BY JUD COST

It was pretty much a reversal of fortune for this year's Left Coast Live festival in downtown San Jose. Especially when compared to last year's dismal maiden effort that had all the joie de vivre of an alien autopsy. At least, this year's Saturday night headliner, Yo La Tengo, was not saddled with an unworkable 6:00 p.m. starting time, as was Booker T., the 2009 main event. They've closed off an even longer chunk of South 1st Street this year, but the 9:15 time for Yo La Tengo means more hustle and flow on the boulevard and a markedly more party-like vibe for the 2010 gathering. But you still can't book a hundred mostly unknown acts into every tiny joint in town with four walls and a restroom, wave a magic wand and get instant South By Southwest. And yet, progress is progress.

The Orange Peels, certainly the Bay Area's best pop band since the late-70s heyday of the Rubinoos, were slotted to play what looked like the storage room of a small Latino art gallery called MACLA. The sound here was brittle enough to shatter glass, and at the same time booming to the point that all nuance from the OPs' trademark harmonies and lush melodies was totally lost. It was quite simply the worst room acoustics I've ever heard in 40 years attending rock gigs.

Orange Peels frontman Allen Clapp heartily agreed as he mopped his brow after the set. "It felt like I was inside a garbage can out there," he sighed. It was a shame that Clapp's intelligent lyrics and the brilliant lead breaks of new guitarist (and former band drummer) John Moremen were all but inaudible, trapped in quicksand by the oatmeal-and-tapioca ambience of a room that should never have been used for live music.

With an audience of only 15 or so who wandered in (and out) before Yo La Tengo  finished its set in the street outside, it almost felt like the Orange Peels were playing to an empty room. "It's really quiet in here. It feels like the come-down lounge," said Clapp after one Peels tune that was distorted by the acoustics to the point of sounding like something by garage-psych heroes the 13th Floor Elevators.

The main stage PA, on the other hand, sounded terrific. San Jose band the Mumlers opened for Yo La Tengo in fine style at 8:00 p.m. with their South Bay take on the "freak folk" sound of  Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom and Vetiver. The Mumlers have an oddball lineup that combines tenor sax, trumpet and two kinds of tuba with the angular lead vocals and occasional fuzzed-out electric guitar of Will Sprott. "I was gonna do some stage-diving tonight, but it's a really long way down to the ground," mumbled Sprott amiably as he eyeballed the eight-foot drop to the asphalt below, before breaking into "99 Years Ago," a bluesy remake of old chestnut "St. James Infirmary."

"Being a band from San Jose has its good nights and its not so good nights," said Sprott afterwards as he peddled CDs from the merch table. "The real problem is there just aren't enough places to play here." He also noted that nearby downtown university San Jose State is mostly a commuter college, leaving a relatively small pool of resident students with any interest in the indie-rock night life.

Yo La Tengo bassist James McNew, lugging an armload of band t-shirts to sell before the gig, vaguely recalled playing San Jose's Cactus Club back in the '80s, the empty shell of which stares at us from right across the street. The billions of dollars spent in high-rise, luxury hotels and towering glass and concrete office buildings since the phoenix-like rise of Silicon Valley have gone unnoticed. And from this three-block vantage point, nothing's really changed in 25 years. Except the five once-thriving rock clubs have all gone belly-up.

Yo La Tengo took the stage to a warm welcome from a crowd of about 350 with usual lead guitarist/singer Ira Kaplan playing bass, Georgia Hubley on drums and McNew splattering the crowd with a lumbering, dangerous guitar sound that would seem more at home on a Melvins record. Of course, that's one of the best elements of Yo La Tengo, now 26 years old and weaned on old Velvet Underground albums. You may think you know what they're going to play, but there are always plenty of surprises, both live and on their 12 full-length albums.

I haven't seen the New Jersey trio, who cut their teeth at Maxwell's in Hoboken, since 1992 when My Bloody Valentine and Buffalo Tom opened for them at the Warfield in San Francisco. But things haven't changed too much since then. "Georgia and I are going to sing a duet. Duet, that's a technical term," laughed Kaplan as the band played something mellow off their most recent longplayer, Popular Songs.

The evening took a decidedly weird turn as I hoofed it over to Milano, a dingy nitery with zero curb appeal, tucked away over on 2nd Street. As I was thoroughly frisked for weapons at the door (none found), a car parked around the corner blared out what sounded like Vietnamese hip hop. Once inside, I instantly felt I'd been transported to a slightly more polished version of One-Eyed Jack's, the scary roadhouse from David Lynch's TV masterpiece, Twin Peaks, where high school girls were shanghaied to work as prostitutes.

Or maybe it was the reincarnation of legendary Santa Clara, Calif. honky tonk Napredak Hall without the sawdust on the floor. Located somewhere off Lawrence Station Road, Napredak was the joint high on the tour itinerary of every '50s/'60s country & western star, from Hank Williams, Lefty Frizzell, Roy Acuff, Webb Pierce and Faron Young to George Jones, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash. Whatever the vibe, oldtime hipsters, dressed to the nines, are dancing the bop tonight with their dolled-up ladies to hardcore doo wop and early '50s R&B.

After a half-hour teaser set by his backup combo, there he was right in front of me, Big Jay McNeely, walking around the dance floor hunched-up and blowing the honkingest tenor sax, ever, into a wireless mic attached to the bell of his horn. Now 83, this guy has been around so long, he was playing tenor when John Coltrane was still in the Navy. McNeely's been making records since the late '40s and frequently played live dressed up in colorful threads, blowing a horn illuminated by fluorescent paint while lying flat on his back. He's billed now as "the godfather of rock 'n' roll saxophone."

McNeely's curtailed the onstage gymnastics these days, but his buzzsaw tone, learned from records by famed tenorman Illinois Jacquet, can still hypnotize the crowd much like another famous dude in a loud suit, the Pied Piper. McNeely sits with the audience a spell while still playing his horn, then sings "I Can't Stop Loving You" in a barrelhouse baritone.

How to top what I've just seen? The only possibility is a nightcap with storied local crazyman, the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, scheduled for a post-midnight set at First Street Billiards. "You're just in time," mutters the guy at the door when I inquire whether "the Ledge" and his notorious bugle and cowbell have made an appearance yet. The last time I saw the man who once cut "Paralyzed" back in the '70s, somebody tossed a full bottle of water onto my wife's head from a balcony seat.

I sidle into the pool hall just in time to hear an unknown trio of old geezers, dressed in spike-topped World War I German army helmets, singing the Who's "My Generation"... in German. Since I don't have a helmet of my own I make the snap decision to call it a night, before I wind up in the ER, myself. It's been a helluva trek through the underbelly of San Jose, a center-cut sliced from the pumping heart of Left Coast Live, a rock festival that may be going somewhere in spite of itself.