O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Little Fingers Tap the Past in Anaheim Show

The aesthetics of punk rock nostalgia are basically the same as the aesthetics of ‘50s or ‘60s rock nostalgia.

If a band’s aim is to revisit past glories rather than to furrow new ground, then its primary obligation is to keep the hits coming with sharpness and verve.

That was Stiff Little Fingers’ approach Saturday night at the Celebrity Theatre--not that the Northern Irish band, which emerged from Belfast in 1979, ever had hits per se. In its original run, which ended in 1983 after four studio albums, the Fingers mainly served up Clash-style punk: rough but catchy anthems, often with a political slant, occasionally showing a bit of reggae influence. In the late ‘80s, SLF played some reunion gigs in Britain; now it is reaching for a second life, with a recent album of new material that hasn’t yet found an American outlet.

The apparent object of the band’s brief tour (T-shirts on sale in the lobby listed only four dates--New York, Los Angeles, Anaheim and San Francisco) is to show the U.S. record industry that it’s still a viable concern. At the Celebrity, SLF at least proved that it’s a viable punk nostalgia concern. While its 70-minute set did include five songs from the new album, “Flags and Emblems,” they didn’t depart widely in theme or style from the show’s dozen oldies.

The current lineup consists of the band’s founding singer-guitarists, Jake Burns and Henry Cluney; drummer Dolphin Taylor, who played on the last album of SLF’s first go-round; and newcomer Bruce Foxton, who made his mark in punk rock as bassist for the Jam. Together, they delivered a fast-paced, punchy set that satisfied the general requirements of rock nostalgia, as well as the one specific requirement of punk rock nostalgia: It got fans leaping and thrashing and riding atop each other’s shoulders. The heavy action took place in front of a plywood stage-front barrier, where the most fevered fans in a crowd of several hundred reacted to most of SLF’s numbers in much the same way as kernels react to a plugged-in popcorn maker.

SLF’s identity is bound up with its hometown (although only Cluney still lives in Belfast; the other members are based in England). Much of the band’s early material, even a humorous love song like “Barbed Wire Love,” is touched by a need to comment on “The Troubles,” the sectarian Catholic versus Protestant violence and British military occupation that continue to rend the country.

Stiff Little Fingers’ basic take on the subject is the one most sane people would have: that chronic violence, terrorism and military control are ridiculous conditions that must end. Since there is no hint of an end, such oldies as “Alternative Ulster” and “Suspect Device” are still germane, and the topic remains open.

The best of the new batch of songs, “Each Dollar a Bullet,” was a bitter indictment of the continued killing. It directed some of its anger toward Irish Americans who donate money to the Irish Republican Army and its program of revolutionary terror. “Americans kill Irishmen as surely as if they’d fired the gun,” Burns spat during one chorus. The song was rooted in traditional Irish folk music, an unusual approach for Stiff Little Fingers, although they punked up those roots substantially.

Songs touching on Irish and British political issues alternated with tunes about the personal politics of growing up and trying to find an identity. While SLF’s lyrics offer more cliches than fresh insights (that was true especially of the sloganeering new anthem, “Stand Up and Shout”), the band compensates with earnestness and energy. Ultimately, the show was far more about energy than ideas; front man Burns kept his between-song comments to a minimum, which de-emphasized the politics, but helped the momentum.

The Alarm may be the only band that spends as much time marching and anthemizing as Stiff Little Fingers. But the overall tone was one of desperation, rather than naive optimism. Burns’ melodic rasp was in fine form; while the neatly cropped singer looks a bit like Peter Gabriel, he takes his vocal cues from Joe Strummer.

SLF’s energy flagged only during “Breakout,” one of six songs culled from its debut album, “Inflammable Material” (five more came from the 1980 follow-up, “Nobody’s Heroes”). The band had a fine set-ending stretch with the shout-along anthems “Fly the Flag” and “Tin Soldiers.” The momentum continued through the encore, which included a tough but sadly valedictory reading of the Bob Marley song “Johnny Was” (it was set to a beat more martial than Rastafarian) and yet another rousing and catchy oldie, “Alternative Ulster.”

A more descriptive name for the opening band, Ghost of an American Airman, would be Shades of an Irish Superstar. The Belfast band’s singer, who goes by the single name Dodge, sounds like a near-ringer for the Dubliner who goes by the single name Bono.

Which means that the bespectacled Dodge has an impressive set of pipes, capable of force and sweetness. Where Bono is always heaving and gasping as if doing breathing exercises preparatory to natural childbirth, Dodge sang without an ostentatious show of labor. But by picking up a small white strobe light and running around with it during one song, Dodge left himself wide open to charges of aping his famous sound-alike (remember Bono’s adventures with a hand-held spotlight during “Rattle and Hum”?).

Ghost’s material was solid, particularly the ardor-filled love songs, “Bring on the Mystery” and “Honeychild,” and the band was very well drilled without sounding too polished. Dodge also showed exceptional confidence for a newcomer. When the amplifiers wouldn’t work at first, he launched into an a cappella folk song, then, after somebody shouted a request for a Dylan song, he played a solo-acoustic “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.”

Before this promising band goes much further, though, it had best read up on the career of John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band, a talented group that never got taken seriously because it was rightly accused of sounding and acting too much like Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.