Pop Reviews : Squier Shows Strengths

If he adhered to the maxim that you can’t put your past behind you until you confront it, Billy Squier might have opened his show at the Palace on Monday with a tongue-in-cheek version of the Buggles’ old underground hit “Video Killed the Radio Star.” After all, nobody should be able to sing it with more conviction.

Squier was riding a string of rock hits in 1984 when, for reasons unknown, he made a video for “Rock Me Tonite” in which he danced effetely in a posh penthouse, alienating his core audience of adolescent males. Despite one more modest hit, “Don’t Say You Love Me,” he was never able to recapture the spotlight he had spent more than a decade finding.

That’s a shame, because Squier’s Palace appearance showed that his original strengths are intact. His sexy slur of a voice has lost none of its potency, and most of the material from his recent “Creatures of Habit” album held up to such older gems as “My Kinda Lover” and “Everybody Wants You,” full of hooks and snappy choruses.

But that old audience hasn’t come back. The Palace crowd was sparse--though it was enthusiastic enough for one twice its size, calling Squier and his band back for two extended encores. Squier also appears tonight at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano.