THREE OAKS — As the bass player with Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Garry W. Tallent rarely steps up to a microphone or to the lip of the stage.
But as the leader of his own band on his first solo tour, he’s had to shed his unobtrusive stage presence, and he did so with evident joy — a smile never left his face, nor mine — Thursday at the Acorn Theater.
“Let’s get the party started,” he said after the Cajun-flavored opener, “Bayou Love.”
And for 90 wonderful minutes, Tallent and his band entertained a mid-size but enthusiastic audience with a rave-up of a rock ‘n’ roll show.
It was, simply, a celebration, of the music that Tallent first fell in love with, of how much fun rock ‘n’ roll can be and, for those of us who are deep-rooted Springsteen fans, a celebration of Tallent’s career and his role in creating some of the most important music in our lives.
But Tallent and his band also had to deliver with their performance, and they did with songs from his first solo album, the 1950s-inspired “Break Time” from 2016; deftly chosen covers; and a few songs by members of the band.
He sang with confidence and an enthusiastic, for-the-love-of-it attitude, his mid-tenor voice always warm and welcoming with its slight rasp and hints of both a Jersey and Southern accent, while his playing evinced a native’s command of 1950s rock ‘n’ roll guitar vocabulary, particularly on “Ooh La La,” “Promise to My Heart,” “Why Do You Do Me Like That?” and Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell.”
The top-flight musicians Tallent has with him in his band supported him with a looseness that spoke to their familiarity with each other from having known and played together for years in other contexts.
Each one received at least one moment in the spotlight, and some of these selections were among the best moments of the night, particularly singer Kristi Rose’s big-voiced but genuinely felt rendition of the Tallent ballad “Promise to My Heart” and their old-school country duet on his and Southside Johnny Lyon’s “Stay Away.”
Los Straightjackets guitarist Eddie Angel’s aptly named surf-guitar instrumental “Rampage” provided a powerful highlight, as did keyboardist Kevin McKendree’s boogie-woogie instrumental “Gone Awry.”
But most of the set list favored songs from “Break Time,” so much so that the statement, “This is from the ‘Break Time’ album,” became a running joke.
It’s a delightful, fun album that pays homage to the music from the 1950s that made Tallent, 67, a musician in the first place. Live, however, the songs had an extra level of energy and life that made their performance fresh and of-the-moment and not a tribute to the past.
Tallent’s known among record collectors for the size and depth of his collection, so it wasn’t a surprise that his choice of covers focused on semi-obscure selections from familiar artists, including Carl Perkins’ jazzy rockabilly number “Pink Pedal Pushers,” Levon Helm’s satirical “Move to Japan” from The Band’s 1993 “Jericho” album and Buddy Holly’s “Crying Waiting Hoping,” a song Holly recorded as a guitar-and-voice demo that Tallent later produced in a remake by Marshall Crenshaw for the “La Bamba” soundtrack.
Tallent made two references to Springsteen, one subtle, the other overt.
He ended his own song “Charlene” — cut from the “Bo Diddley” rhythm cloth — with a technique of strumming his guitar similar to one Springsteen used live years ago on “She’s the One” to impart a sense of menace and desire, although in this case, the effect was simply a musical reference for those who made the connection.
And then during the encore, he played Springsteen’s “From Small Things (Big Things One Day Come),” which featured a crisp Berry-style solo by Tallent, one of several direct and indirect tributes to the rock ‘n’ roll pioneer who died March 18.
It made for a good choice. Springsteen’s written several rockabilly songs and others that would have fit well with the “Break Time” material, but the Berry-influenced “From Small Things” placed some distance between Tallent and Springsteen because Dave Edmunds released it originally, although the E Street Band has played it live.
Even when things went awry, Tallent was cheerful about it and made it entertaining, as when he forgot to plug in after switching guitars and forgot part of a verse on “Move to Japan.”
As with the other dates on this tour, fingerstyle guitarist Shun Ng opened the concert with a set of acoustic versions of such blues songs as “Stormy Monday,” “Every Day I Have the Blues” and “Route 66.”
With his humorous between-song comments and physical style of playing the guitar, he showed himself to be a true entertainer who’s an expressive singer and a dexterous and distinctive guitarist.
He closed his half-hour set with an extraordinary arrangement of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” that lacked none of the dynamics of the original record while presenting them in a wholly new and invigorating context — just like seeing Tallent as the lead singer and a guitarist.
