Sweet Success : A less hard-edged Sugar Ray, possibly the ultimate populist rock band of the moment, revels in its breezy, fun new attitude.

A couple of those pretty fly white guys that the Offspring has been mocking were onstage at the Hollywood Palladium on Friday.

No, not headliner Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath or second-billed Everlast, or even the goofy, eponymous front men of opener 2 Skinee J’s, decked out in Mork from Ork outfits. They all offered their varying degrees of hip-hop elements with smarts and refreshingly unaffected attitudes.

Rather, it was the two fellows McGrath plucked out of the audience for a little rap competition. The first one was simply, well, bad. As in, not at all good. The second one, though, thought he was bad. As in thought he had a good reason for chanting about N.W.A. and Eazy-E as if they represented his cultural roots.

McGrath was rightly embarrassed and wisely cut the rap short.

“I expected better from L.A.,” the Newport Beach-raised singer croaked in a voice he explained had been strained by a little too much St. Patrick’s Day.

He had nothing else to be embarrassed for Friday, though. Not his band’s supposed sellout moves away from harder-edged punk-funk since the lighter breakthrough 1997 hit “Fly.” Not even the derivativeness of both older stuff recycling Red Hot Chili Peppers and Rage Against the Machine (and sounding pretty stale, frankly, on Friday) and the current “Every Morning,” which taps the easygoing vibe of the Rascals’ “Groovin’,” War’s “All Day Music” and Hugh Masekela’s “Grazin’ in the Grass.” And certainly not the fact that McGrath is really, really enjoying the success.

“They might as well be Hanson,” sneered one person watching Sugar Ray.

But longtime fan Christina Harris declared the band the “alternative of the Backstreet Boys” and meant it as a compliment.

Harris, 26, a former Anaheim resident, used to go see Sugar Ray and No Doubt in small Orange County clubs before either was famous. Now living in the San Fernando Valley, she’s thrilled with the band’s evolution--even if she and her husband, Kevin, were bemused to find themselves surrounded at the show by, as he put it, “about 30 teenage girls.”

Buying a black baby-doll T-shirt with the band’s name on it, Christina Harris remarked, “I like the old style--heavier. But I like the new sound too--funkier and poppier. They’re aimed toward the high school, which is the hugest market.”

Sugar Ray, then, may well be the ultimate populist rock band of the moment. And the luckiest. And band members know it.

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Playing off the title of their new album, “14:59,” Sugar Ray members had basketball-style clocks with that figure on either side of the stage, signaling that they know where they stand on the 15-minutes-of-fame time line. And they made it very clear Friday that while they may have just one tick left before they’ve expired, they’re going to have fun. The good news is that their view of fun isn’t the rape-and-pillage variety so often associated with rock ‘n’ roll but the life-is-beautiful brand.

Rather than having a chip on his shoulder from being on the cover of Rolling Stone and having a movie career waiting for him as soon as he’s ready, McGrath seems to have become even more a regular guy. Gone is the punky tough ‘tude he’s shown before. Instead, he was eminently likable--and not just on his best behavior because his mom was in the crowd (it was her birthday, he announced).

The likability carries over to the new music, compensating for a lot of its weaknesses. Ironically, the old sound--with which the band began Friday--seemed pretty stale and fully derivative. It wasn’t until “Runaway” from the new album, several songs in, that things really got going. With its programmed beat and very pop structure, the song set the tone for the show’s highlights--breezy and fun.

And maybe, just maybe, it’s enough to freeze the clock . . . for now.

Erik “Everlast” Schrody, the former House of Pain rapper, also is clearly savoring every tick he has--in his case, from the artificial heart valve that’s kept him going since he nearly died from a congenital heart defect last year.

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As pleasantly fluffy as Sugar Ray is, Everlast’s new music is rich and meaty, a vibrant mix of hip-hop, blues, rock and country influences, anchored by his strong sense of ethics and spirituality embodied in his hit “What It’s Like” (the Irish American converted to Islam two years ago) and given flight by his highly accomplished, freewheeling band. Unfortunately, at the Palladium they lacked the light, soaring touch shown recently at the House of Blues, but it was still a riveting display.