Rod Stewart’s Jekyll-Like Side Helps Him to Hide His Hyde

Most people think of Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” as a cautionary tale about the price of indulging the dark side of the soul. Rod Stewart apparently adopted it long ago as a career planner.

His new “Human Tour 2001,” which stopped Sunday at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater in Irvine, includes just two songs from his latest album, “Human,” which returns him to effectively understated R&B; from the Al Green/Sam Cooke school. Fortunately, the show still allots more time to his thoughtful Jekyll than to his prancing, backside-wiggling Hyde.

He addressed what once was and what might have been by opening with “Handbags and Gladrags,” one of his loveliest old tunes. Its lines “Once I was a young man / And all I thought I had to do was smile” has become all the more poignant 30 years on.

Any Stewart show is a bittersweet affair for those who prized his early work on such albums as “Gasoline Alley” and “Every Picture Tells a Story.” Tales of youthful innocence stolen, or sometimes happily traded away, were enveloped in an earthy blend of folk, R&B; and rock, and became even more potent as they passed through that shredded rasp of his.

In light of throat surgery he underwent last year that left him voiceless for months, the 56-year-old Brit can be forgiven a few pitch problems and the inability to nail several notes in his upper range on a cool night outdoors.

Including intermission, the show ran a bit over two hours--about 30 minutes too long. Such fallow hits as “Infatuation” and “Young Turks” and an extended Motown/soul music tribute near the end accounted for much of that excess time.

In “Human,” Stewart shows half a mind to resurrect the restless artist within. Now if he can just get his lesser half to take a night off.