POP MUSIC AND JAZZ REVIEWS : Thompson Alluring Despite Jitters

You can expect two things in abundance from any Richard Thompson show: incandescent guitar playing and corny, nervous jokes. The former results from a quarter century of writing and performing brilliant music; the latter occur despite a quarter century of playing before audiences.

If the folk-rock veteran were ever to be completely at ease on stage, it should have been during his four weekend shows at McCabe’s. The intimate venue and a roomful of fawning fans made for an atmosphere as informal as the next-door neighbors’ living room.

But at Friday’s first show, Thompson displayed his usual jitters, though the butterflies detracted little from the performance. Perhaps Thompson was nervous because most of the evening was devoted to songs from his upcoming album. He needn’t have worried. The new material was his usual mix of lyrically alluring, love-lost-and-found songs, and a silly sing-along or two.

Danny Thompson’s (no relation) stand-up bass, the sole accompaniment, masterfully fleshed out the music. Still, there are few performers as moving alone on stage with a guitar as Richard Thompson, and the evening’s only disappointment was not a lack of quality in the new songs, but rather that Thompson (who also appears tonight at the Belly Up in Solana Beach) performed just one of them solo.