POP MUSIC REVIEW : Steering Clear of Sentiment : Pontiac Brothers’ reunion concert at the Fullerton Hofbrau features unpretentious, never-meticulous rock, with no updating or reminiscing.

The Pontiac Brothers managed to get through their musical career without much fanfare. These somewhat mangy but very lovable old dogs weren’t about to try any ostentatious new tricks as they played a reunion concert Saturday night at the Fullerton Hofbrau.

The alternative rock band from Orange County had a critically praised but commercially meager run of albums and national tours from 1984 to 1988, regrouped over the past month to record a reunion album and then tacked on a couple of live shows, including this one in their hometown.

At the Hofbrau, the Pontiacs dispensed with any reminiscing, sentimentalizing, updating, or explanation of their new recording project (which is intended as a onetime regrouping for old times’ sake, with no intention of reigniting their career). Instead, they just played their unpretentious, never-meticulous rock in an unpretentious way for 250 or so fans who were happy to have them back for an hour.

“It’s so good to be back. . . . What am I talking about?” singer Matt Simon joked at one point, as if any mention of the old days would be far too hokey.

The Pontiacs bashed their way through some highlights from their past, played a few sloppy-but-fun covers that they used to do back when and tossed in four well-received new songs.

The band’s three American albums--”Doll Hut,” “Fiesta en la Biblioteca” and “Johnson”--all were quality efforts that brought to mind references both classic (the Rolling Stones and country music) and contemporary (the Replacements). The new material, due for fall release on the Pontiacs’ old label, Frontier, won’t disappoint old fans and may even make some new ones.

For a band that “doesn’t really exist,” as guitarist Ward Dotson put it in a recent interview, the Pontiacs still sounded like the deserving alternative rock contenders they were in the ‘80s.

Simon, who played the show barefoot and in his pajamas, is a yowler rather than a crooner, and a good deal of his yowling was strained and off key. The tall, gangly singer’s chief virtue never was pure vocal talent, but his ability to register ragged feeling.

He managed once again to embody the sort of character who crops up in most of the Pontiacs’ songs: a guy who is losing in the career sweepstakes, wounded in love, or generally messing up to the point where he’s prone to drown his sorrows at the bar or fall down in the gutter.

But that same fellow keeps a certain spunk and a scrappy, game attitude that allows him his dignity. Even if you’re losing, according to the Pontiacs ethic, if you can talk about your defeats in a song, get the feelings off your chest, and rock out while doing it, well, that should count for something.

The Pontiacs also showed that they are admirable rock fans as well as engaging rock players--fans able to allude to great rock moments, but also willing to indulge in guilty pleasures for the fun of it.

The band’s good taste emerged in one of its new songs, “Cry,” which reflects on the frustration of being in a rock band and not having much to show for it in the way of fame and fortune.

In the song’s bridge, the Pontiacs quoted (read: stole) a melodic phrase and lyric from the Kinks’ “Get Back in Line.” Stealing from the Kinks is always enlightened, but this theft was downright inspired because “Get Back in Line” is also a song about a rocker whose career is going nowhere. The allusion didn’t just bail the Pontiacs out when they were stuck for a bridge; it suggested that the brotherhood of frustrated and dissatisfied musicians extends to all times and all places.

“Rock Music,” another new song, also reflected on the quandaries of an unfulfilled rocker, with an elegiac cast that Simon reinforced with a high, stringy vocal that was part Neil Young and part Jerry Garcia. A couple of older songs, “Straight and Narrow” and “Almost Human,” brought an element of drama and desperation to the proceedings, along with country and blues shadings.

The home stretch was devoted to partly mocking but mostly affectionate covers of songs veering far outside the canon of respectable alternative-rock source material.

They included a booming, enthusiastic take on AC/DC’s “Dirty Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap)” and a zesty finale, “Saturday Night” by the Bay City Rollers. Along with metal and teen-pop, the Pontiacs also came up with an AOR warhorse, Bad Company’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” and a Black Flag hard-core punk tune, “Nervous Breakdown.”

Bassist Kurt Bauman and drummer D.A. Valdez kept things pumping throughout, and Dotson came up with some good, gritty guitar work (Mike Atta, who now plays in the band Extravaganza with Simon and Bauman, pitched in with some rhythm guitar work on several songs).

If a cue got missed, as it did at the opening of “Cry,” the Pontiacs just kept playing until things fell into place. And if a song fell into near-incoherence on the back stretch, as did “Out in the Rain,” the band was able to right it and come barreling toward the wire in fine shape.

Simon, not the most graceful or natural front man, seemed caught early on between self-mockery and awkward attempts to do a proper job of adding some visual flair. His awkwardness was less obvious as the set went on, but it somehow was appropriate that the Pontiacs’ singer is a guy who really doesn’t fit easily into the role cut out for him.

It’s possible that the Pontiacs feel a twinge of irony when they look at a band like the Black Crowes, who have reaped a fortune by covering similar stylistic ground with considerably greater instrumental flash and charismatic flair. But, for what it’s worth, the Pontiacs spoke--and still do--with a voice that’s far more personal and believable than the Crowes. The Pontiacs never did learn how to shake their moneymaker, but that’s not everything.