Pop & Jazz : Rural Splendor From John Denver

Tousle-haired country boy John Denver dished up a comprehensive selection of songs from his nearly three decades of performing at the Greek Theatre on Friday.

But despite their differences in age, almost all the tunes shared a single-minded fixation with rural splendor and environmental concerns. Denver threw the words mountain and wind into his three-hour appearance almost as often as President Bush would manage to say trust or Bill Clinton change .

To a certain degree, Denver is a victim of the times. A champion of environmental integrity and bio-diversity throughout his career, he sounds relentlessly trendy now that the rest of the country has caught on to his concerns.

Denver’s superannuated sound confections beckon with a sort of surface appeal, but ultimately seem simply inconsequential.

Pleasant and crowd-pleasing, presented with a plethora of intriguing percussion flourishes on Friday (the first of two nights at the Greek), his songs about feather beds, home-grown tomatoes and the like somehow don’t carry much impact in a city that just lived through the worst urban riots of the century.