3,000 Party Animals Pack Galleria Concert

Young girls are squealing, calling out the name of their favorite band member, while others faint from emotion. The crowd is surging toward the stage, the screams almost drowning out the music.

No, it is not Beatlemania at the Hollywood Bowl in 1964. We are talking Partymania 1991 at the Sherman Oaks Galleria.

Hordes of preteen and early teen-age girls descended on the normally sedate mall Sunday for a free concert and autograph session by The Party, a band of three boys and two girls who starred as Mousketeers on the cable television show, “The New Mickey Mouse Club.”

The band--featuring Damon, Chase, Albert, Deedee and Tiffini--recently toured with rap singer Vanilla Ice, and its single, “That’s Why,” is No. 55 on the Billboard magazine national singles chart.

Organizers expected 1,000 fans to attend, but the fire marshal estimated that more than 3,000 showed up. And not everyone was from the neighborhood.

James Scarborough, 24, and Ian Justman, 22, left Sacramento at 6:30 a.m. to see their favorite band, arriving at the mall just 30 minutes before The Party took the stage for the six-song, 30-minute set. Why the long drive?

“Mainly because they have not made a Northern California appearance yet,” Scarborough said. “And we wish they would.”

Eden Weltman, 15, stood in a line of several hundred fans that snaked down the length of the mall, waiting for a chance to get an autograph and give band members the orange carnations she clutched. She had been waiting more than three hours for the concert.

“I had front row, so I got trampled,” she said, happily putting up with the hardships.

“They’re cute. They’re talented. And Damon is gorgeous,” she said. “Damon pointed to my poster. And he winked.”

Some of the adults in attendance were not quite as effusive. The stage happened to be next to where Sharon Veaupre runs a small flower stand. She was completely surrounded by the crowd.

“It’s been crazy,” she said. “Piercing screams every two seconds.”

Still, the teen-age adulation was good for business. “I’ve sold a lot of single roses,” she said.

And the music?

“They had real good energy, but I wouldn’t call them musicians,” she said. “Give it a 75, because it was easy to dance to.”

At Sunday’s show, several people fainted during the concert, and there was one minor injury, said Rick Scott, the group’s publicist. But that was nothing compared to the scene in Toronto last month, where the concert had to be halted 30 seconds into the first song because fans started rushing the stage.

After the Galleria concert, several hundred people swarmed in front of a music store in the mall for an autograph session, causing minor pandemonium as security guards tried to form an orderly line. They never quite succeeded, and the autograph session was ended a half an hour early by the fire marshal.

Disappointed fans chanted, “We want The Party!” One girl sat down on the floor against a large planter and wept.

“I’ve been here with my daughter since 10 o’clock this morning,” said an angry Shylla Halpern. “All the kids that were in front, they were getting in and getting autographs. And the kids waiting in line for hours didn’t get anything.”

But Paulina Ptaszynski, standing at the very end of the autograph line, had already had her thrill. The 10-year-old, who moved to the United States from Poland two years ago, arrived at the mall too late to get a good spot and had to watch the concert from the second-floor balcony. “But still,” the self-described No. 1 fan squealed, “Tiffini looked at us!”