The Offspring Lightens Punk Commentary With High Spirits

The arena-rock warhorse is a dwindling breed, but in its first area engagement as a big-venue headliner on Friday at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, the Offspring indicated that it could ride the circuit well into the future.

The concert was a sharp and energized sprint through hit singles and equally tuneful additional tracks from the band’s last three albums. Without any elaborate stage sets or expensive effects, singer Dexter Holland and his mates pulled off fun surprises and provided visual moments that make for excited morning-after fan chatter and long-lasting memories.

In music and attitude, this was as varied a show as you’ll get from a band that’s nominally a punk-rock act. The Offspring offered smart-alecky novelties and obstreperously defiant or satiric punk salvos, but Holland, who sings and writes the songs, also aspires to fulfill punk’s more elevated role as a vehicle for alert, intelligent commentary and philosophizing. The stately cry-to-heaven of “Gone Away” and the dark, urgent thrust of “Have You Ever,” “The Kids Aren’t Alright,” “Gotta Get Away” and “Genocide” gave the show thematic ballast and emotional clout.

If they aren’t there already, the Offspring are just one more big hit song or album away from reaching critical mass as an arena-rock fixture. Once that chain reaction has begun, they’ll have no problem sustaining it if they can keep their performances on the level of this one.