The 1990s now are 30 years in the past, the distance at which musical eras historically have been looked at as “oldies.” Think of how 1980s New Wave often is presented these days.

The concert Aug. 25 at Levitt Pavilion SteelStacks, Bethlehem, featuring 1990s’ chart-toppers Blues Traveler, Gin Blossoms and Spin Doctors, didn’t seem like oldies – neither the performances nor the songs.

The three acts took differing approaches at keeping them fresh.

Gin Blossoms probably were the most successful, as the middle band in the lineup.

The band leaned heavily on its best-known material, playing all of its hits in a 12-song, hour-long set. That meant eight of the songs came from its 1992 four-times-platinum album “New Miserable Experience.”

From the start, those songs still sounded current, and the band performed them with urgency.

“We’re here tonight to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and we’re all out of bubble gum,” lead singer Robin Wilson told the crowd before the opening song, the 1996 Top 5 hit “Follow You Down.”

It wasn’t just a joke. Throughout the set, Gin Blossoms’ songs not only held up and sounded like they did 30 years ago, but the band played them like they mattered.

Much of that was because of Wilson, whose voice is well-preserved. He also put in a lot of performance effort. He elevated “Hold Me Down,” a lesser song from “New Miserable Experience.”

Even the “newest” song the band played, “Learning the Hard Way,” the single from the 2006 album “Major Lodge Victory,” now 20-years-old, fit well into the Gin Blossoms’ lexicon. A slight disappointment was that the set left out good newer songs such as 2010’s “Miss Disarray” and 2018’s “Break.” The Gins still are creating great music.

Wilson also connected with the crowd. “It’s nice to be back. We’ve been here a bunch of times,” he said of SteelStacks. “It’s cool.”

And while the band kept things crisp, Wilson acknowledged its stage in life: He told the crowd before the 1993 minor hit “Mrs. Rita” that Gin Blossoms is on its longest tour since 1994, which also was with Spin Doctors. “Some things just make sense,” he said.

Before the “New Miserable Experience” lesser hit “Hands Are Tied,” he introduced drummer Andy Herrin as “the only musician on this tour still in his 40s.”

For that song, they brought Blues Traveler keyboardist Ben Wilson on stage (Wilson also switched to keys) and, with long solos, stretched the song to eight minutes.

Of course, it was the hits that connected most with the crowd of perhaps 3,000 that filled the Levitt lawn. Wilson said guitarist Jesse Valenzuela told him 2,000 tickets were unsold and his reaction was, “Where the hell would they put them?”

“Lost Horizons” from 1992 was particularly poignant. Its meaning and sympathies still hit hard. The band’s last Top 40 hit, 1996’s “As Long As It Matters,” featured Wilson on acoustic guitar.

And in the cool air of a perfect night on the Levitt lawn, the 1993 Top 10 hit “Until I Fall Away” floated, as Wilson seemed particularly invested in the lyrics.

The set wound down with Wilson announcing, “Now here’s the part of the show where we play your four favorite Gin Blossoms songs in a row.”

And, indeed, that was true. The 1993 No. 1 Alternative hit “Found Out About You” stood the test of time. The 1993 breakthrough hit “Hey Jealousy” was equally good.

Perhaps the Gins’ best song, “Allison Road” is still great. The band closed with its 1995 Top 5 hit “‘Til I Hear It From You.”

It was as if 30 years simply evaporated.

Headliner Blues Traveler took a far different approach.

The band opened with its biggest hit, the 1995 Top 10 “Run-Around,” and it immediately showed the band’s strengths: Singer John Popper’s wailing vocals and his amazingly speedy, intricate – and hot – harmonica playing.

With just two high-charting hits, Blues Traveler’s eight-song, 75-minute set leaned more on musicianship, with long, extended jams. The four-member band behind Popper was worthy of those excursions.

A five-minute version of the title track from the 1993 gold album “Save His Soul” provided Popper with a long harmonica solo. The song segued into a 19-minute mashup of the band’s 1990 song “Dropping Some NYC” and Charlie Daniels’s “Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

Popper was centric to the song. He reared back his head, hat atop it, to wail vocally. He left the stage for a long jam centered around bassist Tad Kinchla.

The band’s 1990 first single “But Anyway” sounded fresh.

Popper made a local connection, telling the crowd he had lived near Quakertown “for like a decade” and gave his tribute to the crowd: “I appreciate it. You guys are … awesome.”

He brought Spin Doctors singer Chris Barron to the stage. Popper said he’s known him for 42 years (they went to high school together). Barron sang a five-minute version of his side band The Duskray Troubadors’ song “Champipple,” and with Spin Doctors’ guitarist Eric Schenkman for its 1997 minor hit “Carolina Blues.”

The band closed its main set with its second-biggest hit, 1995’s “Hook,” then for an encore performed Steely Dan’s “Dirty Work” with Gin Blossoms’ Wilson.

Spin Doctors, which opened the show, was perhaps least successful.

Even with its five-times-platinum 1991 debut album, “Pocket Full of Kryptonite,” the band had just three high-charting hits, and the songs it played to fill the nine-song, 48-minute set (all but two of them from that disc) didn’t measure up.

The opening “Refrigerator Car” was harder rock, rolling straight into “What Time Is It?” (both from “Pocket Full of Kryptonite”), with Schenkman getting a cheer (egged on by Barron) on his first extended solo.

Barron, gray but still impossibly thin, also was animated, performing high kicks above his head and, later, his trademark marionette dancing.

Schenkman sang “Off My Line” from the same album in a raspy voice.

Better was “How Could You Want Him (When You Know You Could Have Me?)” – slower and lighter before it kicked in.

Perhaps most disappointing was a new song, “Still a Gorilla,” from the band’s latest album, “Face Full of Cake,” its first in a dozen years.

Luckily, the hits held up well.

The Top 10 hit “Jimmy Olsen’s Blues” was still irresistibly catchy, and Barron’s voice is still good. Its No. 2 hit “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong” is every bit as good now as it was.

The band serviceably covered “Purple Rain” by Prince before its biggest hit, “Two Princes” (get the joke?) The crowd actually was into the former, waving their arms above their heads.

And the latter, while perhaps losing a step, is still a great song and was performed well, with the crowd singing along to most of it.

“Spin Doctors – old school, real music,” Barron told the crowd. “No nukes, no computers, no ------ AI.”

And certainly no oldies.