POP MUSIC REVIEW : A Macrame Era Survivor : Steve Miller hasn’t had a hit of consequence in a decade, but his ‘Greatest Hits Tour’ drew a big crowd to the Pacific Amphitheatre Sunday.

“Times sure change,” Steve Miller noted as he held up a Coral electric sitar for the audience to view at the Pacific Amphitheatre on Sunday night. He related that the ‘60s heirloom had been considered a dog when he picked it up years ago for $125, and now he sees places charging $2,000 for the twangy things.

He could as well have been holding his own career up for inspection. In the late ‘60s, Miller’s solid music was all but lost in the shuffle of other San Francisco-based bands. He did manage to fill arenas in the ‘70s with a series of well-crafted but innocuous rock hits such as “The Joker,” “Rock’n Me” and “Fly Like an Eagle.” But if anyone had to predict the longevity of such music back then, the likely bet was that Miller would wind up in the bread line behind Peter Frampton and other macrame memories.

Some rockers have been able to remain in the public eye by force of personality, but Miller has shunned publicity and has led a quiet rural life. People probably know more about the Pillsbury Dough Boy than they do about Miller. And, impassive behind his perpetual shades, he doesn’t reveal much in his performances.

Indeed, not too many years ago Miller scarcely was drawing flies to his shows. But Sunday, the 48-year-old singer/guitarist was only a couple of thousand seats shy of selling out the Pacific (his show at the smaller Irvine Meadows last summer was a clean sellout).

Go figure: He hasn’t had a new record in years, nor a hit of consequence in a decade, and most of the songs he played Sunday are older than a great many people in the audience were. Chalk it up to the pervasiveness of “classic rock” radio, and perhaps to the paucity of any strong material these days. But some credit does have to go to Miller himself. His music may be effortless to digest, and seemingly effortless for him to produce, but there’s a lot of experience and musical savvy that went into it.

Growing up in Texas, he learned guitar from his father’s friends Les Paul and T-Bone Walker. In his teens he moved to Chicago and gigged with Muddy Waters, Otis Rush and other seminal electric bluesmen. Such roots may be deeply buried in Miller’s music, but they still inform its tight, economical sound.

Though the Pacific show came at the beginning of a two-month outing (dubbed “The Greatest Hits Tour”), Miller and his sextet played with the assurance and cohesion that more typically jells after months on the road. The 19-song set chiefly covered the obvious hits, though there were a few excursions into such lesser-known numbers as the acoustic “Seasons” and a four-pack of blues standards.

The show opened with Miller band fixture Norton Buffalo howling a lengthy intro on his harmonica to “Living in the U.S.A.,” a number from 1968 that just may be the best thing Miller ever did on record, full of a hot-rodded exuberance and social savvy. It proved a great kickoff Sunday, getting the audience up and dancing, which is where most of the folks stayed for most of the show.

Other offerings from the ‘60s included “Space Cowboy,” the obscure “Kow Kow” and “Seasons,” delivered solo by Miller on a 12-string guitar. The other end of the timeline was bracketed by “I Want to Make the World Turn Around”--a low-keyed but nonetheless plaintive ode to freedom and justice, from the mid-’80s--and the ’82 chart-topper “Abracadabra,” a low-keyed and utterly passionless song.

Unlike his contemporary Neil Young, who still seems on the verge of bursting veins every time he plays, Miller doesn’t exactly strive when he performs. Not only were no new songs introduced, but he didn’t explore any new avenues in the old tunes. Like his airy singing, his guitar solos were well-turned but lacking in passion or adventure.

As a result, “The Joker,” “Take the Money and Run,” “Jet Airliner,” the sitar-driven “Wild Mountain Honey,” the encore “Rock’n Me” and other expected hits may have been entertaining but weren’t especially enlivening. Fairing somewhat better were his blues numbers, three of which featured guest keyboardist Barry Goldberg, with whom Miller co-led a Chicago blues band in the mid-’60s.

Yet, though Miller sang and played competent, caring versions of Jimmy Reed’s “She’s Fine,” Freddy King’s “I’m Tore Down” and Otis Rush’s minor-key rumba “All Your Loving,” he never caught the ragged fire of the originals, nor the groove of the Fabulous Thunderbirds’ remake of the Reed tune.

Miller’s love of the blues may have been better exhibited in his choice of an opening act. Curtis Salgado and the Stilettos, from Portland, delivered a remarkable set, as rich in roots as it was in invention.

Singer/harpist Salgado is a veteran of Roomful of Blues and the early Robert Cray Band, and there’s no just reason why he shouldn’t achieve at least the success that Cray has.

The material in the seven-song set--most of it drawn from Salgado’s debut CD of last year--was strong and varied, spicing the blues with gospel and R&B; touches that ranged from Stax-label Southern soul to modern urban settings.

Salgado’s supple voice has all the finesse and restraint of Cray’s, with the advantage that, when Salgado loosens the reins on that restraint, he’s got overwhelming lung power reminiscent of B. B. King’s.

Backed by his responsive quartet, Salgado soothed and thundered through the simple, lovely soul ballad “Star Bright, Star Light,” and loosed emotional torrents on the self-penned single “I Shouted Your Name” and the Junior Parker classic “Blues Get Off My Shoulder.” Keep an eye on this guy.