Pop Music Reviews : A Diplomatic Return for Concrete Blonde

“Whaddya say, homeys?” asked Concrete Blonde’s Johnette Napolitano, greeting an enthusiastic homecoming committee of thousands Thursday at the Greek after a world tour. “I don’t know how many of you have been to Jacksonville, but we (Angelenos) seem to be a weird creature to the rest of the country.” She further suggested that more L.A. residents travel so it wouldn’t be up to her alone to answer so many dumb international questions about the riots.

Being this city’s ambassadors is a dirty job. But there’s no one better equipped to forthrightly and rockingly represent what’s best and worst about us than Concrete Blonde. The group again waxed raucously eloquent Thursday on L.A.’s shattering urban violence (“God Is a Bullet”), its scores of amusing eccentrics (the closing medley of “Still in Hollywood” and “Roses Grow”) and its oily fast lanes (“Run Run Run”).

But most of all, in charting the emotional landscape, L.A. couldn’t ask for a better diplomat to change its slick image than the earthy, often manic Napolitano, who seems honestly incapable of having a dispassionate moment. While past tours have wreaked havoc on her dynamic vocals, she was in top form Thursday--especially on several numbers featuring just her and Jim Mankey’s guitar, including a superbly subdued rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Everybody Knows.”

Napolitano was at her most stripped-down and wrenching when wailing--and leading an unlikely sing-along on--the line “Tomorrow Wendy’s going to die,” from Andy Prieboy’s “Tomorrow Wendy,” the least sentimental and most affecting of all pop AIDS anthems. As an L.A. rock predecessor noted, we’re desperate, Jacksonville; get used to it.