The San Francisco Chronicle

                      JULY 19, 1993, MONDAY, FINAL EDITION

SECTION: DAILY DATEBOOK; Pg. D1

LENGTH: 868 words

HEADLINE:  Jellyfish  Floats Back To Bay Area
Popular local band at Warfield offers lush, melodic concert

BYLINE: Michael Snyder, Chronicle Staff Writer

 BODY:
    If you like gaudy pop songs with ear- friendly melodies, glistening
harmonies and intricate, precise arrangements, you should have been at the
Warfield on Saturday night for the mood-elevating concert that marked
 Jellyfish's  brief return to the Bay Area.

    Jellyfish  has been touring Europe and America to promote its exquisite
second album, ''Spilt Milk,'' so the show was a homecoming party for the San
Francisco quartet -- the  Andy Sturmer/Roger Manning  songwriting duo, augmented
by bass player Tim Smith and lead guitarist Eric Dover. Smith and Dover are
valuable new additions to the band: a couple of Southern boys with voices that
can sweetly mesh on those swelling  Jellyfish  four-part harmonies.

   The band's music is a compendium of fluffy, endearing pop-rock that stretches
from the Beatles and Beach Boys, through other equally tuneful ensembles such as
the Hollies and the Move, to Queen, Supertramp and beyond.

   CRAFTY HOMAGE

   All of these bands have inspired  Jellyfish  lead vocalist/stand-up drummer
Sturmer and keyboardist/rhythm guitarist Manning as songwriters. Sometimes their
admiration takes the form of crafty homage. ''The Ghost at Number One,'' the
initial single from ''Spilt Milk,'' is a canny song about posthumous
hero-worship and exploitation in the music business, but it also features a
nimble percussive bridge cribbed from the Beach Boys' ''Pet Sounds'' LP.

   Although the band's lush vocal blend was remarkable at the Warfield,
 Jellyfish  also navigated its most complex compositions, surprising tempo
changes and baroque instrumental nuances with pinpoint accuracy. Utilizing
hippie-redux pop-idol looks (i.e., shoulder-length hair heavy on the
conditioner, tailored tops, hip-huggers), easy smiles and bright, self mocking
patter, they charmed a shiny, young crowd that gave off a clean-living suburban
vibe and regular salvos of delirious screams.

   STARS AND STRINGS

   In concert,  Jellyfish  had no problem rendering the most elaborate, precious
material from its two albums -- 1990's ''Bellybutton'' and this year's
follow-up, ''Spilt Milk.'' They are both ornate recordings with studio perfect
choral singing and chiming guitar and keyboard overdubs. They are grand, melodic
and ingenious albums and, amazingly, the Warfield concert accurately reproduced
the best tracks from each.

   The stage setting was a kitsch lover's dream: cutout stars and strings of
sparkling lights hanging over the band, strands of shiny gold and silver foil
tied into drapes, and an altar decorated with sunflowers and a spinning ball
that shot out beams of colored lights.

    Jellyfish  opened with the thrashing, rumbling hard rock of ''All Is
Forgiven'' with Queen-style start-stop bursts of harmony vocals. ''Sabrina Paste
and Plato'' and ''That Is Why'' had the McCartney sheen. ''The Man I Used to
Be'' was more on the Lennon/Plastic Ono Band side -- a soulful blues ballad
derived from Solomon Burke or Ben E. King. ''New Mistake'' was more soul dappled
rock, with a piercing guitar break from Dover.

   OBSESSIVE LOVE

   A tribute to the obsessive love of rock stars, ''Joining a Fan Club'' welded
glam-rock to fussy ''Sgt. Pepper'' psychedelia. ''He's My Best Friend,'' a
blithe pop tune about masturbation, had all the panache of Goffin-King's
hitmaking songs for the Monkees.

   As a set-ending douple-dip, the band did their own galloping Who- inspired
mini-suite, ''The King is Half-Undressed,'' followed by a version of Badfinger's
glorious ''No Matter What,'' done to a fare- thee-well. Two encores included the
gentle ''Glutton of Sympathy'' and ''Calling Sarah'' and a cover of the Move's
first single from the '60s -- the aggressive acid-rocker ''I Can Hear the Grass
Grow.''

   While Sturmer said how grateful he was to be back home after months on the
road,  Jellyfish  is continuing its tour in a couple of weeks when the band
flies to Japan. Considering the sheer musical prowess and the overwhelming
cuteness that the band conveys, it is the sort of perfectly unthreatening,
willfully retro rock outfit that may very well encourage shrieking mania among
the teenyboppers of the Far East and conjure memories of Japanese Beatlemania.

   ''When we get to Japan, I want to see a lot of dolls with my face on them,''
said Manning, joking backstage after the show. That's more probable than
possible.

   It was a fine night for all sorts of musical animals. The 'Fish invit ed
Counting Crows -- the knockout East Bay folk-rock band -- to take a featured
role on the bill. This was a  Jellyfish  crowd and the Crows rose to the
occasion with a 45-minute set that won the confident sextet a bunch of new fans
   DEBUT ALBUM

   A debut Crows album on David Geffen's DGC label is ready for release in
September, and lead singer Adam Duritz continues to grow as a live performer
with every show the band performs. Still in his 20s, he commands a stage with
the emotive grace of a veteran actor and sings the band's literate
keyboard-based ballads and up- tempo guitar-driven rockers with a passion and
attack that invites favorable comparisons to Van Morrison, Dylan, Tom Petty and
REM's Michael Stipe.

  Stay tuned for more Crows.

GRAPHIC: PHOTO, Jellyfish  at the Warfield (from left,  Roger Manning,  Tom
Smith,  Andy Sturmer) , home after touring , BY LEA SUZUKI, THE CHRONICLE

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH