Lenny Kravitz -- He And A Melon Time-Trip The Arena

Concert preview

Lenny Kravitz and Blind Melon, 8 tonight, Seattle Center Arena; $22.50; 628-0888. -------------------------------------------------------------------

Rock is becoming timeless.

The decades are blurring as contemporary rockers embrace styles from the past, playing rockabilly, punk, new wave or psychedelia as if they were new.

Lenny Kravitz and Blind Melon, playing tonight at the Arena, both could time-travel back to the '60s and fit right in. Kravitz adopts the stinging guitar vocabulary and wild psychedelic clothes of his idol Jimi Hendrix, while Blind Melon is a long-haired, peace-'n'-love band romping through the fields of hippiedom.

Kravitz's retro look and sound kept a lot of people from noticing his artistry as a guitarist and songwriter. They couldn't get past the past to see that he had the chops to back up the image. For a time he was more famous as Lisa Bonet's husband - they've since separated - than as one of rock's most promising new talents.

Nevertheless, his first two albums, 1989's "Let Love Rule" and 1991's "Mama Said," both eventually found wide audiences - mostly thanks to Kravitz's constant touring and fascinating performance videos.

With his latest release, "Are You Gonna Go My Way," Kravitz's potential is finally being fulfilled. The most confident and varied of his albums, it's sold more than the other two combined.

In addition to the powerful title cut, it includes the slow, ethereal "Believe," the spare, Lennonlike "Just Be A Woman," and the reggae-fueled "Eleutheria."

Even beyond his eye-catching clothes and fascinating sounds, Kravitz is an interesting character. The son of NBC producer Sy Kravitz and actress Roxie Roker, best known for her role as Helen, the black woman married to a white man on "The Jeffersons," he was raised amid luxury on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. But he also spent time with his mother's relatives in Brooklyn's tough Bedford-Stuyvesant section.

His initial musical interest was classical. He sang in the chorus of the Metropolitan Opera and for three years was a member of the California Boys Choir.

The multi-talented Kravitz produced Madonna's No. 1 hit "Justify My Love," co-wrote a song with Steven Tyler on the new Aerosmith album, and recently completed a duet with Mick Jagger for his new solo project. He will be backed here by the same musicians featured on the new album, Craig Ross on guitar and Tony Breit on bass.

Rolling Stone cover boys Blind Melon - nekkid, like a lot of people on the magazine's covers - have a dancing bee to thank for their platinum debut album.

The video of their summer hit "No Rain," featuring a dancing bee played by 10-year-old Heather DeLoach, became an MTV favorite almost a year after the disc was released.

The delightful clip, directed by Sam Bayer, who also did Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit," eventually has the whole band in bee costumes, dancing with Heather. Those wacky images, along with the song's fun-time appeal - it sounds like the Grateful Dead on a deliriously happy day - catapulted the album (which was recorded here at London Bridge Studios) into the No. 3 spot in Billboard. When last seen, Heather was seen dancing in her bee suit on "The MTV Video Music Awards."

As further proof of the staying power of '60s rock, the show is sold out.