Can’t Trust Anyone Under 30 for This

Since rock didn’t die before it got old, it is faced with carrying on past its already-receding prime.

The promise of rock was perpetual upheaval, self-discovery and unwillingness to stand still. It was supposed to be different from all that had gone before, when a “that’s entertainment” show-biz ethic was good enough for pre-rock generations who didn’t look for popular music to lead them anywhere, except to a good time.

But the reality for rock is the reality of life: Everybody gets older, and nearly everybody grows less enamored of upheaval and less capable of discovery the older they get.

Still, there was something heartening in how the B-52’s and the Pretenders embraced that reality Sunday at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. No, there was nothing restless or probing in their backward-looking sets. But there was enough pure musical pleasure to make it a satisfying night.

If this was rock accommodating to the “that’s entertainment” ethic, then maybe getting old, creatively speaking, is tolerable, if not exactly welcome.

Both bands peaked in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, when they were part of a fine upheaval that simplified and reinvigorated rock when it was growing too pompous.

The B-52’s undermined the status quo with silliness; their camp attitude married motifs from low-budget ‘50s sci-fi films and mid-’60s dance-party rock ‘n’ roll. The Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde shook things up in a deeper, more lasting way, as one of the first women rockers, along with Patti Smith, to assert the same fiery, confrontational prerogatives that men in rock took for granted.

Now in her late 40s, Hynde remains a great rock star who lives up to the promise she made in the Pretenders’ career-launching hit, “Brass in Pocket,” to use everything at her disposal to “make you see I’m special, so special.”

Her confident, strutting carriage, her mobile face and pantomiming hands, her trademark bangs falling over eyes aswim in mascara--all proclaimed a distinctive self and commanded attention as only the elite group of most-watchable rockers can.

Her often-imitated, immediately identifiable vocal style hasn’t changed. Now steely with half-spoken disdain delivered in spitfire cadences, now swelling with openhearted tenderness and warmth inherited from soul-music influences, Hynde has far-reaching expressive gifts, and she deployed them unflaggingly with an undiminished voice.

But Hynde can’t, and didn’t, pretend that her songwriting has been as impervious to time as her gift for performing. “Legalize Me,” the only new song of her 75-minute set, was bashed out as the opening number, when the sound mix hadn’t coalesced.

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Four songs hailed from the past 12 years, when craft has substituted for inspiration. The main body of the show came from the first three Pretenders albums of 1979-83--just four years with the spark, 15 more trying unsuccessfully to rekindle it. But that’s a typical arc for many an honorable rock career.

For Hynde, trotting out the hits wasn’t mere mindless crowd-pleasing. The set came to life, after some preliminary unevenness, with a sequence of songs that set out her core theme of respect and admiration for the many facets of femaleness.

There was carnality in a stinging “Tattooed Love Boys,” with drummer Martin Chambers, the only other original member still living, applying his precision to a tricky, stuttering beat.

Then the tender, motherly embrace of “Kid,” dedicated to the memory of James Honeyman Scott and Pete Farndon, the original guitarist and bassist, who died of drug overdoses in 1982-83.

“Hymn to Her,” sung with just a keyboard accompaniment, was a valediction to the wisdom of age, and a cover of the soul ballad “Thin Line Between Love and Hate” was an emotional demand for respectful, loving treatment.

The rest was an almost uninterrupted run of hit favorites, played with all the vitality and engagement anyone could ask. “Precious” was a bracing sneer. “Brass in Pocket,” the closer, brimmed all at once with pride, vulnerability and pain, the kind of layered, multifaceted expression that only the best singers with the best material can muster.

Perhaps inspired by watching the dance-happy B-52’s every night of the tour, Hynde had fun gyrating through an array of Shindig-style, mid-’60s go-go moves over the opening vamp of “Mystery Achievement.” Adam Seymour’s twangy, rhythmically inventive lead guitar lines harked back to the Dave Edmunds/Rockpile school of roots-informed English rock and were a big part of the Pretenders’ appeal.

There is no reason to expect the new Pretenders album that Hynde is recording to recapture her old spark from the days when she was working from inspiration more than craft. But that peak period produced more than two dozen prime songs, and this show proved she can still ride them triumphantly.

The B-52’s don’t have as long a catalog of prime songs as do the Pretenders, and their humorous slices of party life, campily theatrical riffs on flighty nonsensical notions and neo-hippie odes to the worldwide power of love don’t occupy as significant a chapter.

But the band’s enthusiasm and sharpness were impressive, especially during a six-song opening sequence in which it was impossible to sit or stop smiling.

The band’s tag-team vocal approach can’t be easy to pull off, especially with all hands dancing about nonstop, garbed in colorful outfits that ranged from Cindy Wilson’s sleek, sequined pantsuit with boa, to Fred Schneider’s Star Trek-ish uniform, to the mini-dress Kate Pierson might have gotten out of Tina Turner’s closet.

The B-52’s vocal timing was perfect, as Schneider’s semi-spoken declaiming interlocked with rich harmonies or yelped interjections from Pierson and Wilson.

Oddly, it was one of the band’s signature hits, “Roam,” from 1989, that cooled off the fun a bit; catchy and soaring as it is, it introduced a note of unwanted seriousness after the engaging giddiness of “Planet Claire,” “Private Idaho” and “Dance This Mess Around.”

Even when the action slowed and the set lost momentum (the rhythm section was too strong ever to bog down completely), one could take in the elaborate “Lost-in-Space”-like stage set and often gorgeous lighting effects, notably the shimmering bouquets of daisies covering every projectable surface during “Summer of Love.”

The closing “Rock Lobster” recaptured the antic-but-honed spirit of the show’s opening sequence.

The B-52’s played the two new songs included on their recent best-of collection, “Time Capsule,” but there was no indication the band is looking beyond an ethic of “that’s entertainment.” And entertaining is what it was.

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The Royal Crown Revue, the Los Angeles horn-driven band you can blame for starting the current swing-revival mania, played some likable but ultimately formulaic jump music that aspired to an insouciant, Rat Pack cool. Without memorable songs and dynamic soloists, it’s hard to see the swing craze amounting to more than a lifestyle option.