O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEWS : ...

Walking into Irvine Meadows Friday night for my first-everSteely Dan concert, I knew I’d always been among those who didn’t quite get it.

The band--essentially keyboard player/singer Donald Fagen and guitarist/bassist Walter Becker--had recorded individual songs I enjoyed--admired, even. But I honestly couldn’t figure why people like my musician friend Paul would, to use his word, “worship” the Dan’s albums, “every one of ‘em.”

I was far more inclined to agree with another friend who could never understand why “the same East Coast snobs who put down the Eagles for being laid-back cokeheads will worship at the altar of Becker and Fagen.”

Well, after seeing Becker, Fagen and 11 skilled hired hands re-create the Steely Dan legacy for 2 1/3 hours, I still don’t get it.

Only in a small handful of songs--”Peg,” “Deacon Blues,” “Black Friday” and, especially, “Kid Charlemagne”--did the signature idiosyncratic chord progressions say anything more to me than “Hey, get a load of this!”

Becker introduced one of two songs he sang from his own forthcoming album “11 Tracks of Whack” as “a sort of neo-pseudo reggae tune.”

If you ask me, Steely Dan built its whole career around neo-pseudo-something tunes. Guitarist George Wadenius’ Notes R Us solos Friday crystallized the complexity-for-complexity’s sake mind-set.

There’s nothing wrong with striving to reach beyond the three-chord blues structure that is the foundation of most rock. David Lindley comes to mind as one who incorporates musical sources from as far as Turkey, Morocco and Madagascar, and makes it all sound organic. But Lindley’s songs don’t sacrifice heart in their quest for exotic textures.

Steely Dan has been tagged “soulless” by some critics. Matters of soul being better left to higher authorities, I’ll bow out of that debate. But when it comes to heart, suffice to say that in Irvine, Steely Dan’s beat with the mechanical precision of the ticker that the Tin Woodman got from the little man behind the curtain.

Listening to “Green Earrings” and “Third World Man” was a lot like watching a master bricklayer at work: There was no denying the skill and patience required, but when it was done there wasn’t much to say beyond “Hey--nice wall.”

The front men epitomized East Coast cool: Fagen in his black suit, shades and white tennies, swaying Ray Charles-like at his electric piano; Becker playing guitar like a man who had stepped into a bucket of quick-dry concrete.

They were, as ever, emotionally detached, sardonic and, to me at least, a bit stiff--which is another reason these guys never struck me as the sort anyone really could get passionate about. (I must admit that the detachment in the music vanished occasionally between songs, when Fagen proved an affable emcee.)

When everything did fall into place--and for me that happened exactly once, with that knockout version of “Kid Charlemagne”--the fusion of an askew lyrical viewpoint, a careening melody and expert musicianship made it clear what all the fuss is about. But only momentarily.

In all fairness, Friday’s show may not have been the best argument for Steely Dan’s music: An inconsistent sound mix robbed many songs of the crisp sonic sheen and impeccable musical balance that characterize the records. On the other hand, those records sound superb and still leave me cold.

Audiophile issues notwithstanding, far too often Friday night, this listener couldn’t buy a thrill.