POP MUSIC REVIEW : New Nelsons on the Block : Can the Third Generation Escape Perils of Teen Idolatry?

“Hello, Pop--looks like the torch is still burning,” said Gunnar Nelson between encore numbers at the Universal Amphitheatre on Saturday by Nelson, the group he and his identical twin brother Matthew front.

The comment was part of a touching dedicating of the show to his father, Rick, who died in a 1985 plane crash. Gunnar noted that the Universal was the last place he had seen his father perform.

Now the platinum-tressed grandsons of Ozzie & Harriet have indeed picked up Rick’s torch as teen idols. But the show proved that they’ve also picked up the perils that come with it and gave no indication that they’ll be able to transcend idoldom.

Though biologically speaking they’re second-generation teen idols, pop music generations generally don’t last much longer than the wait in the lines to the Universal’s women’s rooms Saturday.

Make that girls’ room.

The average age of the females that dominated the sold-out house was probably around 15--a couple years younger if you don’t count the moms that tagged along. But don’t discount the power of youth. “After the Rain,” Nelson’s debut album, has sold nearly 1.5 million copies and has stayed in the Top 40 for nearly all of the 43 weeks since it was released, producing a No. 1 single (“Love and Affection”) and a No. 6 (the title song), with another (“More Than Ever”) now headed toward the Top 10.

And the young crowd Saturday, at the Nelson’s first Los Angeles concert since the album’s release, was nothing if not passionately enthusiastic. Its screams and swoons (not to mention spending--the average fan’s tab for ticket and souvenirs might have been greater than the production budget for an “Ozzie & Harriet” episode) would have impressed even Rick in his heyday.

But Rick soon learned what the screams can presage: Never mind that several years after that heyday he helped invent country-rock. Never mind that in the ‘70s and ‘80s he was performing edgy rock songs by the likes of John Fogerty and Graham Parker. Rick could never escape Ricky, a situation he addressed with his lone post-teen-idol chart success, 1972’s “Garden Party.”

And for all the unfair knocks Rick took for allegedly sanitizing “real” rock ‘n’ roll and R&B; in the early days, at least it was the real thing he started with. His sons start with its antitheses, combining the ‘70s arena-rock of Styx, Boston and Foreigner and the ‘80s-’90s hard-rock-lite of the likes of Winger and Cinderella.

Nelson’s metal was no heavier than that on the teeth of many young fans, it’s showmanship and musical style interchangeable with any of a few dozen current and recent MTV bands. Bobby Rock’s drum solo was example No. 14,382 why drum solos should be banned; lead guitarist Brett Garsed’s solo turn sounded like it came straight from a “How to Play Rock Guitar” primer.

The only thing really distinctive is the twins’ look. Otherwise, Nelson delivers rock cliches, albeit to a crowd that for the most part doesn’t know that they’re cliches.

The highlight of the show far and away was the encore of “Love You Today,” an unreleased song written shortly after Rick’s death. Performed acoustically, the song was truly moving, though it would have been even more so if the twins had thrown in a verse from one of their father’s early hits, say “Travelin’ Man” or “Hello Mary Lou.”

But enough about the past and the future: For the present, the kind of success Nelson is having renders matters of quality almost irrelevant. That’s almost . . .