HALL & OATES IN HOLLYWOOD: BLUE-EYED BOWL

The sold-out Daryl Hall & John Oates show at the Hollywood Bowl on Tuesday night (9/20) underscored the obvious: that the Philly-bred duo continue to create some of the most reliably joyous noise on the planet; that their songs are a master class in how to make giant throngs of people dance and sing with utter abandon; and that they still sing, play and groove like motherfuckers.

But what was perhaps less clear to me until halfway through the show was how profoundly they’ve influenced the shape of the pop that followed. Prince got high as a kite on their hybridized funk and floaty falsetto. Hip-hop producers looped them like mad. Avant-gardists like Talking Heads snaked their polyrhythms and sinuous guitar lines. Every Brooklynite hipster wave-beat project shimmering across Lena Dunham’s midnight playlist owes Daryl and John at least a dinner, if not half the royalties they’ll ever earn.

The Bowl show saw the pair and their exceptional band glide through a mix of giant hits and intriguing deep cuts. The setlist was larded with miraculous jams like the luminous “Sara Smile,” the staggeringly great “She’s Gone,” the euphoric “You Make My Dreams,” the percolating “Private Eyes,” the wicked “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do),” presented as an extended funk workout, the pulsing “Maneater,” their transcendant take on “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” “Say It Isn’t So,” “Out of Touch,” “Do What You Want, Be What You Are,” “Did It in a Minute” and “Las Vegas Turnaround.” They were also joined by opener Sharon Jones and indie soul phenom Mayer Hawthorne for a rather thrilling version of the Delfonics’ “Didn’t I Blow Your Mind.”

It’s an index of how many freakin’ hits these guys had that they could play a huge set with two encores and still leave out the massive “Kiss on My List” and “Rich Girl.” I admit to being disappointed not to hear the latter, but such occasions always prompt a giant singalong of the neglected tune in the parking lot, and hearing a dozen or so female fans wailing “you can rely on the old man’s money” on the way out was like a third encore.