Donovan Stays in Tune With Mellow Mood

First he gives nostalgia, then there’s no nostalgia, then there is. . . .

The lyrics to “There Is a Mountain,” Donovan’s ‘60s nature-mantra of the endless cycles of change and renewal, could be modified thusly to describe the surprisingly effective structure of his solo acoustic concert Friday at the Henry Fonda Theatre.

The night opened and closed with the 50-year-old Scottish singer taking the role of the cheerful relic, spritely dispensing blocks of his flower-child favorites--”Hurdy Gurdy Man” to “Mellow Yellow”--to ecstatic fans reliving their youth.

Sandwiched in the middle was half an hour of material from “Sutras,” a new album of neo-hippie mysticism produced delicately by rock guru Rick Rubin. This was a separate portion of the concert not only in time, but in space--with Donovan standing stage left for the oldies, seated cross-legged on a platform stage right for the new songs.

Remarkably, the old songs seemed, in this context, endurably enjoyable. Even at his most twee (and he may have set the standard), Donovan was always good for a great melody. More astonishing, though, was that the new songs held their own. Tunefully cosmic--a song titled “Nirvana,” he humorously explained, had been mistaken as an ode to Kurt Cobain but is actually based on a book about meditation--they reveal an artist who 30 years later remains true to the ideals he held at 20, without sounding stuck in the past.