POP MUSIC REVIEW : Grateful Dead Delivers a Focused Show

The cultural case for the Grateful Dead’s recent election to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is generally accepted, if sometimes grudgingly.

For more than a quarter of a century, the San Francisco band has been the torch-bearer for the communal ideal that flowered in the Summer of Love, and its Deadhead caravan continues to attract new travelers.

Opening a three-night stand on Wednesday at the Sports Arena, the band made a strong musical case that might have convinced even some of its staunchest critics of its worthiness for the Hall.

This was not the Dead of long, spacey jams. Well, there was one of those Wednesday, but instead, in a show consisting mostly of songs the Dead didn’t write, the band paid tribute to the musical roots that make up its broad palette. It was perhaps the most concise and focused show that even veteran Deadheads have seen from the group.

At the same time, with Jerry Garcia’s and Bob Weir’s rough-edged vocals as good as they’ve ever been and the band’s playing at its tightest, these interpretations of soul, blues, country, folk and rock classics were all shaped by the Dead’s unique vision and spirit, supporting an argument for the Dead itself as the quintessential American band.

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As balloons bounced around in the audience like a champagne-bubble rainbow, the Dead (which also plays the San Diego Sports Arena on Sunday and Monday) opened with a sweet, loping version of the Beatles’ “Rain,” a touching tribute to John Lennon on the 13th anniversary of his death.

From there they ranged from Slim Harpo’s “I’m a King Bee” to Bob Dylan’s “When I Paint My Masterpiece” to the bubbly New Orleans favorite “Iko Iko” to the Stones’ “The Last Time” to an encore of Bobby Fuller’s “I Fought the Law.” Each was largely free of the stretching instrumental passages that are generally considered indulgent by detractors and relished by the dancing faithful.

There were a few extended instrumental workouts, but even there the interplay was for the most part solid and direct, centering as always on Garcia’s fluid guitar improvisations. Rapidly growing in importance to the Dead’s sound are the keyboard foundations of Vince Welnick, the newest member of the band.

His increased role seems to really give the band a boost, and was the most identifiable difference between this tight show and the last one the Dead played in L.A., a disjointed, momentum-less display at the Coliseum in 1991 when the ex-Tubes member was still just breaking in. In Wednesday’s panorama of certified great songs, the Dead’s own “Uncle John’s Band” and “Sugar Magnolia” seemed right at home, American anthems in their own right. They’re songs that, with their frontier and hippie imagery, respectively, reach back to times past for inspiration, but even in this cybernetic era don’t seem the least bit anachronistic.

That ability to transcend eras is the essence of the Grateful Dead at its best.