Blues Traveler Rolls Merrily On; Pete Yorn Opens Impressively

Blues Traveler avoids the dark places--not in its lyrics, which now at least occasionally dabble in real death and despair, but in a sound that is relentlessly upbeat.

At the John Anson Ford Amphitheatre on Friday, Blues Traveler re-created its chart-topping hippie folk-rock with ease and conviction, celebrating a new album (“Bridge”) and its return to touring. But there was little sense of drama or mortality in the 100-minute set, despite the 1999 drug overdose of bassist Bobby Sheehan and the preventive angioplasty surgery of singer John Popper.

The hits and hooks still connected with the crowd. And Popper was a dramatically slimmer presence, though he still had enough wind to play his harmonica with force, adding to the band’s stress on long solos.

Blues Traveler’s cover of the Bob Marley hit “No Woman, No Cry” added a fine, soulful ingredient to the night before Traveler slipped back into the usual lazy groove.

More satisfying was Pete Yorn’s opening set, based on disarming pop-rock hooks worthy of Jimmy Webb or Paul Westerberg. Backed by a four-piece band, Yorn sang songs from his album “Music for the Morning After” that were raw and open, but never weak or self-pitying.

The sound was modern folk-rock, both organic and incisive, breaking through an unfortunate low-voltage sound mix that had Yorn’s vocals far too quiet. He performed a rocked-up version of the Smiths’ biting “Panic,” but it was his own material that suggested Yorn is an important new voice.