Sugar Ray’s Infectious Likability

Two of those pretty fly white guys that the Offspring has been mocking were on stage at the Hollywood Palladium on Friday.

No, not Sugar Ray’s Mark McGrath and Everlast--who offered complementary hip-hop- inflected blends with smarts and refreshingly unaffected atti- tudes--but two fellows plucked from the audience for a rap competition, one chanting about N.W.A and Eazy-E as if they represented his cultural roots, and leaving McGrath rightly embarrassed.

But McGrath had nothing else to be embarrassed for Friday. Not his band’s moves from harder-edged punk-funk since the lighter 1997 hit “Fly.” Not even the derivativeness of older stuff, which recycles Red Hot Chili Peppers and Rage Against the Machine (and sounded pretty stale Friday), or the current “Every Morning,” which taps the easygoing vibe of War’s “All Day Music” and more. And certainly not the fact that McGrath really enjoys the success.

His infectious likability compensated for much of the musical weaknesses. And with clocks on stage showing the new album title “14:59”--one second left in their 15 minutes of fame--Sugar Ray had no pretension of being anything more than populists who got lucky. Maybe that’s enough to freeze the clock . . . for now.

Erik “Everlast” Schrody, whose show was reviewed recently at the House of Blues, is also 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.

His new music is rich and meaty, a vibrant mix of hip-hop, blues, rock and country, anchored by the strong sense of ethics and spirituality embodied in his hit “What It’s Like” and given flight by his highly accomplished, free-wheeling band.