from high school. It’s a little sad: Here they load us up with Charlemagne, Shakespeare and Copernicus, and all that’s recalled two decades later is that water buffalo don’t need Dial.

But then, Steve Miller apparently has no sweat glands either, and loads of people remember him. Though the veteran singer guitarist is practically Mr. Effortless, his concert Friday night at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre was packed to the gills with dancing fans, with hundreds more left in the parking lot pleading for tickets.

In his ‘70s heyday, Miller crafted slick, highly catchy pop songs that sounded as if they were as easy for him to pen as they were to enjoy. They simply rolled with ease: Tunes like “Abra Cadabra” were never weighted down by anything resembling meaning. Even the social concerns voiced in “Fly Like an Eagle” seem somehow distanced, as if viewed from an airplane. But, darn if you didn’t find yourself singing along.

Miller’s image has always been as smooth as his songs. For years his official photographs would only show him masked or out of focus, and in person his face was scarcely more revealing. His concerts would shimmer with a cool excellence, with even his blues-based guitar solos rolling on ice. As enjoyable as his music may have been in the moment, its very slickness made it seem hardly the thing to stick with people over time.

So go figure: Though Miller doesn’t even have a record contract, much less a hit, at present, he was greeted at the Meadows as if he were Norman Schwarzkopf. And it wasn’t just John and Mary Volvo Wagon in the audience, but also Amber Miata and lots of crop-haired guys who looked as if their most recent vehicle had been a tank.

“C’mon and dance / You might not get another chance,” Miller sang in his opening song, “Swing Town,” and the audience took that advice to heart. Most were up and dancing throughout the two-hour show.

The seven-piece band included Miller stalwarts Ben Sidran and Norton Buffalo, both of whom go back decades with him. Some of the material also reached back to his earliest days, including his version of “Mercury Blues” from the now-rare 1967 “Revolution” film soundtrack. Both that song and his minor ‘60s masterwork “Livin’ in the U.S.A.” seemed listless compared to his previous go at them (and “Mercury Blues” seemed absolutely stalled compared to David Lindley’s definitive version), but those were exceptions in an otherwise tight set.

Included were the ephemeral “Wild Mountain Honey”--with Miller on electric sitar, a strong round of solos on the minor-key “Born to be Blue,” the Lynyrd Skynyrd-like “Take the Money and Run” and “Rock ‘n Me.” Along with “The Joker” and a boogie-ing blues, the encore featured Miller in a solo acoustic spot singing “Seasons” from his 1969 “Brave New World” album, a moody song about the transitory nature of things.

Behind shades and in a fringed black leather jacket, Miller, as ever, seemed the diplomat of cool, singing and playing with a workmanlike skill, and a workmanlike dearth of flash. His most impassioned moment was a non-musical one, when he pleaded with the audience to help save our ancient forests.

Opener Eric Johnson is one of the better musical sons of Jimi Hendrix to come along in recent years, forging on from Hendrix’s rich tonal palette and advanced melodic concepts. But curiously, the Texan guitarist seems to catch more of a spark in the studio than he does in live performance. It’s not that he can’t carry off his dexterous, racing technique live--rather, he brings too much of that to bear.

The lyricism of his instrumental “Cliffs of Dover” was nearly lost in the torrent of speed runs he sent coursing through it. Though famed as a guitar-head, Johnson is also a fine songwriter and capable singer. But, again, his hauntingly lovely “Desert Rose” was taken at a race-course pace that left its feeling behind.

The only times when Johnson really allowed his notes to speak were on his covers of Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary” and “Spanish Castle Magic,” where his muse skitted over the strings, unfettered yet always where it should be to touch the emotions.