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Steve Miller is the quintessential FM-radio hero. Slightly anonymous to look at, he carries a guitar case full of songs that, given the venue, can be delicately intimate or arena-enveloping anthems.

Miller managed both at Birmingham's premier summer music festival on June 15.

Not since Elvis has anyone enjoyed as signature an intro as Steve Miller, who took his place center stage as the band gracefully slipped into the ethereal opening soundscape of "Fly like an Eagle." Miller's Northern California idealism drips throughout this classic rock radio standard and still pulls on the heartland's heartstrings (then again, where does singing about "children with no shoes on their feet" not play well? Brunei?).

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Perhaps challenged by the myriad blues-rock jam bands that adopted much of his audio-syncracies, if you will, Miller finagled a song already reaching five minutes into somewhere north of 15. Included were more organ and bass solos and a surprising new hip-hop bridge that, safe to say, caught everyone unawares.

The joker is not in rare form. His early days of tantalizing audiences with unending energy are behind him, but you could say the same about Eric Clapton. Nevertheless, it was apparent as he unassumingly strolled out on stage on an unexpectedly comfortable southern summer evening that Steve Miller is exactly where he wants to be at this stage of his life. Bespectacled, sporting shorter, blonde tresses and looking flush and slightly paunchy, he's happily no longer careening down Keith Richards Boulevard.

And the music is all the better.

Miller, after his somewhat daring reinterpretation of "Fly like an Eagle," launched into a Cole Porter-sized catalog of hits.

The driving rhythm under "Living in the USA" snapped the audience mélange out of the trance they fell into during the opening number. By the time the band dropped into the disco-dappled "Abracadabra," which despite being Miller's most recent hit sounds the most dated, the otherwise laid-back Birmingham audience was swinging.

Despite the prog-rock studio fiddling Miller can't resist, the grounding sound of his music is the foundation of nearly all American music — the blues. And Miller, like many guitarists his age, now affords ample attention to that music in his shows, not just offering up introspective arrangements of his own blues-rock staples such as "Mercury Blues," but also performing standards like "I Just Got Back from Texas" and the Robert Johnson classic "Crossroads."

Unlike David Bowie or Prince, who eschew performing many of their early hits in concert these days, Miller didn't disappoint, agreeably offering up the requisite song selection of "Rockin' Me," "Take the Money and Run" and "The Joker," and illustrating the thorough blend of boogie, blues and a very appealing hubris-free machismo that made him famous.

Mature fans, lounging comfortably around the capital city's downtown park, were reminded how much Steve Miller has contributed to the soundtrack of their lives; while younger fans finding Miller's infectious groove inescapable, danced in front of the stage as if he were some new Pied Piper.

And that's what's truly striking about his show – the blend of the audience. Miller's fan base is now two-fold: the younger baby boomers that first called him the Space Cowboy, and the rash of post-college, Bonnaroo-bound 20-somethings who sing along with "Gangster of Love," and no doubt helped Fly Like An Eagle: 30th Anniversary CD become rock 'n' roll's surprise smash hit of 2006.