O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Lobos Launch Rhythm Cafe

Rhythm Cafe got hijacked by pirates on its maiden voyage, but they were kind enough to pry open a treasure chest well-stocked with blues-rock doubloons for the posh new concert venue’s opening-night audience.

In the spirit of Halloween, the members of Los Lobos came out in full buccaneer regalia for the first of the two shows they played Saturday night to launch the 550-capacity cafe, which aims to cross swords with the somewhat smaller (480 capacity) but firmly entrenched (almost seven years of virtually unchallenged domination of the Orange County concert-club scene) Coach House in San Juan Capistrano.

Los Lobos sported peaked hats with skull and crossbones insignia, shiny sashes and pantaloons, bandannas, and even an eye patch on David Hidalgo, who proved he needs just one eye to play ace Tex-Mex accordion and searing guitar solos. Hidalgo’s guitar sidekick, Cesar Rosas, had on his ever-present dark glasses, proving that some habits of dress don’t change, regardless of the occasion.

Los Lobos’ show, though, was very much guided by the occasion. The band’s current album, “Kiko,” is a cohesive, magical but overidingly serious-minded song-cycle that may be the finest rock album of the year. Los Lobos’ 80-minute set included only five of the 16 songs on “Kiko,” strewn through a show that went for stylistic diversity and lively tempos rather than an unfolding narrative of moods and themes.

Los Lobos’ decision to play a lighter song selection was understandable, it being Halloween, not to mention a club’s opening-night bash (Rhythm Cafe officials said the late show was sold out, the early show nearly so). You don’t expect a bunch of guys in pirate costumes to essay delicate, aching songs like “Saint Behind the Glass” and “Angels With Dirty Faces,” or anguished, philosophically weighty numbers like “Just a Man” and “Two Janes”--even if they are cornerstones of a tremendous album.

Besides, Los Lobos had just flown in from Memphis where, Rosas announced (after hailing an Elvis impersonator who was one of the few costumed patrons) they had toured Graceland the previous day--an experience which either depresses you no end, or makes you want to play rock ‘n’ roll in its purest state.

Los Lobos did play Rosas’ “Wicked Rain,” a tense, existential cry from “Kiko,” and “Peace,” an embattled prayer from the album. But the two songs didn’t form a linked narrative, sandwiched as they were around the rollicking hambone beat of the blithe “Georgia Slop.” They did, however, showcase Los Lobos’ ability to play the hell out of haunted blues.

The set unfolded in two cycles. The early emphasis was on influences as the band from East L.A. opened with sprightly Mexican folk music and a jumping R&B; number. Then it moved through a grab-bag of original songs that spoke to Los Lobos’ range: the ghostly, hipster’s shuffle of “Kiko and the Lavender Moon” (with saxophonist Steve Berlin setting aside his horn to play a sampling keyboard that produced those ghostly textures), the New Orleans funk of “Dream in Blue” (which captured the motivating rhythms, if not the luminous, otherworldy feel of the version from “Kiko”), and the heartland rock of “One Time One Night” and “Will the Wolf Survive?”

Then somebody pressed “rewind” and Los Lobos returned to the start with two more boisterous Mexican folk tunes. This second cycle spun mainly toward the blues for an impressive home stretch. “Peace” was a searing workout, rising to a powerful, dissonant peak that sounded like the penultimate chord of “A Day in the Life.” “Don’t Worry Baby” rocked and rumbled the set to a close.

Then came a fabulous encore, starting with taut blues-funk as Los Lobos tacked “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” onto “I Can’t Understand,” a Rosas original that simmered with the funky-but-damned feel of B.B. King’s “The Thrill Is Gone.” For a finale, Los Lobos decided to pay Halloween homage to the dead--make that the Dead--covering the Grateful Dead’s “Bertha” with all the robust guitar interplay and affirmative, free-rolling motion through open spaces that characterize the Dead at their liveliest.

Strangely, it wasn’t the brand-new concert venue but the respected veteran band that seemed the more uncertain commodity going into the show.

In a brief concert-club incarnation as Hamptons during 1989-90, the building (now reopened by new owners) proved itself a fine place to see and hear bands. As for Los Lobos, while justly esteemed since 1984 as one of the best roots-based bands in rock, its recent Orange County appearances had been nothing to howl about, unless one means howling in frustration.

Opening a multiple-night stand at the Coach House about two years ago, Los Lobos sounded as if they were taking a sonic mud bath. The following summer at the Pacific Amphitheatre, the band didn’t play music so much as inflict it, with bass tones that buzzed so far out of control that the concert’s only redeeming aspect was that it surely proved the structure’s solidity in case of an earthquake. Somebody deserved to walk the plank for those outings--and while the finger points at whoever was engineering those nights, it’s the band that’s ultimately responsible for how it sounds.

Saturday night wasn’t perfect, but Los Lobos came across infinitely better than it had in those previous shows. Louie Perez’s cymbals crashed and flashed too plangently through much of the show, and people up front had to contend with dominant jolts of rhythm guitar sound coming not from two banks of overhead speakers but directly from Rosas’ amplifier.

As the show went on, the sound became better locked in, with all elements clearly audible and none causing overt irritation. Still, a touch of aural glare persisted--a sign that Rhythm Cafe, with its high ceiling and expansive, bare-surfaced side walls, is an acoustically lively room that might require some fine-tuning to achieve a warmer, more rounded tone. Hamptons had the same problem when it opened (with a less elaborate sound and light system) and before long, it came up with a satisfactory solution.

Like Hamptons, Rhythm Cafe is a classy, comfortable place to see a show, with five tiered, sharply sloped levels of seating that offer perfect sight lines. And the new partnership has made significant improvements in the theater (which is at 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., in an office-park area near the Santa Ana-Costa Mesa line). The walls no longer are festooned with rows of tiny, glitzy bulbs that had given the place something of a Las Vegas showroom feel. New art-deco touches lend an upscale aura. The soft, green carpeting, the well-padded, very comfortable chairs, and the cute little floral lighting fixtures on each of the cloth-covered tables remain from Hamptons (which foundered after a few months because of inconsistent booking and insufficient capital).

Best of all, Rhythm Cafe doesn’t allow smoking in its show room. Nicotine addicts can adjourn to a downstairs lobby and “dessert lounge” which features cafe-style seating and is the only thing truly cafe-like about a venue that is really a small theater with seating at tables instead of in rows. The lounge is outfitted with a pool table and decorated with artworks in Southwestern and Hispanic motifs that partner Michael Feder says are on loan from his own collection. High rollers who shell out for any of the eight private boxes in the club’s balcony have access to another pool table and a separate bar.

Ushers and doormen wore blue blazers, waiters wore ties. Valets parked cars for $3 (you had the option of parking your own for free). Partners Feder, Rich Meaney and Curt Olson appeared to be the only club personnel dressed casually. On the tables were tablecloths, matching napkins and fancy silverware. There were separate menus for dinner and dessert, both embossed with Rhythm Cafe’s logo: a tuxedo-clad waiter holding up a saxophone in one hand and a cup of steaming coffee in the other.

In terms of creature comforts, the down-home Coach House can’t begin to compete with Rhythm Cafe (it’s hard to imagine any other rock-oriented concert club competing with the new venue on that score). But the Coach House’s single-level layout does allow it to put more concert-goers close to the stage. Even at full capacity, there is little sense of a packed-in crowd at the spacious Rhythm Cafe. The Coach House thus may be a more likely spot for the interactive exchanges between musicians and audience that can stoke a show (Rosas beckoned the crowd to sing along during “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone,” without much success).

The layout will change, Meaney said, for shows geared to alternative-rock audiences--including concerts by Shriekback on Saturday and the Levellers and Me Phi Me on Sunday, bills that figure to attract younger fans who would rather stand than sit back in comfort. For such shows, the stage-side pit will be cleared of tables and chairs, leaving an area much bigger than the dance floor at Bogart’s for fans who want a close, head-on view.

The Coach House has 19 concerts booked in November, ranging from a freak show (the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow) to reggae (Eek-A-Mouse), from hard rock (Rhino Bucket) to New Age (Shadowfax), from country (Johnny Paycheck) to blues (Johnny Winter) to alternative rock (They Might Be Giants). Rhythm Cafe has announced 15 concerts for the month, covering an equally wide range of styles with such acts as George Carlin, the Dixie Dregs, Johnnie Johnson, Ronnie Wood and John Wesley Harding.

That’s 34 club dates for the month, with perhaps more to be booked. Each club is a splendid place to see a show. If both can survive--admittedly an iffy proposition in this economy (the Rhythm Cafe partners have compounded their booking clout, but also their risk, by simultaneously opening a 500-capacity sister club in San Diego)--the victory will belong to local pop fans, with unprecedented variety and choice as the spoils.