CROONER CLIMBS INTO HEARTS OF CROWD AT GREEK.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Staff Writer

Chris Isaak repeatedly expressed his aim to bring a ``high-brow show'' to the Greek Theatre Sunday night, an evening that would ``lift people out of life's gutter and remove them from the spiral of shame.'' Of course, it's a little hard to do that, the Stockton-born singer admitted, when he is dressed in a suit made of purple sequins.

So the high-brow concept didn't quite work. Isaak and his four-piece band, Silvertone, brought out the carnal side of the sold-out audience instead, delivering a generous 19-song concert that emphasized libidinous pleasures, salacious storytelling and, yes, the requisite songs of romantic reversals. It was a masterful performance, a show that managed to be bawdy and beautiful at the same time.

Anyone familiar with Isaak's concerts knows that an audience brings out his bawdy side. His shows shift between his gorgeous ballads of despair and randy rave-ups that Isaak introduces with long, rambling, spontaneous and screamingly funny stories. Perhaps the sight of so many women in miniskirts inspires him to move beyond the glorious gloom of his albums. Maybe it's just hard to be sad when you're wearing a suit made of mirrors.

If Isaak feels discouraged by the disappointing sales of his last album, ``Speak of the Devil,'' he didn't let it show, opening the evening with five gems from the underappreciated album. The falsetto harmonies between Isaak and longtime rhythm section members Rowland Salley (bass) and Kenney Dale Johnson (drums) on the lovely ballad ``Flying'' were one of many high points.

Isaak then moved on to the hits ``Somebody's Crying'' and everyone's favorite song of sorrow, ``Wicked Game,'' and shifted into high gear for a spirited rendition of ``Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing,'' which was featured in the film ``Eyes Wide Shut.'' Isaak and his fine lead guitarist Hershel Yatovitz (who spent much of the evening wearing a fez) turned this tight tune of outrage into an extended rockabilly number that was repeatedly interrupted by a digressive monologue from Isaak, the essence of which can't be repeated in a family newspaper. Stanley Kubrick would have loved it.

Isaak, with his self-described ``Tony Curtis haircut'' and a voice that can hit ``high, sissy notes,'' kept the audience on its feet for much of the night, trotting out perennial favorites like ``Diddley Daddy'' and ``Blue Hotel.'' The atmosphere mellowed, if briefly, during an acoustically inclined second encore that put drummer Johnson out front and featured the quiet pleasures of ``Can't Do a Thing (To Stop Me),'' ``San Francisco Days'' and Roy Orbison's searching anthem of heartbreak, ``Only the Lonely.''

The evening ended, appropriately enough, with a bevy of women clambering onto the stage for the concert's final song, ``Bonnie Bee.'' Isaak returned the favor, scaling the stands of the Greek, climbing more than halfway to the top of the venue. That's not an easy trick for a man wearing a mirror suit, carrying a guitar in one hand and a blonde in another.

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Photo

Photo: You can't miss Chris Isaak - he's the guy in the sequined suit performing at the Greek with the guitar that says ``Chris Isaak'' on it.

Charlotte Schmid-Maybach/Staff Photographer