Rockin’ in a Free Form

It’s a good thing nobody else has to experience daylong rock festivals the way critics are professionally obliged to.

For anyone doing it on assignment--or foolish enough to try it just for fun--taking in seven continuous hours of the frustratingly uneven and mainly disappointing H.O.R.D.E. Festival on Thursday at Irvine Meadows was like a long, hard slog over dull, scrub-strewn foothills, leading at last to a stirring vista of Mount Rushmore.

Neil Young, the monument in question, refused to stand still for inspection like a proper classic-rock landmark. He was playing to no more than a two-thirds capacity house, made up not of his old-line followers but largely of fans in their 20s and 30s. Some may have been drawn not by the headliner, but by H.O.R.D.E.’s six-year franchise as a touring haven for retro-leaning jam bands.

The shrewd thing would have been for Young and Crazy Horse, his venerable backing band, to pitch 90 minutes worth of hits and win new converts with their most accessible stuff. But Young has forged one of the most honorable and creative rock careers by being himself, not by being calculating.

The result was a loose, unpredictable set in which Young and Crazy Horse played to please themselves. The yield included just a sprinkling of songs everybody knows, a bunch of new, obscure or secondary material and an emphasis on basic electric riffing and acoustic music, rather than the extended solo-guitar fireworks that is part of Young’s tradition and would have fit with H.O.R.D.E.’s as well.

The quality of non-hits such as the surging rockers “Crime in the City,” “Throw Your Hatred Down” and “I’m the Ocean” made it clear that, for Young, radio hits are the topsoil of a deeply grounded career steeped in moral vision, personal insight and a love of rocking that invests his performances with a warrior’s clout and a shaman’s quasi-religious commitment.

Young’s set violated so many ‘90s-rock norms that it verged on rebelliousness (there was no sense of abrasiveness toward the audience, however; the normally zip-lipped Young was even in a relatively chatty mood between numbers). He was willing to settle for a respectful but not enthralled reaction as the house sat impassively through much of the performance, getting up to rock or sway only on the famous tunes: “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue),” “Powderfinger,” “Helpless” and “Rockin’ in the Free World.”

No matter. At one point, Young’s agenda called for sitting alone at his scarred upright piano, risking dismissal as a sentimental softy--the ultimate ‘90s rock faux pas--as he played an unfamiliar ballad brimming with wistful, befuddled romanticism (apparently titled “I Don’t Know About Love”).

“‘Did I go too far in there on that one?” Young wondered aloud after finishing the song. “I woke up this morning with that on my mind. I had to do it.” Another new song, “Buffalo Springfield Again,” sounded like an open letter to his former mates in that great ‘60s band, suggesting a reunion: “Like to see those guys again, give it a shot / Maybe now we can show the world what we’ve got.”

If it happens, savvy rock fans will come eagerly, expecting to fly.For now, chalk up another satisfying Neil Young & Crazy Horse set that dared to veer from the safe path--a gratifying development since his show last year at Irvine Meadows was a bit too hit-reliant.

Big touring rock fests are a ‘90s phenomenon. Young is this decade’s greatest rocker (we’re talking here about intrinsic musical achievement, not the cultural-icon definition of rock greatness, which Nirvana has a lock on for the ‘90s). It’s a good thing Young was there to save this H.O.R.D.E. episode from being a fiasco.

Apart from Young, H.O.R.D.E. offered 5 1/2 hours of music, only 90 minutes of which was worth hearing.

Morphine, headlining the second stage, is a Boston trio that gets low-down with bass, drums and baritone sax. While Morphine’s outlook is saturated with ‘90s sardonic attitude and a sense of frustration and disorder, the band’s emphatic, stripped-down performance managed to grab hold of the fire, sexiness and straightforward enthusiasm of the band’s roots-rock and R&B; forebears from the 1950s.

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Constraints of time and sonic space worked against Ben Folds Five, one of the liveliest, most catchy and song-craft savvy recent arrivals on the modern-rock scene. Adding a four-piece string section to the band’s basic, piano-driven trio was a good move in concept, and the string arrangements were sleek and smartly to the point, sometimes recalling old Motown hits.

But the audio mix was cluttered, and singer-songwriter Folds didn’t have time to weave moods and bring out nuances. The end came when he picked up his round stool and cheerfully flung it, harpoon-like, at his grand piano. As exits go, it was memorable, but it came too soon.

Sky Cries Mary earned high marks in difficult circumstances. Daylight really isn’t conducive to the Seattle band’s mysterious-sounding weave of psychedelia and groove rhythms. But the husband-and-wife vocal team of Roderick and Anisa Romero had the stage presence to pull it off, and Anisa’s soaring, smooth-textured singing flew through the band’s dense churning.

On the forgettable side:

* Big Head Todd and the Monsters, a passable but seldom riveting band from Colorado, was even less inspired than usual. An organist and an Aretha Franklin-style soul-shouting backup singer have been added to the core trio, but the showy gospel wailing seemed tangential to the band’s too-circumspect songs.

* Toad the Wet Sprocket, an honorable, intelligent pop-rock band, just has no live spark. The members are regular guys who could be the infielders at a company softball outing; it’s nice that thoughtful regular guys can have a moderately interesting recording career, but their set proved why stage performers can’t be regular guys.

* Primus, the Bay Area trio that was OK for 10 or 15 minutes of mosher-satisfying hard-rock body music, fell into a rut of shapeless guitar squalling, martial beats and tuneless bleating in drill-sergeant vocal cadences. Leader Les Claypool is fascinated with fishing; after eight years, you’d think he’d have reeled in a melody or two.

* Squirrel Nut Zippers, whose all-around musical ordinariness and lack of lively personalities rendered its ‘20s and ‘30s jazz revivalism a musty exercise, except for the small contingent in the house who wanted to dance the Charleston.

* Leftover Salmon, which used bluegrass instruments to play routine, braying boogie music. It was more like Leftover Molly Hatchet, or New Grass Revival paved over with concrete, thanks to leaden drumming and coarse, bar-band vocals. The tie-dye, neo-Deadhead contingent in the house cottoned to Leftover Salmon, however, so it will probably move up in the H.O.R.D.E. constellation.

Short of instigating a Cream reunion, it’s hard to imagine what H.O.R.D.E. might do in the future to spread its appeal beyond the established modern jam-rock parameters represented by Blues Traveler, Phish and the Dave Matthews Band.