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 the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre was like a long, hard slog over dull, scrub-strewn foothills, leading at last to a stirring vista of Mt. 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 are 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 just 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.

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.

“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 and 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.

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.

*

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, but the audio mix was cluttered, and singer-songwriter Folds didn’t have time to weave moods and bring out nuances.

Sky Cries Mary earned high marks even though daylight wasn’t conducive to the Seattle band’s mysterious-sounding weave of psychedelia and groove rhythms.

Primus, the Bay Area hard-rock trio, was OK for 10 or 15 minutes of mosher-satisfying body music, then 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 would have reeled in a melody or two.

Ranging from ordinary to terrible in descending order of appeal were the day’s other acts: Toad the Wet Sprocket, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Squirrel Nut Zippers and Leftover Salmon.