BEST BETS Friday 7/21

SANTA ANA

8pm

Pop Music

Robert Gordon may not have been the first rockabilly revivalist when he hiccuped onto the scene in the late ‘70s with “Red Hot,” “Black Slacks” and other ‘50s-soaked hits, but he was the most successful in getting his recordings up the charts. Last month, he put out a live album covering his best-known covers of proto-rock songs, including the aforementioned two, plus “Twenty Flight Rock” and “Flying Saucers Rock ‘n’ Roll.”

* Robert Gordon, Galaxy Concert Theatre, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana. With the Paladins, Cowboy Buddha and the Neurotones. 8 p.m. $15 to $17. (714) 957-0600.

FULLERTON

8pm

Theater

South Coast Repertory’s recent “The Education of Randy Newman” showed us the urbane, elegantly witty and uplifting side of rock ‘n’ roll. Now Stages, a small theater in Fullerton, probes rock’s grimy underbelly. “So Alone,” an original rock musical written and directed by Stages ensemble member William Mittler, tells the sad-but-true story of Johnny Thunders, the dead-end-kid guitarist whose rock ‘n’ roll heart was large indeed, but not quite as big as his heroin habit. Actor/musicians will play Thunders and his bandmates from the New York Dolls and the Heartbreakers, cranking out their classic garage-rock repertoire in several concert scenes. Sid Vicious, Nancy Spungeon and Johnny Rotten also take bows in this tragicomic tale of the saddest rock junkie of them all.

* “So Alone,” by William Mittler, Stages, 400 E. Commonwealth Ave., Suite 4, Fullerton. Fridays through Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends Aug. 19. $15. (714) 525-4484.