Little River Band Show Is Mostly Water Under Bridge

Even a river that doesn’t run very deep can be a lot of fun to float along with for a spell.

It’s true that if you’re looking for something original and inspiring, the Little River Band’s is probably not the record bin you want to browse through. But for pop rock and ballads with processed harmonies and that ‘70s, radio-ready feel, look no further than this sextet from Australia, whose “Greatest Hits” compilation is one of the great Baby Boomer car tapes.

Saturday night at the Coach House, LRB ran through a bunch of its hits and a bunch of songs that sounded like its hits, to the delight of fans who clearly wanted exactly that. Even though there was a new member in the band, there were no huge surprises, other than an acoustic opening and a couple of covers of golden oldies by such folks as Dion and Eddie Cochran.

As usual, Glenn Shorrock and Wayne Nelson shared lead vocals, with Nelson doubling on bass. Shorrock’s strong, Aussie-accented voice drove such hits as “Reminiscing” and “Cool Change” while Nelson applied a sweeter vocal with fewer dimensions to “Take It Easy on Me,” “The Night Owls” and the like. All the singing was mostly straight-ahead; about the only things on the recordings that were missing here were the scratches.

LRB might want to consider an all-acoustic tour sometime, since the first three songs undoubtedly were the highlights of the show.

“Happy Anniversary” and “It’s a Long Way There” found new life and a fresher, grittier perspective via the acoustic treatments. And “I Dream Alone,” a song by Shorrock and drummer Derek Pellicci about growing up in Australia, benefited from soft guitar chords and pretty harmonies that sometimes are lost when the band plugs in.

The new member is keyboardist Richard Bryant, an ex-Doobie Brother who joined the LRB tour only two weeks ago. Besides a competent, if unspectacular, way with the keys, his main asset seems to be an abundance of hair, which the balding Nelson and Shorrock joked might come in handy for transplants.

LRB stuck to mostly familiar territory even though it has nearly a dozen albums worth of material to draw from. One new song, “The Bottom Line”--a sweet pop ballad about sustaining love even in troubled times--sounded poised to become the band’s next hit, if there can be such a thing these days for a non-rap outfit. But Shorrock announced that “Walk Together” might be the next single and, given that it sounds just like practically every other pop tune in the LRB catalogue (complete with the requisite space in the chorus for strident, pedal-backed harmonies), that would figure.

Among recycled moments from past tours: ex-Player guitarist Peter Beckett stepped up to do the requisite solo on his biggest claim to fame, “Baby Come Back,” and Shorrock launched into his Joe Cocker imitation as a tag to “Soul Searching,” a Beckett-Shorrock song that appears on both LRB’s 1988 “Monsoon” album and its latest release, “Worldwide Love.” Also, guitarist Stephen Housden got in a few of his patented solos, all of them mercifully brief by pop standards.

Encores included a flat-out rocker version of Dion’s “The Wanderer,” which had more life to it than anything else all evening, and Cochran’s “Summertime Blues,” which had the crowd boppin’ and singin’ along, even though Shorrock’s vocal was no match for the original.