A Chance to Sense Sublime’s Stage Presence

Not counting classic acts such as the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, Sublime may have more fans who never got to see it play than any other rock band.

Singer Brad Nowell’s fatal heroin overdose in 1996 was the sad prelude to a posthumous success that has boosted the theretofore cult-level Long Beach trio to sales of 5 million for its four studio releases, according to the SoundScan monitoring service.

“Stand by Your Van” puts Sublime in its best light as a live act and helps fill in the blank. It’s a nice surprise even to somebody like your humble scribe, who wrote off the band as terminally unreliable after seeing it four times in 1994-95. I always came away more puzzled and bemused than impressed.

Sublime was distinctive: Its show-closing gig at the 1995 Board in O.C. festival was unforgettable, in the way a particularly outrageous pratfall on “America’s Funniest Home Videos” is unforgettable.

I have fond memories of Nowell fair-mindedly handing over the microphone to his buddy Z-Man for a vehement tirade against Nowell’s beloved Dalmatian, Louie; the pooch had recently bitten Z-Man on the schnoz during the video shoot for “Date Rape,” and the poor, stitched-up fellow was demanding to set the record straight on the true nature of Sublime’s cute, frisky mascot. “He’s not a good dog!”

That night, Nowell vetoed repeated fan requests for “Date Rape,” the novelty item that launched the band out of the grass-roots, do-it-yourself underground and onto a major label: “You’re higher than I am if you think you’re gonna hear that,” he said with a laugh.

“Stand by Your Van” shows Nowell was tiring of the song even before “Date Rape” became a hit in 1995. Of the 16 tracks, all but four are culled from performances in 1994, when “Date Rape” had yet to be played on radio and Sublime was still deep in the underground. Playing the San Francisco club gig from which 11 of the songs on “Van” are culled, Nowell takes in fans’ shouts for “Date Rape” and amiably agrees to play it, despite misgivings.

He gives it his utmost in a fine, energized version punctuated by some vaudevillian, Jimmy Durante-like growls.

That moment is characteristic of “Van.” The band’s fluency with an assortment of rock and reggae dialects is evident, and its knack for running through material the way Gale Sayers used to run through defenses--shifting direction, speeding up, cutting on a dime, then driving ahead--gives the performances an unpredictable jolt of tension and release, momentum and breeziness.

Nowell’s assured guitar rhythms guide the band, but just as impressive are how adept drummer Bud Gaugh and bassist Eric Wilson are at following his unpredictable lead. Gaugh’s whip-crack snare hits and Wilson’s reliable rumble--his lines are so firm yet supple that he’s like a mobile Gibraltar--are as much trademarks of Sublime’s sound as Nowell’s soulful singing.

Many of the songs have a stream-of-consciousness feel lyrically, as Nowell stitches together the jumble of contradictory notions that pop into his head during fraught states of druggy desperation or sexual jealousy.

Maybe Sublime was erratic live not only because Nowell was deep into booze or drugs, but also because nobody immersed in booze or drugs could be expected to face up as honestly, night after night, as he does in such peak songs as “STP,” “Badfish” and “Pool Shark.”

The latter is almost painful to hear, as he sings with startling, folkish intimacy and fragility about his own foreseeable doom, then launches into a hardcore-punk reprise, unleashing anger at what he’s become.

Fans of “Sublime,” the triple-platinum, posthumous 1996 release that has dominated modern-rock radio for the past two years, need not be disappointed that “Van” has just one, catchy but relatively minor song from it, the reggae dance-hall style sexual romp, “Caress Me Down.”

These performances from Sublime’s scuffling, indie-rock days show how cohesive the band had become (when it was in the mood for cohesiveness) and how strong the songwriting was on the trio’s 1992 debut, “40oz. to Freedom,” and on the segments of the 1994 “Robbin’ the Hood” album that weren’t wasted on studio games.

*

Modern-rock radio is consumed with promoting bands that have just one album--and maybe just one good single--in their repertoire. “Stand by Your Van” leads by example, showing a band taking its time, following its course and leaving its stamp, instead of sounding like something stamped out by the marketing machinery to fit a niche.

*

Albums are rated on a scale of * (poor) to **** (excellent), with *** denoting a solid recommendation.