Pop Music Reviews : Going by the Good Book : Michael W. Smith, King of Christian Pop, Gets Back to Some Attractive Basics

In his Father’s house there are many mansions, and Michael W. Smith has made a good move by deciding to play in some of the smaller ones.

The leading man in Christian pop, Smith has risen in the past few years to arena-headlining stature. He doesn’t do those bigger mansions modestly, either. Smith’s 1991 show at the Bren Events Center in Irvine came complete with dazzling lighting effects, while the music replicated the slick, commercial sound of his albums, full of chiming synthesizers, swooping electric guitars and the occasional machine-driven pop-R&B; dance beat.

After moving even higher on the ladder last year, when he played at the Forum in Inglewood, Smith has decided to at least temporarily leave the trappings of arena grandeur in storage. A six-week trek dubbed “The Acoustic Tour” skips the arenas and brings him to college auditoriums and major churches--including his visit Thursday night to the Vineyard Christian Fellowship.

At 3,200 seats, the sold-out sanctuary was the perfect-size hall for a pop show: big enough to have the buzz of excitement that comes from being in a crowd, and small enough to allow a performer to make an intimate connection with everyone in the house.

Smith spoke gospel when he paused midway through the two-hour show to comment on the difference between playing the big mansions and the little ones: In an elaborately staged arena concert, he said, “You’ve gotta go by the book or you mess the show up. Here, I can do what I want to do.”

That involved taking many trips back to the early stages of his decade-long recording career, and stripping down his glitzy studio sound to far more attractive basics. There is something sweet about a real piano playing off a real Hammond B3 organ--the combination that dominated many of the songs (actually, Smith’s piano was digital rather than acoustic, but he only once programmed it to issue the tinkly-chime instant-schmaltz keyboard tone that sugars a lot of his recorded work).

*

The West Virginia-raised, Nashville-based singer mixed styles well. He and his five-man band offered glistening heartland rock a la Bruce Hornsby, the polished folk-pop that we’re accustomed to hearing from the likes of Shawn Colvin and Mary-Chapin Carpenter, and even a harmonically elaborate number, “Providence,” that recalled Genesis at its most radio-ready. One song flowed with a tense Latin current, and another borrowed a reggae rhythm.

These well-crafted surroundings, adorned by a rich, four-part harmony support, were enough to compensate for some of the least-commanding singing you’ll hear from a substantial pop star.

Smith’s greatest natural gift is his film-idol looks (he jokingly played to the sex symbol image a wee bit during the romantic ballad, “Cross My Heart,” by tossing in a semi-seductive, Barry White-style aside. “I couldn’t resist,” he said, in wry acknowledgment of the moment’s naughtiness). But if the face is that of Don Johnson, the voice is more Woody Allen--scratchy, wispy, and pinched, with almost no body or heft. At least Smith’s singing is tunefully elastic, and he provides himself with flavorful melodies as if they were his birthright. Given harmony support that could be Beach Boys lovely one moment (“I Will Be Here For You”) and chain-gang urgent the next (“Nothin’ but the Blood of Jesus”), he got by with a lot of help from his friends.

Smith’s songs are not daring: The aim is to comfort and reaffirm rather than to challenge and disturb. There’s nothing prickly in his faith as there is with that wrathful rock Jeremiah, Bob Dylan (it’s a pity that Christian popsters don’t draw regularly from Dylan, who is this era’s greatest and most prolific writer of songs-as-prayer and songs-as-prophecy). Nor do you get the mystical transports of ecstasy that sweep up Van Morrison in his utterly idiosyncratic Christian odes.

But if Smith avoids adventurous extremes, at least he doesn’t deal in fluff.

Platitudes did crop up in songs like “Give It Away” and “Love One Another,” but they were less the gist of the set than extra goodies for the fans--rousing, feel-good workouts for listeners who were more than willing to sing along, and impressively able to stay in tune while doing so.

*

Smith devoted the first third of his show to songs that posed conflicts and acknowledged a world of trouble--including back-to-back ballads in which he tried to sort through the shock and pain of a close friend’s death. That segment ended, in “Leesha,” with the inevitable appeal to Christian belief as a triumph over death. Still, Smith’s plaintive delivery underscored how hard it is to live with grief even when one has recourse to the comforts of faith.

Smith used a long solo segment to reach out to the audience with chatter that blended humor and sincerity and showed a nice, personal touch--something that was missing from his Bren Center show in ’91. But the solo turn became part of an overlong sequence of ballads that had some restless youths in the house yelling for more rockin’ stuff. Eventually, Smith and band obliged with tougher songs such as “Nothin’ but the Blood of Jesus” and “Secret Ambition.”

Smith has followed the career pattern of his former employer and frequent songwriting partner, Amy Grant, in downplaying overtly religious imagery on recent albums that have brought him crossover success. But he finished the show with some well-received hymns and prayers, indicating he isn’t about to forget that there is a cross in crossover.