O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : A Wave of Affection for Gibson : The singer-songwriter gives as much as she gets in a well-balanced performance at Celebrity Theatre.

Sunday night’s concert at the Celebrity Theatre confirmed what many critics have probably long suspected about Debbie Gibson fans: These wholesome legions are more at home at a baseball game than at a rock concert.

When, more than an hour past the advertised start time for Sunday’s show, the opening act had yet to take the stage, the crowd (mainly parents and their restless, disgruntled offspring) did something that few Guns N’ Roses fans will probably be able to fathom: They started a wave.

To fully appreciate this gesture, one should bear in mind that the Celebrity is a theater-in-the-round with only 2,500 seats, about half of which remained empty throughout the concert. To undertake a wave in such intimate quarters meant standing about every seven seconds. And still they persisted.

But if you were to chalk up the outpouring of affection when Gibson finally did arrive (another hour later) to fans who are easily amused, you would be selling this performer short. In a show that ran a full two hours and sang, danced and jammed its way through 21 musical numbers, she gave back at least as much as she got.

Gibson was joined off and on throughout the evening by four acrobatic male dancers and two backup singers in addition to a full touring band (relegated here to the orchestra pit). She kicked things off in high gear with “One Step Ahead,” the Madonna-stylized, dance-pop tune produced on record by Jellybean Benitez, and the appealingly punchy “Another Brick Falls,” both songs off her latest “Anything Is Possible” album. Bubble gum hits “Shake Your Love” and “Out of the Blue” followed, maintaining a frenetic, highly choreographed pace that seemed most aptly suited for an aerobics class.

But just when Gibson was in danger of becoming spun sugar, she elected to do a doo-wop version of “Only in My Dreams” that, while not entirely successful as a vehicle for raw vocals or compelling harmonies, did serve to slow the pace. A mostly well-balanced alternating of her trademark tinkling-keyboard ballads and up-tempo pop tunes filled out the evening.

Gibson has had to endure much “teen queen” chiding since debuting with “Out of the Blue” back in 1987--an album that yielded four Top 5 singles for the then 17-year-old singer-songwriter from Long Island. Her Ivory soap image even earned her dubious immortality in Mojo Nixon’s parody tune, “Debbie Gibson’s Pregnant With My Two-Headed Love Child.” And though she is now just days shy of turning 21, apart from a short-cropped haircut and a rather sexy red-sequined mini-dress sported during one of her sets, she doesn’t appear to have changed much.

That’s good and bad.

Good, in that she’s managed to retain her youthful exuberance and charm, appearing not to have become the least bit jaded in five years of nearly constant touring and prolific output.

Bad, in that her work shows few signs of maturation. The latest evidence of her readiness to accept repetitive and derivative melodies came in two throwaway ballads she debuted Sunday, “Heart and Soul” and “Till You Come Back Again”--one so new she offered a disclaimer in case she messed up on the words: “I write very quickly, and then I’ve got to go back and learn (the words) as if it weren’t my own song,” she explained.

Unwittingly, she might also have been explaining the sometimes insipid lyrics that accompany her worst efforts, as in “One Hand, One Heart”: All alone / No people and no telephone / Just you and I / One hand, one heart.

Still, this is one talented young artist, ambitious enough to write, produce and belt out all her own material. And Gibson in concert is Gibson at her best--a performer who seems born to the stage, and clearly loves every minute of the time she gets to spend there.

Perhaps tellingly, though, one of her best efforts came on a song she didn’t write which, apart from a lame Holland-Dozier-Holland medley, was the only non-Gibson material in the show. “On My Own,” from the Broadway musical “Les Miserables,” seemed the perfect vehicle for Gibson’s normally Eponine-like vocals, strong and youthful, with lilting accompaniment by keyboardist John Smatla.

“Lost in Your Eyes” was a similarly successful ballad, the fourth of five encores that Gibson still had the gusto to belt out from atop her white Baldwin piano.

And when “We Could Be Together” invited a smattering of fans up on stage to close the show, it also invited a Diana Ross-like communality that, while superficial, was extremely engaging. Much like Gibson herself.

Opening act Chris Cuevas, while essentially coming across as the forgotten New Kid, showed substantial spunk and a strong voice.

Performing mostly dance-pop selections to a prerecorded backing track, the 19-year-old former “Star Search” winner from Mississippi packed six songs and about 100 circumnavigations of the stage--thrusting, pumping and gyrating all the way--into his 25-minute set.