Kevin Bronson on December 2nd, 2012

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It took only 10 minutes – five spent cracking some jokes and doing some last-minute guitar tuning – for World Party to transport the audience to another time Saturday night at the Troubadour.

“Bang!” goes the lyric in “Is It Like Today?,” the U.K. band’s philosophy-heavy hit that for a time in 1993 gave U.S. radio listeners a respite from stadium monsters.*** And bang, the crowd, which included a smattering of luminaries (Lucinda Williams and Edward James Olmos were spotted, the latter taking phone pictures near the front), was zapped to a time when finely honed, cerebral pop songs would get you more than a full room at the Hotel Cafe.

On Saturday, World Party mastermind Karl Wallinger spent two hours linking that past to the present – this tour supported the release in April of “Arkeology,” a stunning five-disc, 70-song compilation that includes new songs, studio and live sessions, interviews and B-sides, all packaged within a whimsical any-year desk diary. Every bit the giddy kid playing to a roomful of giddy kids (never mind the gray), Wallinger offered a trove of classic pop old and new, from his 1986 hit “Ship of Fools” to new songs suggesting that, at 55, the songwriter’s well is far from dry.

The flow of material from the Wales-born artist was halted for about five years, though, and World Party’s irregular presence the past decade fueled the just-happy-to-be-here exuberance of Saturday’s performance. Wallinger was sidelined by an aneurysm in 2001; it took him five years to bounce back, having to re-learn guitar and piano and even now battling the loss of right-side vision.

Beyond some minor technical problems with his guitars, though, there was no sign Wallinger was anything but firing on all cylinders Saturday. There was scant sign of the vocal problems that forced World Party to cancel its show Thursday in Santa Barbara (maybe a little falsetto fatigue in “Love Street”), and his backing band – especially violinist-singer David Duffy – turned in virtuoso performances.

The songs themselves typically exhibited Wallinger’s delight in mining pop’s greatest influences – the Beatles, the Who, Dylan and the Stones have never been far off his sleeve. There wasn’t a frown in the house he played the whimsical (and Fab) piano bridge in “Call Me Up.” There was the verse from Pete Townshend’s “Gettin’ in Tune” planted square in the middle of “Sunshine.” And there was the dead-on Dylan of “Who Are You.” Even the new song “Everybody’s Falling in Love” sounds as if it could be derived from Wilco.

Wallinger’s lyrical aplomb and sheer joie de craft have always made that sonic proximity quite all right. The piano ballad “She’s the One” – made a U.K. hit by Robbie Williams – inspired a huge sing-along on Saturday; conversely, a duet with Duffy during the encore hushed the house.

Twenty-five-plus years after he left the Waterboys to start World Party, it was heartening to hear Wallinger so luminous. “Welcome back, Karl!” somebody shouted in the beginning. “Thank You World,” Wallinger sang near the end. Put those messages in a box.

Setlist:

Waiting Such a Long Time
Is It Like Today?
Put the Message in the Box
What Does It Mean Now?
When the Rainbow Comes
She’s the One
Love Street
God on My Side
Call Me Up
Sunshine
Sweet Soul Dream
Everybody’s Falling in Love
Vanity Fair
Who Are You
It’s Too Late
Ship of Fools
Way Down Now
Thank You World
Mystery Girl

*** Here’s what radio station dominated my listening that year, and I had some long commutes.