POP MUSIC REVIEW : Social Distortion Shows No Clash : Orange County band lacks imagination, if not intensity, in Hollywood performance.

In a lot of ways, Mike Ness is the Joe Strummer of Southern California. Like Strummer’s London-bred Clash, Ness’ band Social Distortion was forged in the crucible of a turbulent punk-rock scene--early-’80s Orange County--and both groups went on to expand their musical and emotional range by tapping into a rock “root.”

In the Clash’s case, that was primarily reggae; Ness turned to the harder side of country music. That merger helped make Social Distortion one of the more intriguing bands to survive the punk era, but as it enjoys its highest level of popularity, the quartet shows signs of spinning its wheels.

At the sold-out Hollywood Palladium on Thursday (the first of two nights there), singer-guitarist Ness and his band mates put on a bracing display of headlong, slam-pit-pleasing rock. Ness created a physical, leaning-into-the-wind intensity, and his ragged bellow roared mightily above the band’s tight din.

But that’s pretty much all Social Distortion did. Ness eventually opened up the narrow dynamic and emotional range, but the inclusion of such songs as Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” and Ness’ own departures from the punk formula seemed more like afterthoughts than essential components of a clear creative vision.

SD’s latest album, “Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell,” illustrates the dramatic and emotional pull that Ness has within his reach. Enriched with the vital fluids of country’s rawer side (an area verging on rockabilly’s drive and the blues’ anguish), he aspires to a sort of self-mythologizing approach that somehow comes off as innocent rather than pretentious.

For Ness there are no halfway measures: He’s the “King of Fools,” and the prison sentence is “99 to Life.” The sound is appropriately thick, with chords roaring out like crude oil coursing through the pipeline from Bakersfield. His rich, sing-along melodies are just made for Duane Eddy-tribute, fat-string guitar solos, and Ness sings with the simple, brutal honesty of a Merle Haggard disciple.

With these weapons in his arsenal, he would seem capable of much more than the slam-bam show he led on Thursday. What seemed to be missing was the eccentricity and keen alertness to the moment that marked the Clash’s peak performances.

At those shows, you couldn’t take your eyes off Strummer because you never knew what might catch his attention and trigger a tirade or a rhapsody. That sense of possibility made the experience alive and unpredictable.

Ness never came close to that. His stolid, solid, working-stiff stance was fine as far is it went, but he needs some ambition and imagination to complement his musical and emotional substance.