MUSIC REVIEW : Songwriters Up Close and Personal : Concert: ‘The Bottom Line’ brings various musical persuasions to Sound FX stage.

The night after almost 14,000 people gorged on U2’s audio-visual cornucopia at the Sports Arena, a gathering of fewer than 200 tasted the subtler fruits of a determinedly low-tech affair at Sound FX in Clairemont Mesa.

Those who passed on it missed a very entertaining, if unflashy, show now touring under the cumbersome banner, “The Bottom Line’s ‘In Their Own Words’ (A Bunch of Songwriters Sitting Around Singing).”

As much colloquium as concert, the program convened performers of various musical persuasions and levels of accomplishment for a casual chat-and-strum in a mostly acoustic context.

Seated left to right on the stage were rock-’n’-folk singer Darden Smith of Austin, Tex.; Nashville-based tunesmith Don Henry; L.A.-based “Western Beat” diva and former San Diegan Rosie Flores; New York singer-songwriter Chip Taylor and Glasgow-born Midge Ure, former leader of the new-wave synthesizer band, Ultravox.

In turn, each guitar-wielding musician played a tune after fielding a personalized query about songwriting from deejay Flo Rogers of 91X, who emceed from a chair to the right of Ure. Various combinations of the other performers sang background and provided incidental accompaniment on guitar or on hand-held percussion instruments that were passed back and forth.

The assortment of musical and personality types made for some intriguing juxtapositions. These included: Smith, a plain-voiced songwriter who writes folk-simple tunes about Everyman concerns, singing harmony on Ure’s powerful pop melodies; Henry, who specializes in Randy Newman-ish odes that combine bittersweet romantic irony and dark humor, strumming furiously on Taylor’s Top 40 hits, and Taylor, the oldest, least performance-tested and most commercial of the tunesmiths, playing guitar with great gusto on Flores’ country-rockish “More to Offer.”

At mid-concert, promoter Bill Silva was heard to remark, “Midge Ure playing country and Rosie Flores playing Ultravox songs--what a concept.” And the show’s concept, in fact, is the root of its appeal. It’s a touring version of a series originated at New York’s Bottom Line by that nightclub’s co-owner, Allan Pepper, and deejay Vin Scelsa, who patterned it somewhat after the famed “Writers in the Round” performances at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville.

The purpose of the program is to pare away the layers of hype and artifice that separate performers from their audience, to engender an understanding of the creative process as it applies to songwriters of disparate stylistic bents. But the tour also has enabled the musicians themselves to create a nexus that was readily apparent both in their good-natured ribbing and in their appreciation of each others’ work.

As the most famous of the bunch, Ure elicited the most enthusiastic response, and also earned some of the evening’s biggest laughs. He fussed that Flores has been getting all the press on the tour and about an “affliction” that causes him to forget the lyrics to his own songs.

Although he joked that he couldn’t possibly reproduce certain of Ultravox’s techno-laden songs with only a guitar, the simple context provided a marvelous setting for Ure’s bravura singing on such melodic gems as “One Small Day” and “Dear God.” After receiving an ovation for his classic “Vienna,” Ure looked down the row.

“Top that, Darden,” he gibed.

Smith proved Ure’s equal in the parrying. After getting good response to the title track from his 1990 album, “Trouble No More,” Smith watched Ure struggle mightily to tune his guitar before interjecting, “Now you know why he uses synthesizers.” Later, Ure said of Henry: “We draw straws on the bus to see who has to sit next to him. He writes songs that leave you either smiling or with a lump in your throat. I hate him.” To this, Smith deadpanned, “They put me next to (Henry) for contrast.”

Playing before a hometown crowd that included her parents, Flores provided a much-needed timbral and stylistic contrast with several great tunes from her new album, “After the Farm,” including her current country-chart single, “Blue Highway” and the gutsy anti-war broadside, “Price You Pay.” Flores also supplied the best guitar solos of the night.

The concert’s surprise aces in the hole were Taylor and Henry. Before this tour, Taylor--the youngest brother of actor Jon Voight (real name: James Voight)--hadn’t performed publicly in 13 years. His songwriting, however, was earning him money all the while. He wrote the ‘60s hits “Wild Thing” (recorded by the Troggs), “Any Way That You Want Me” (American Breed), “Angel of the Morning” (Merilee Rush, later Juice Newton), “Take Me for a Little While” (Vanilla Fudge), and “I Can’t Let Go” (Hollies).

Taylor sang the first three of those songs in an unremarkable but effective voice that seemed a cross between Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson, and he contributed one of the keenest examples of the music industry’s haphazard nature with an anecdote about “Any Way That You Want Me.”

Apparently, Taylor had sent a rough demo of the tune to a producer friend who was working in the studio with legendary songwriter Barry Mann (“You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling”). The producer, unimpressed with the song, was going to erase the demo tape and reuse it to record an echo effect, but accidentally hit the wrong button and played the tune over the studio speaker system. Upon hearing it, Mann opined that it was a sure-fire hit, and the song was saved.

Henry is someone you will hear much about in the future. Critics keep comparing him to Newman.

His works include “Harley,” the tongue-in-cheek “Mr. God” and a poignant tribute to Martin Luther King Jr., “Beautiful Fool.” These songs loudly second the motions of those critics who think Henry will become a songwriter of some stature.

If the tour’s only success is in giving greater exposure to such talents, the “In Their Own Words” project is a smashing idea.