B-52’s Gaining Altitude, Changing Course

Fashion alert: The B-52’s trademark beehive hairdos have mutated into related archetypes.

At the Greek Theatre on Wednesday, black-clad, bongo-beating Cindy Wilson offered a beatnik look, while bouffant babe Kate Pierson was a living homage to Nancy Sinatra in a fringed minidress.

Between these wiggling works of pop art stood singer Fred Schneider, looking like Eddie Haskell with a pencil mustache and a huckster’s narrow-eyed gaze--though the ringmaster’s jacket sort of blew the image.

There were no such cracks in Pierson’s facade. This tough gal set that fringe in motion with severe intensity, dancing with self-absorbed concentration, be it a straight-armed sleepwalk or a Mesopotamian strut or a hip-swinging frug or a flower child’s free-form freakout.

If most of the familiar 52’s motifs were in place Wednesday, things weren’t quite the same as they were 10 years ago when the Georgia band’s big beat and its campy, cartoon celebrations of fashion, music and other touchstones of the culture--strobe lights, big cars, science fiction--put it at the heart of the New Wave action.

These days they’re trying to regain their footing after some lean years. The new album “Cosmic Thing” represents an impressive step out of the novelty trap, with its turns into a more contemplative, less mocking mode and a sweeter sound. But at the Greek they kept it mainly in party gear, emphasizing the old songs and summoning the old spirit.

With Schneider barking his vocals and the girls emitting sounds generally identified with cetaceans, they did a fair job, but there was some snap missing from the attack (the band of four, which also includes guitarist Keith Strickland, was supplemented by a bassist, a drummer and a second guitarist-keyboardist).

One thing that did come through was a sense of genuine fellowship that went a long way toward compensating for the retro slant and the soft sound. That element figures to be more important to the B-52’s in the long run than the shape of their hair. The group will be at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre tonight along with the second-billed Royal Crescent Mob.