POP MUSIC REVIEW : Feats Don’t Fail Them, Even With Acoustic Guitars : In a set featuring American roots music as well as its own songs, Little Feat shows off arrangements packed with satisfying details.

Figures that Little Feat would show up Thursday for the first night of three “all-acoustic” shows at the Coach House with its usual complement of two drum set-ups, electric bass and keyboards.

The group always was the odd, funky band out during its mid-’70s heyday. Alone among such L.A. contemporaries as the Eagles and Jackson Browne, Little Feat did know a syncopated rhythm when it came up and bit ‘em in the, ummm, ankle; and in Richie Hayward, the band boasts of one of the truly unsung great drummers of the past 25 years.

For all the early focus on the late Lowell George as singer-songwriter-focal point, the group developed a singular rhythm-oriented style that made the current septet’s reunion three years ago anything but an exercise in flogging a dead career. And the song selection Thursday during Little Feat’s generous two-hour performance before a near-capacity crowd ensured that it wasn’t just a low-decibel version of their latest concert set.

There were early sound problems in balancing the acoustic guitars and vocals against the drums, but Little Feat compensated with a number of choice rarely heard nuggets, including its first single, “Easy to Slip.” The group’s melodies and arrangements were so packed with intricate details that having them reduced them to simple chord structures is hard to imagine.

Take “Texas Rose Cafe”: After percussionist Sam Clayton’s surprising lead falsetto vocal, the lurching, Delta blues-derived melody flavored by Bill Payne’s barrelhouse piano fills gave way to a New Orleans second-line bridge that metamorphosed into kind of an avant-classical motif given a Spanish tinge by Fred Tackett’s mandolin. Try that the next time a couple of friends drop over with acoustic guitars.

Payne’s piano solos were outstanding on the prototypical high-steppin’ Little Feat struts “Rad Gumbo” and “Shake Me Up.” Craig Fuller’s vocal gave “Willin’ ” even more of the aura of a renegade trucker’s bluesy lament in the intimate club setting.

Guitarist Paul Barrere’s finest moment was “Keeping Up With the Joneses,” his voice ranging freely over a funky blues riff given a jazz-noir flair courtesy Tackett’s muted trumpet and Payne’s vibes-toned synth. A blues medley of Muddy Waters’ “I Can’t Be Satisfied” and Robert Johnson’s “Hot Tamales” was given what amounted to a ‘20s-style hot-jazz arrangement with Tackett’s trumpet again in the lead.

If there was any revelation in hearing Little Feat sans electric guitars, it was the idea of the group as a timeless hot-jazz ensemble working its way through the American roots-music landscape. That and the sentiment Payne pointed to in introducing “Hangin’ on to the Good Times”: Little Feat’s members growing old gracefully with their shared history and genuinely savoring the opportunity to make their music again.

Little Feat plays tonight at 8 and 10:30 at the Coach House, 33157 Camino Capistrano, San Juan Capistrano. Sold out. (714) 496-8930.