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In 1979, Joe Jackson, like several of his British contemporaries, got tagged with the "angry young man" label like a "kick me" sign slapped to his back. Since so many music journalists are eager to wear that banner themselves, he was a critics' darling.

Joe Jackson belted one out, Thursday night at Liberty hall.

Critic's darlings soon become targets. As Jackson mused from the stage at Liberty Hall Thursday night, the critics have said ever since then, each subsequent release "isn't as good as the old stuff." He can laugh, because he doesn't care. The charming, funny, middle-aged man long ago pulled that bulls-eye from his back.

Touring in support of his new release "Night and Day II," a sequel eighteen years in the making, the tour promotion was spun as being primarily about performing songs from those two albums. And while Jackson did play six songs from the first, and seven from the second, the two-set, 24-song show actually drew material from eight different releases and included covers as well.

Far more nightclub cabaret than rock show, Jackson's band sounds like a first-rate Broadway pit band. Backing Jackson on vocals and keyboards, the band, as always is built around the melodic bass playing of Graham Maby, who's been with Jackson since his earliest recordings in 1978. The rest of the band included Allison Cornell on vocals, violin and keys, Catherine Bent on cello, keyboard player Andy Ezrin, percussionist Sue Hadjopoulos, and drummer Bob Rodriguez.

Jackson's performance was satisfying, enjoyable, the song selection excellent, and he was in good voice and good spirits. It was only the over-rehearsed, under-adventurous nature of the ensemble playing that stopped the performance short of being outstanding.

Opening the show with "Hell of a Town" from the new album, Jackson then led the band through "You Can't Get What You Want (Till You Know What You Want)," and "Stranger Than Fiction." He then performed one of the best of his new compositions, "Happyland," a haunting tale of a deadly fire in a Latin nightclub.

With a nod to an obvious influence, Jackson sang Steely Dan's "Reelin' In The Years," and closed the first set with older favorites "Is She Really Going Out With Him," punctuated by the audience's spontaneous call and response interplay ("look over there" "WHERE?") and "Breaking Us In Two,"

The second set began with Jackson singing "Home Town," "Be My Number Two," and the Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" alone at the piano.

A standout of the second set was his performance of "Love Got Lost," a song on which Marianne Faithful performs the vocal on "II."

The set closed with the scatter-gun vocal delivery of "Got The Time" delivered over a breakneck percussion jam. Then followed the hit "Steppin' Out" sandwiched within the opening and closing portions of "Stay," during which "Steppin' Out" is quoted from liberally.

For an encore Jackson chose to rock a bit with "Look Sharp's" "One More Time," and "Slow Song," from "Night and Day," during which the band played each other off stage one by one till only Maby was left to end the song on solo bass.

Jackson is relaxed and implacable. He smiles and jokes in the face of inane audience comments, mysterious equipment misbehavior, muffed lyrics, and dropped instruments. Stripped of irony and attitude, Jackson is a sincere and endearing performer who genuinely seems to enjoy an audience that's grown up with him.