Etheridge Is Finding Some New Strength

The idea of the redemptive power of rock ‘n’ roll is a cliche, and one made infinitely trivial by recent terrifying events. But new music has at least provided Melissa Etheridge hope and healing in her personal life. And at the Long Beach Terrace Theater on Saturday, the singer was somehow also able to give timely comfort without political comment or saber-rattling.

That was clear enough on this second of two nights in Long Beach when Etheridge began strumming the simple guitar chords of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land.” As fans sang along and a few waved small American flags, Etheridge performed the folk classic without affectation, not as a call to arms but as a celebration of home.

Long politically outspoken, Etheridge clearly understood that last week’s terrorist strikes in New York and Washington could neither be ignored nor exploited. “Change, no matter how hard it is, it does get better,” she told the audience. “That’s what we’re all going through right now.”

It was an appropriate response to an uncertain time, but the singer was speaking also to the personal crises that fuel her new album, “Skin.” The end of a long relationship has inspired songs of genuine pain and renewal, perhaps beginning a new phase in a body of work too often cheapened by melodrama and shameless overkill.

Etheridge performed alone for two full hours Saturday, mostly on acoustic guitar, though some of her most affecting moments were spent behind a piano. As she sang Joan Armatrading’s tortured “The Weakness in Me,” her voice was at times almost a whisper, hardly the clumsy rock shouting of before. Most of her set benefited from equally spare arrangements.

New material easily outclassed most of her work, with the rocking “Lover Please” both pleading and real as she sang, “Answer my prayers and answer the phone ... turn around and come home.” It isn’t music to lead a new rock revolution, but simple rock balladry tapping into genuine human experience. Which is a welcome ingredient at any time.