Kevin Bronson on November 22nd, 2011

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Eyes closed, head slightly bowed, hands clasped, Bob Mould stood silently for better than a minute at the conclusion of Monday night’s tribute concert at Disney Hall, letting the crowd’s warm ovation wash over him. The 51-year-old singer, guitarist and author had to be thinking something along the lines of: What a long, strange trip it’s been.

Punk hero in the 1980s. Radio guitar god in the 1990s. Closeted gay man for most of both. Respected solo artist. Dabbler in electronica. Scriptwriter for professional wrestling (fer chrissakes) after that. And now, enjoying a career resurrection most artists of his era would shred for, the main man in an opulent concert hall for “See a Little Light: A Celebration of the Music and Legacy of Bob Mould.”

The star-studded, two-hour salute to the driving force behind the bands Hüsker Dü and Sugar offered some of the most ferocious rock Disney Hall has ever hosted, with Mould’s piledriving guitar revealing every ounce of the wrath that birthed his songs. But even more than the tenacious turns by the Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl (on a batch of Hüsker Dü songs) and the Hold Steady’s Craig Finn (who with Tad Kubler of Lifter Puller slayed Sugar’s “Changes” and “A Good Idea”), it was an acoustic guitar that upstaged the noise.

That came right after intermission when Ryan Adams delivered chilling versions of “Heartbreak a Stranger” and “Black Sheets of Rain” that seemed to obliterate the line between hope and despair. It was a quiet introspective moment in a night full of noisy ones that even offered a news bulletin or two.

Mould said he plans to do a “limited number of shows” in 2012 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Sugar’s “Copper Blue.” The players who ably anchored Monday’s proceedings, Telekinesis’ Jason Narducy and Superchunk’s Jon Wurster, will join him. And Mould, who this year released and promoted his memoir “See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody,” also said he would start recording a new album in January. “I still have stuff I wanna do,” he said. “I did not get a gold watch tonight.”

He got some golden memories, though.

Britt Daniel of Spoon, abetted by O.C. native Jessica Dobson (ex-Deep Sea Diver, guitarist in Beck’s last touring band and shredder extraordinaire), kicked things off the tight versions of “The Act We Act” and “JC Auto.” Finn and Kubler followed, with the ringing guitar notes in “Changes” sounding like they were beamed in fresh from 1992. Margaret Cho (“an indie-rock Susan Boyle”) then did a little comedy and, accompanied by Grant-Lee Phillips, gamely tried “Your Favorite Thing.” That musical malaprop was rescued when Randy Randall and Dean Spunt from No Age, joined by Mould, tore through “I Apologize” and “In a Free Land.”

The biggest cheer of the night (before the end) came when Grohl – who joked in a between-set interview with emcee Matt Pinfield that he’s “ripped [Mould] off mercilessly” – capped a furious six-song set of set of Hüsker Dü by climbing behind the kit to drum on “New Day Rising” as Mould looked on in amazement.

Before Mould, Narducy and Wurster closed out the proceedings with a five-song set, Mould thanked his fellow performers and the audience, noting, poignantly, that the “the cruel joke is that if I didn’t have such a strange childhood … I wouldn’t have had this anger to channel.”

Perhaps the emotion from his short speech blurred his focus on performing, because Mould forgot some of the words to the next song, “Hoover Dam,” but it was the only hiccup of the night from a man who stomped around the stage like he was fronting a Smell band. By the time Grohl, the No Age guys, Finn, Cho and Phillips joined Mould’s band onstage for the finale, “See a Little Light,” the honoree’s catalog had received a well-deserved illumination.