O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Low-Voltage Outing for New Kids : The group fails to harness the young crowd’s energy, instead delivering an unfocused performance that wasted considerable time on disorganized patter and antics.

New Kids on the Block operated like a true American industry Wednesday night at the Pacific Amphitheatre: The kid-pop phenomenon from Boston made plenty of money, but it wasted a great deal of energy.

A considerable resource was on hand waiting to be harnessed--a sold-out house of nearly 19,000 fans, the vast majority of them deeply infatuated young girls just tingling with energy.

New Kids, the object of one of the most pervasive outbreaks of puppy love in pop history, didn’t have the foggiest notion how to focus that abundance of adoration and make it explode. Oh, the girls screamed like little Beatlemaniacs the whole time (Southland sales of candy-flavored cough drops and throat lozenges should be humming this week, what with New Kids’ two sold-out Pacific shows and a big outing at Dodger Stadium tonight). But this was a crowd primed to scream at almost anything--when stage hands made some pre-show adjustments to a tarpaulin covering the set, that alone caused an uproar.

Instead of concentrating and multiplying their fans’ hysteria, the five New Kids gradually drained it during a plodding two-hour show that wasted considerable time on disorganized patter and antics. The New Kids have been accused of being just cogs in a well-oiled machine wound up by Maurice Starr, the entrepreneur who put the group together and has written and produced virtually all of its music. Maybe the New Kids, who range in age from 17 to 21, figured that a tightly organized, quick-paced performance would confirm that they are just pale markings on their producer’s blueprint for a white Jackson 5.

So they decided that the way to establish some personality of their own was to hang loose, investing the show with a playground feeling that involved lots of yakking and hollering, not to mention interminable stretching of songs.

The chief slacker was stubble-faced Donnie Wahlberg, who carved out an oh-so-calculated bad-boy persona. Wahlberg played the kid with the worst attitude in class, the one who always got the girls tittering with his deliberately obnoxious antics. But he went overboard and managed to make himself truly obnoxious. At one point Wahlberg picked up a stuffed toy tossed his way as a gift offering and heaved it back into the audience with this peeved admonition: “You oughta stop throwing things.” Maybe the fans and their parents ought to stop throwing away money on New Kids paraphernalia bearing this lout’s likeness.

New Kids launched most of its best ammunition at the start, with fire-pots flashing, lasers glowing, and all five members engaging in some energetic hoofing. But after a brisk opening 15 minutes or so, the time-killing began with a long, laborious introduction of the group’s five-piece backing band. After that came an extended series of solo and duo turns by all the New Kids except oldest member Jonathan Knight, a serious candidate for the Andrew Ridgeley Award for superfluous presence in a pop act. The show offered only a handful of flashy, tightly crafted ensemble song-and-dance numbers.

If there’s any real promise cocooned in New Kids, it lies with Jordan Knight, the 20-year-old singer who carried most of the show’s musical load. Knight, the handsomest and by far the most talented New Kid, turned in a solid performance that showcased a generally assured falsetto, some limber dance moves and an appealing, earnest personality.

Knight had a few rocky moments vocally, but he shone in comparison to what

surrounded him. Danny Wood was gratingly off-key most of the time. Wahlberg was somewhat better than that, but his pitch was iffy too, and his grainy voice was only slightly less unpleasant than his manner. Wahlberg and Wood were in charge of giving New Kids’ a rap dimension--a shrewd division of labor, considering their singing abilities.

Curly-mopped Joe McIntyre, the youngest and cutest New Kid, apparently is too ancient and husky-voiced now to pull off the imitations of a pre-pubescent Michael Jackson that have fallen to him on record; in concert, most of his numbers were strung together in a solo medley, suggesting that full versions would have taxed his ability.

Judging from this show, accusations of lip-syncing leveled against the New Kids have been exaggerated--or perhaps those accusations have caused the group to become more honest. As the abundant flaws made clear, this singing was live, except for some incidental (though still unacceptable) use of taped backing vocals during the more fevered dance numbers.

Before anyone starts congratulating New Kids for their probity, though, it should be noted that the show was preceded by a video-screened fast-food commercial, courtesy of the New Kids’ tour sponsor. Remember just a few years back, when the mere appearance of a corporate logo on a banner was considered a sellout? If the public doesn’t express a distaste for commercials in concert venues, we’re sure to see more of them.

An alertness to such marketing opportunities--which are vastly greater today than they were for the Monkees, the Partridge Family and other teen idols of the past--has turned New Kids into a cash cow generating hundreds of millions of dollars. It could be that increased parental guilt in a two-earner economy has something to do with the band’s income explosion as well.

But no amount of money can turn the New Kids’ sweet-nothing songs into something. Puppy love--whether lost, found or sought--was the group’s main subject, expressed in a way that lacked any shading of complexity or emotional depth. The only departures were “Hangin’ Tough” and “Games,” which appropriated the familiar us-versus-them theme of heavy metal, “us” being the New Kids and their fans, “them” being all those who question the group’s ability and staying power. The show also included a treacly ballad, “This One’s for the Children,” that paid lip service to caring--presumably for the less fortunate--without bringing up any unpleasant particulars.

Starr’s savvy for clean, catchy musical settings patterned after successful models (the Beatles on “Tonight,” for example, and Stevie Wonder’s sugary side on “Funny Feeling”) may allow New Kids to keep reeling in fans and raking in dollars for a while. Of course, there’s something to be said for getting pre-adolescent audiences interested in music--any kind of music. But lacking songs with expressive peaks, songs that speak for the singers themselves, it’s hard to imagine New Kids on the Block ever being able to hit any peaks in live performance. It’s also hard to imaging them mattering in five or 10 years to the masses of kids who scream for them now.