Weekend Reviews : Pop : Lighter, Mild UB40 Lacks Reggae Edge

The biggest room in reggae’s mansion belongs to UB40 nowadays, and it is decorated in soft, pastel shades.

The racially integrated English band’s pop-reggae reworking of the Elvis Presley ballad “Can’t Help Falling in Love” just spent six weeks at No. 1. Its new album, “Promises and Lies,” debuted recently in the Top 10. And about 15,000 of its fans packed Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre here on Friday.

UB40’s room was a nice place to visit in a show carried by catchy melodies and moderate but steady beats that kept the house bobbing and swaying. But the music lacked the intensity and seething sense of struggle that the best reggae has been able to express along with lighter concerns.

In fairness, UB40 regularly has addressed issues of social injustice, poverty and racial oppression in its songs. But the band lacks the dark fire required to make those meanings vivid. If you were willing to settle for a lighter shade of reggae, UB40 delivered nicely.

After a dull beginning hampered by murky sound, the 10-man band began to connect by playing it extra-sweet-and-mellow during a long stretch of pleasantly wafting love songs. “Can’t Help Falling in Love” came during this sequence, placed where it fit the flow of the show rather than held for a cliched ending. UB40 still had strong cards to play in the encore, including the cheerily affirmative “Sing Our Own Song,” an anthem that featured the band’s brightest and punchiest playing.

Main singer Ali Campbell was a likable enough fellow with his boyish good looks, shy smiles and distinctively reedy, mellow-yet-piercing voice. But he is a reticent performer, and UB40 compensated by bringing forward two livelier secondary singers, toaster Astro and the bouncy, husky-voiced percussionist Norman Hassan, to raise the energy level near the end.

A nice evening out, all in all, but if the pleasantly mild UB40 (which opens a three-night run at the Greek Theatre tonight) stands at the pinnacle of reggae, what does that say for a tradition whose definitive figures could summon the ferocity of prophets?