POP MUSIC REVIEW : Weir, Wasserman Team for Routine but Rousing Gig

Bob Weir’s concerts with bass virtuoso Rob Wasserman started in 1988 as an impromptu vacation from Weir’s regular gig with the Grateful Dead. By now, the Weir-Wasserman pairing, which made its fourth Orange County appearance Thursday at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano and has an album due in September, has formalized into a relationship more akin to a time share.

With Wasserman’s aggressive bass playing as the centerpiece of the show, the pair delved into a wide variety of material that included blues classics (“Walking Blues,” “Spoonful”), pop standards (“Fever,” “Twilight Time”), soul numbers (“Take Me to the River”), Grateful Dead songs (“Victim or the Crime”) and particularly Weir’s solo material.

Alternately plucking and pounding the strings and sometimes sawing at them with a bow, Wasserman persuaded his bass to respond with a nervous, edgy intensity. Weir’s elegant rhythm guitar provided a welcome release from the tension created by Wasserman. Weir’s rather dimensionless singing did little to expand on the textures of the bass and guitar although the crowd applauded wildly every time he broke into a falsetto croon.

Weir and Wasserman may have lost the elements of surprise and spontaneity, but this show demonstrated that the association is worth a second, third and even a fourth listen.