Buffett: Wasting Away in a Creative Dullsville

Jimmy Buffett and his Coral Reefer Band end their summer tour before a packed house of colorful if indiscriminate parrot heads. The crowd gets sloshed as beach balls and inflated sharks ricochet. Buffett reigns as supreme party commander in a predictable set dominated by breezy, too-familiar pop fare.

That was the scene Friday night at Irvine Meadows Aphitheatre, the first of Buffett’s two-date engagement that ended Sunday. But it could just as easily summarize any of the eternal pleasure-seeker’s last few stopovers here.

Some might say the 52-year-old Buffett is merely recycling his tired act--no worse than what many irrelevant pop bands have been doing in this nostalgia-loving, reunion-crazy era.

What’s particularly frustrating about Buffett is the utter lack of imagination from such a skilled storyteller. This is a best-selling novelist; his “Tales From Margaritaville” and “Where Is Joe Merchant?” spent more seven months on the New York Times bestseller list. His latest, the autobiographical “A Pirate Looks at 50,” spent 14 weeks on the Los Angeles Times list.

Yet rather than extend his artistic reach, the easygoing entertainer seems content to paddle lazily in the shallows. For years, he has been operating as little more than a gracious bartender, serving mind-numbing cocktails cleverly disguised as tropical-flavored pop songs.

Carefree, hedonistic pursuits form the core of Buffett’s musical muse, so it’s fitting that he titled his 1992 four-CD retrospective “Boats, Beaches, Bars and Ballads.” Thematically, he now offers little more than these narrowly defined slices of human experience.

Friday’s performance was a typically Buffettesque ritual, a one-note affair in which people-watching was more entertaining than the bland musical offerings.

Staples--including “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes,” “Fins,” “Margaritaville,” “Cheeseburger in Paradise”--were cranked out without the slightest bit of reinvention or seasoning.

And Buffett again played those ill-advised cover versions of Crosby, Stills and Nash’s “Southern Cross” and James Taylor’s “Mexico.” In one of the evening’s low points, Buffett and his 13-piece band managed to strip Van Morrison’s classic pop gem “Brown Eyed Girl” of all its charming innocence.

Buffett did toss in a smattering of tunes from his latest release, “Don’t Stop the Carnival.” Still, this year’s only memorable new ingredient was the guest appearance of Brian Wilson, who lent his vocals to renditions of “In My Room,” “Surfin’ U.S.A.” and “South American,” the latter co-written by Wilson and Buffett. And while it would’ve been nice to see the emotionally scarred Wilson regain his footing, it wasn’t to be. The former Beach Boy sounded shaky, and he appeared vacant and lost--a pop giant reduced to a shadow of his former self.

Equally troubling were film clips of Buffett flipping burgers, slinging swordfish, riding his mountain bike, surfing--even getting tattooed in Laguna Beach. The images seemed intended to present Buffett as an everyday guy. He is an affable host, but his legendary insouciance is out of touch with life’s complex, often harsh realities.

In introducing “Margaritaville,” Buffett thoughtlessly quipped, “Hurricane Georges passed through the Keys, but everything’s OK because . . . tonight the Margaritaville Bar is open for business!”

Give us a break, Jimmy. Such insensitivity toward those who suffered the hurricane’s wrath is shameful. But hey, bottoms up, fruitcakes.