Playing it straight is Strait’s way

George Strait was a regular at the arenas and amphitheaters of Los Angeles and Orange counties in the 1980s and ‘90s, but in recent years the veteran country star has tended to steer clear of Southern California’s urban centers, mapping his tour stops in more rural sectors of the region. His rare venture into the heart of Anaheim on Saturday showed that he might know what he’s doing.

The concert had been moved from its original setting at the stadium-size Home Depot Center to the smaller Honda Center, and even then the arena’s upper level was sparsely populated on Saturday. The connection between artist and audience was presumably stronger on and near the floor, but up top the atmosphere was cool and the sound was thin.

And it’s not as if Strait, who was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2006, has been fading away into a career twilight. In fact, none of country music’s big-selling youngsters earned more nominations in the Country Music Assn. Awards last year than the 55-year-old singer, who collected five and won two awards. But without the kind of flashy, arena rock-style shows that make Kenny Chesney, Keith Urban and the other kids such big draws, Strait is a stolid throwback to the era before Garth Brooks rewrote the rules in the early ‘90s. And that doesn’t necessarily translate into packed houses in the big city, at least in these parts.

After all this time, little had changed with Strait. He became a commercial success and a heroic force in holding the line against pop corruption by sticking doggedly to a sound rooted in honky-tonk and Western swing, and he remains a constant, unaffected by trends and free of any need to fiddle with his formula. Moving regularly from one corner to the next of a square stage in the center of the floor -- no ramps, no stairs, not even a riser for the drums -- Strait delivered a career-spanning 90-plus minutes that reaffirmed both his significance in the country record books and his limitations as an artist.

There are some fine songs in a repertoire that includes love songs and heartbreak ballads, slice-of-life vignettes and philosophical ruminations, party rave-ups and measured introspections, and Strait’s strength as a singer is his easy, unforced way with a narrative. But he’s emotionally reined in, rarely showing the kind of expressive vocal phrasing and dynamics that reveal a song’s core and bare the singer’s soul. The numbers that rang most true were the ones that were closest to the Texan’s heart -- notably, evocative songs about the scuffling rodeo life such as “Amarillo by Morning” and “I Can Still Make Cheyenne.”

Strait remains one of country’s most inhibited live performers, standing still and smiling stiffly throughout the show. Fortunately, he has one of the best backing groups in any pop genre, and his Ace in the Hole Band kept things rolling with its sharp, effortless playing. They got to stretch out only during the encore, though, when a series of solos fired up their version of “Folsom Prison Blues.” That was a welcome salute to Johnny Cash, but if Strait were a more daring performer he might have paired it with the most provocative song on his new album, which comes out Tuesday. “House of Cash” is a description of the fire that destroyed the singer’s home shortly after his death, and it would have injected some boat-rocking dark humor into Strait’s placid waters.

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richard.cromelin@latimes.com