Breaking Ground, If Gently, at Center

The decibel level figures to be low, and the repertoire promises to be long on ballads and short on rocking rhythms.

Still, Art Garfunkel’s performance Saturday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa will be the first in the building’s nearly seven years of operation that can broadly be defined as a rock concert. Garfunkel was elected to the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame on the strength of the folk-rock and pop-rock harmony sound he created with Paul Simon during the 1960s.

His concert marks a circumspect, though nonetheless real, step away from the center’s past exclusion of folk, pop and rock.

Country star Johnny Cash played at the center in January, 1988, the only previous figure with strong ties to the rock tradition to play Segerstrom Hall in his own right. Cash was brought in by an independent promoter who rented the building. Such pop, country and R & B figures as Neil Sedaka, Chet Atkins and Ray Charles have performed there as well, but as guests of the Pacific Symphony.

The center has presented touring musical tributes to Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly, but they only gave the impression that, at OCPAC, the only good rocker was a dead rocker.

Such respected symphonic halls as the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles and Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York City have long allowed pop, folk and rock performers on their stages.

The Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts has presented classical music and ballet, but it also has dotted its schedule with pop music, including future concerts by Whitney Houston, Bela Fleck & the Flecktones, Peter, Paul & Mary and a double bill of the Four Tops and the Fifth Dimension.

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Garfunkel didn’t know he was about to claim new turf for the pop music of the ‘60s and beyond until an interviewer told him so.

“I wasn’t aware of it. I kind of like it, though,” he said. “I’m a gentler rocker. You’re not gonna have dope deals going down in the lobby. I think they can handle me. But sure, I’d love to be a protagonist for something more contemporary” in the center’s programming.