WANGO BLANDO POP FESTIVAL BLENDS SWOON-INDUCING STARS, CRASS COMMERCIALISM.

Byline: Sandra Barrera Staff Writer

The pop hits were flying Saturday at Dodger Stadium, but the real star of the Wango Tango festival was the pitch.

Right off the bat, sponsors whacked their brands of consumer goods into the outfield camouflaged as music videos, million-dollar dice rolls that gave away no cash and humorless skits like one that showed Rick Dees - morning host of KIIS-FM (102.7) - coming home to a blow-up doll in his bed.

Even if the commercials were in poor taste, at least the music wasn't. For the mostly young, female crowd, the highlight of the all-day event was the Backstreet Boys. The group took the stage in Lakers jerseys in celebration of the team's NBA championship win the night before. Turns out, it was a recurring theme throughout Saturday's concert. There were playbacks of the Lakers win and, later, the Lakers cheerleaders were invited to perform on the Wango Tango stage to lift the crowd's spirit.

That proved to be an effortless job on the part of the Backstreet Boys, whom Britney Spears, host of Wango Tango more in body than in spirit, called ``sexy as hell.'' It would be hard to find a girl in the audience to disagree with the remark from the buxom Spears, whose number of appearances on stage were fewer than the times she spoke in complete sentences.

The very presence of the Backstreet Boys - who shed their jerseys, autographed them and pitched them into the crowd - moved girls to tears. Some stood on their seats, shouting ``I love you'' to their Backstreet Boy of choice. One girl, who was seated in the vicinity of second base, announced to everybody in her row that ``A.J. waved to me.''

Unfortunately, the sound wasn't very good during the Backstreet Boys set, which included the songs ``Everybody (Backstreet Boys),'' ``Shape Of My Heart'' and ``The Call.'' It was partly because the members were singing and dancing at the same time, and partly because the bass rumbled too loud at times.

Some of the better performances of the day came from Nelly Furtado and the Blue Man Group, the latter a trio of performance artists who do a little juggling, drumming and dancing to edgy electronic music to create a visual masterpiece. During their percussive jam on sewage pipes, silver streamers rained over the first several rows and people jumped at the chance to catch a souvenir. Some wrapped their bodies in so many streamers they looked like a glitzy version of ``Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.''

Furtado, on the other hand, gave audiences a run through her ``Whoa, Nelly!'' album and her contribution to the ``Tomb Raider'' soundtrack. She performed the songs ``Turn Out The Light,'' ``Hey, Man!'' and ``Party.'' During ``Party,'' Furtado panted like Miriam Makeba in short staccato glottal stops. It sounded cool, but it hardly made a dent with this audience. They watched from their seats except for a few minutes of ``I'm Like a Bird,'' Furtado's one big hit. After helping out with the chorus it was back to their seats. Furtado milked the hit for all it was worth, though, by tagging on an ending that just didn't know when to quit. It was the most uneventful moment of her performance, which had started off as a nice break from all the commercialism associated with Wango Tango.

Furtado's music is a swaying kind of music, and the crowd at Dodger Stadium was in the mood for booty shaking. Luckily there were plenty of other performers happy to oblige them, including Shaggy. Like the Backstreet Boys, his performance was met with great enthusiasm from the swooning young crowd of females. Everybody was on their feet through ``Mr. Lover,'' ``Angel'' and ``It Wasn't Me,'' waving their arms from side to side at the singer's request. Of course, a few words of encouragement didn't hurt. ``I was told nobody parties like Los Angeles parties,'' he said.

Encouraging the audience to ``Make Some Noise'' - as the Lakers victory video kept flashing on the giant screens - presented a greater challenge for the radio show presenters and a handful of entertainers. Among them was Ricky Martin, the last performer of the night. The crowd seemed to be indifferent to his salsa-esque pop music, at first. Gradually, they warmed up to the hip-shaking anthems (``She Bangs,'' ``Livin' La Vida Loca'' and ``Cup Of Life,'' which was finished off with fireworks over Dodger Stadium) that Martin described as ``the best of my music.''

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6 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2) The surreal visuals of the Blue Man Group, above, offered a kind of relief from the boy-band antics of the Backstreet Boys, who took the Wango Tango stage wearing Lakers uniforms, right.

(3) The Backstreet Boys' mostly teen-age fans respond with gusto Saturday at Dodger Stadium.

(4) SHAGGY

(5) NELLY FURTADO

(6) RICKY MARTIN

Michael Owen Baker/Staff Photographer