01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, July 4, 2006

BY RICK MASSIMO
Journal Pop Music Writer

NEWPORT -- Bo Bice is in an interesting position. The American Idol runner-up, who closed the Snapple Sunset Music Festival here last night, came out of a Southern rock background to catapult to fame on the TV show that celebrates the poppiest of pop music, and that's gotta leave a guy with a couple of mixed feelings.

Bice started off with an extended version of Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)," during which he concentrated more on guitar soloing (not bad, not great) than singing. Even if the stage set, with backdrops of Janis Joplin, Bob Marley, Hendrix and Jerry Garcia, was a case of trying a little too hard, it was clear during this opening number that Bice and his band (two other guitarists, bass, keys and drums) intended to spend at least part of the night dismantling the Great Singer template that American Idol, and thereby Bice himself, thrives on.

Then he nearly undid all the good work he had done by sliding into "The Real Thing," from his debut album of the same name. This yarling power ballad, with a heart of marshmallow Fluff, led Bice back into his assigned role of TV diva -- a long-haired male diva, but a diva nonetheless. The band he had taken care to incorporate into the show as equals faded into the background as he emoted the cheesy radio hit.

And it went like that the rest of the show. For every aptly interpreted cover such as Joe Cocker's "Feelin' Alright," there was the ham-fisted, self-celebratory "It's My Life." "Whipping Post," Bice's breakthrough on American Idol, was balanced by the fist-held-aloft knucklehead ballad "U Make Me Better." And on and on. The lo-grit Southern rock of the originals "Valley of Angels" and "Cinnamon and Novocaine" made for a good middle point, and one can hope for more of that from Bice in the future. (One could've also wished for "Vehicle," the underrated Ides of March classic Bice made his own on and after American Idol, but it didn't make the set list this time around.)

It'll be interesting to see where Bice ends up in about five years. He's got the vocal power to do whatever he wants, but will he use his classic-rock chops to buy some authenticity points for limp radio balladry, or will he use his entre into pop-radio to wedge full-on retro rock back onto the Top 40? Last night proved he can't have it both ways -- knowing he and his band can tear through the guitar solos in "Free Bird" (a short version of which was jammed together with a truncated "Sweet Home Alabama" to close the show) just as well as Lynyrd Skynyrd is doing it nowadays didn't lend any depth when the tripe came along. It's up to him where he goes, but it seems he needs to risk throwing away his short-term success to make a band in the long term. "Valley of Angels" and "Cinnamon and Novocaine" were hopeful signs.

Opener Chad Burdick was an unspectacular but competent Nashville Everyguy, singing songs influenced as much by '70s MOR rock as by country music. The more energetic numbers, such as "Tennessee Girl" and "Back on the Farm Again," did more by going for exhilaration than midtempo and slower stuff.

rmassimo@projo.com / (401) 277-7206