POP MUSIC REVIEW : With a Little Help From a Friend, Garfunkel Introduces R ‘n’ R to Center

If there’s a worst nightmare for the Orange County Performing Arts Center folks who have such a hard time with the R-words (as in rock ‘n’ roll ), it probably comes pretty close to what actually transpired on Saturday.

For there, on stage, stood David Crosby, a singer who served prison time on drugs and weapons convictions, who once wrote a song celebrating his role in a menage a trois and who embodies most of what’s good and bad about the Woodstock generation.

And he was getting a thunderous ovation.

Crosby’s moment in the spotlight came at the end of his unscheduled duet with Art Garfunkel, whose concert was the center’s way of sticking a little toe into the waters of music of the rock era. (Center officials have not booked any rock shows since the facility opened in 1986, citing their self-imposed mission to present symphonic music, ballet, opera and musical theater.)

Garfunkel is about as far removed from the maverick spirit, energy and attitude that defines rock as one can be and still get elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as he was in 1989 for his Simon & Garfunkel work.

But rock ‘n’ roll, much like reconstituted dinosaurs, has a habit of leading astray the best-laid plans of mice, men and entertainment promoters.

The Crosby appearance aside, though, most of Garfunkel’s two-hour performance was a lot like what Jurassic Park might have been if those pesky dinosaur clones hadn’t started running amok.

A couple dozen specimens from the dim, dark musical past were painstakingly re-created in an exhibit that was, at times, a wonder to behold. Yet, as so much dutiful backward glancing can get without at least a little good-natured rampaging, it also got just a bit tedious.

In Garfunkel’s case, it’s clear that at this point in his career, his future lies back there, in rock eons gone by.

Nearly half the songs in his two-hour concert were from his Simon & Garfunkel days, and he even threw in one of Simon’s post-breakup compositions, “American Tune.”

He ignored his most recent album, 1988’s “Lefty.” The only “new” song he sang, from an in-progress solo album due this fall, was his rendition of the Everly Brothers’ “Crying in the Rain,” for which Crosby, beaming that walrus smile and flashing the obligatory two-fingered peace symbol, ambled out to harmonize.

In that quick moment, Crosby accomplished what Garfunkel managed only one other time: injecting some playfulness into the otherwise somber proceedings.

Artie’s turn came midway through the concert during “Homeward Bound,” one of 11 S&G; songs in his studiously tasteful, nostalgia-heavy set.

When he got to the line “Tonight I’ll sing my songs again,” he changed it to “Tonight I’ll sing his songs again,” prompting a wave of laughter from the audience of about 2,000. The laughs redoubled as he continued: “But all his words come back to me in shades of mediocrity.”

Although the 51-year-old singer’s pitch was problematic in some of the most exposed verses early on, his voice has taken on a deepened richness; he can conjure a burnished tone that wasn’t there in younger days.

His six-member band--including his wife, Kim Cermak, singing backup vocals--played as exquisitely as his records usually sound.

The biggest production problem was pacing: With one languorous ballad after another after another, the rhythmic solemnity was broken only intermittently by something as upbeat as his spunky reading of S&G;’s “Cecilia.”

But then, Garfunkel was never much one for running amok, was he?