Wallflowers Stay Fresh After Packing Their Hits Up Front

It’s risky when a band plays both its big hits in the first quarter of a 90-minute concert, but Jakob Dylan and the Wallflowers showed on Saturday at the sold-out Universal Amphitheatre that they had plenty in reserve.

Though not everything matched the craft and appeal of “One Headlight” and “6th Avenue Heartache,” the quintet was never more than a song or two away from one that did, including the exquisite “I Wish I Felt Nothing” and “Three Marlenas.”

The band, reviewed at length here in April for its show at the Ventura Theatre, has learned during a year of extensive touring to play its ‘60s-style, roots-rock material with just the right relaxed intensity.

Dylan has become a looser and more confident performer. His voice is thin at times, but he finds a way to make the best songs from the smash album “Bringing Down the Horse” feel as if they are coming straight from his soul.

Fiona Apple, who opened the concert, is destined for headline status--and soon.

As a writer and performer, the New York singer-songwriter has such an obsession for candor and confession that her artful pop rock carries an aura of exhibitionism. It’s an unsettling yet seductive approach that has “star” written all over it.