‘Weenie Roast’ Sizzles at Irvine Meadows : KROQ’s cross-generational agenda is showcased at festival in Orange County.

If the idea of KROQ’s “Weenie Roast” rock festival at the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre on Saturday was to show the cross-generational appeal of the radio station’s programming, it did a great job.

The baker’s dozen of acts on the all-day bill covered a vast range from old faves (the Pretenders, Boingo) to new sensations (Beck, the Offspring) young enough to be their children.

But Ed McMahon?

Yes, there was Mr. Hi-ooooh, Mr. You-May-Have-Already-Won-$10-Million, decked out in grunge drag--from backward cap to baggie shorts to storm-trooper boots--on stage to make a typically affable introduction of the typically intense Rollins Band.

Somehow, on a day marked by such incongruities as having Green Day’s snotty punk antics followed by Counting Crows’ somber earnestness, it worked.

McMahon’s brief appearance provided a grandfatherly presence, rounding out a family unit of a show in which lead Pretender Chrissie Hynde and head Boingo Danny Elfman served as fine parental figures for the generally young crowd.

Both Hynde and Elfman, each making solid comebacks after absences from the rock scene of a few years, invested their “Weenie Roast” sets with the wisdom of their experience. Playing mostly old hits for this young crowd, the tart-tongued Hynde seems to have grown comfortably into the role of a strong, independent woman that was thrust upon her when she first made an impact some 15 years ago.

Boingo (the Oingo has been jettisoned, in case you were wondering) concentrated on new material, songs that have a sympathetically paternal tone that strikes a delicate balance. Even as Elfman in one song mocks the blind Angst of the younger generation, he--without condescension--makes it clear that he has walked in their Doc Martens and has survived the doubts and fears of that troubled age without losing his edge.

Actually, a few of the younger performers could have used a little parental guidance, notably orange-haired Green Day singer Billie Joe, who dropped his drawers during the band’s set. On the other hand, Hynde too (though accidentally) lost her skirt early in her set and blithely shrugged and carried on--but of course, she, unlike Billy Joe, was wearing tights underneath.

Some of the other young acts also, artistically speaking, dropped their pants. Pavement began its short set with a lengthy percussion jam that sounded a little like the Who’s “Magic Bus” intro, and then climaxed with bursts of chaotic noise.

Beck followed Pavement with his own round of random Moog synthesizer noise and feedback from his band. That’s the beauty of his rap-folk jewel “Loser” being a KROQ mega-hit. An unknown would probably have been booed off the stage for such artistic antics, but the 15,000 fans cheered his every oddball move, including when he impetuously changed the “Loser” chorus to “I’m a goldfish baby, so why don’t you feed me.”

Actually, there was a veteran model for this attitude as well: the show-closing Violent Femmes, whose Gordon Gano is the Peter Pan of alternative rock. Fortunately, not every young act chooses sarcasm as its emotion of choice. In fact, the bill jumped haphazardly around the map, from the intensity of opening Candlebox to the winsome, wispy folksiness of new Australian band Frente, from the precocious punk command of the Offspring to the premature poetics of Counting Crows.

Most impressive may have been Afghan Whigs, with the controlled intensity of singer Greg Dulli balancing the tightly wound quality of Rollins with the rock focus of the Pretenders. The English band James, as well, showed a true confidence and maturity, mixing folksy shambling with arty posturing.

What tied it all together, besides the fact that each act has at least one KROQ hit, was a spirited, joyful innocence found in even the snottiest and most sarcastic stances--the kind of innocence that matures well. It’s not hard to imagine some 15 years from now Frente’s sweetly shy singer Angie Hart or the Offspring’s confident front man Dexter Holland standing on this same stage as surrogate parental figures for a new generation of KROQers.

Let’s hope that future show is as well-run as this one. A rotating double stage, with one act setting up on the back while another was playing in front, kept things moving--they only fell behind about 15 minutes.