POP MUSIC REVIEW : Bennett Steals KROQ Show : 4th Yule Concert a Mixed Stocking

Hey, all you parents of rockin’ grunge teens! You can take those Pearl Jam and Babes in Toyland CDs you bought as Christmas gifts right back to the record store and trade ‘em in for the latest from Tony Bennett.

Yup. Tony-I-Left-My-Heart-in-S.F.-Bennett.

The crooner was one of the biggest hits of the first night of KROQ’s fourth annual “Acoustic Christmas” shows on Saturday at the Universal Amphitheatre, joining a lineup that also included Billy Idol, the Cranberries, Lemonheads’ Evan Dando, They Might Be Giants, Bad Religion and Belly.

A beaming Bennett--with his standard sharp blue suit and his crack trio--won warm and enthusiastic ovations in his short set by simply doing what he does, swinging the likes of Irving Berlin and Duke Ellington with style and grace.

Sure, he was cashing in Generation X brownie points he earned by cavorting with the Red Hot Chili Peppers as a presenter at the MTV Video Music Awards show in September. But there was more to it than that Saturday.

“He’s a classy guy!” said 12-year-old audience members Melissa Cahn and Logan Clare, while 23-year-old Suzanne Schechter, who admits that she and her friends have recently been hanging out in a piano bar, said, “I appreciate the old-timers. There’s more talent.”

Take that Mr. Beavis. And you too, Mr. Butt-head.

Not that class and politeness completely ruled the evening. It took little prompting from KROQ deejay Jed the Fish to get the crowd to shout an expletive in unison on the station’s live broadcast of the six-hour show.

But it was nice to see the respect for elders that was shown this night--and not just for Bennett. The audience also showed a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for the triad of veteran acts that closed the show: Idol, former Haircut 100 singer Nick Heyward and the newly re-formed General Public.

Idol earned the accolades with a pleasantly restrained (by his standards) set in which he was reunited with his former sidekick, guitarist Steve Stevens. Frisky and only once or twice cartoonishly obnoxious, Idol, referring to himself as Billy Oddball, put his heart into his four songs, perhaps having put his ill-conceived “Cyberpunk” phase behind him.

General Public, the descendant of the English Beat, sounded quite ready for a comeback with its clever, ska-rooted pop in the show’s final set--the group’s first performance in seven years. Heyward’s genteel set, although charming, was a snooze.

The biggest snooze of the night, though, was Dando’s low-blood-sugar appearance. Sometimes the singer-songwriter’s understatement can have its charm; this time it seemed merely somnambulistic. Others who relied on gentility were more successful: Both Canada’s Cowboy Junkies and Ireland’s Cranberries came across through strong, mature songwriting and the seductive singing of Margo Timmins and Dolores O’Riordan, respectively.

But arguably the night’s best set, other than Bennett’s, was the least acoustic but most seasonal. Veteran L.A. hard-core outfit Bad Religion started with “Silent Night” a la the Ramones and included a tribute to good religion with Hank Williams’ “I Saw the Light” before concluding with an effective commentary on cultural imperialism by combining its own “American Jesus” with Band Aid’s smug, 1985 charity anthem “Do They Know It’s Christmas.”

Overall, the show--a benefit for the Los Angeles Countywide Coalition to End Homelessness--could have been better, lacking diversity (apart from Bennett) and star-level revelations (apart from Bennett) and peaking too early (with Bennett).

A potentially stronger lineup was promised for Sunday, with Smashing Pumpkins, Porno for Pyros and Cracker, among others.