SO SOCAL: The Best...The Beautiful...And The Bizarre : YOU ARE HERE : Milla Goes Luna

HYPED AS: Milla Jovovich plugs in her Stratocaster and headlines at Luna Park in West Hollywood.

*

REALITY: “Aw, man, I don’t even want to tell when I started playing guitar, because for the amount that I play, it’s embarrassing.” It’s charming self-deprecation from the rock ‘n’ roll front woman, former Avedon model and star of “The Fifth Element” and “Return to the Blue Lagoon”--hold that snicker. Apparently for Jovovich, spewing art comes as naturally as breathing. The Kiev-born vixen says that while growing up in Los Angeles, her mother, a Ukrainian actress, fed her a steady diet of art and literature. At 17, Jovovich released a solo CD, “The Divine Comedy.” Now the willowy 23-year-old has gone electric. This spate of performances under the band name Plastic Has Memory will generate and test material for an upcoming Virgin release. A few lyrical snatches audible over the amplified din reveal a penchant for the oblique: “My body is old from you and your indecision,” she sings in her Nico/PJ Harvey-ish wail. It’s a line that, considering its author, only the clueless could take literally.

*

I’M ON THE LIST: “We’re very underground,” Jovovich insists. “I don’t have many famous friends, so all of them miss my shows.” All except “close friend” Jeremy Davies (“Saving Private Ryan,” “Spanking the Monkey”) and fellow actor/model Ashton Kutcher of “That ‘70s Show.” Her family and other invited guests make up a healthy portion of the 300 or so people crowded around the stage. Adoration abounds: Jonah Matranga of opening act Jonah’s Onelinedrawing confesses a past obsession; the following band, Early Mart, presents Jovovich with a velvet painting of a white horse (“Where is your white horse?” goes the refrain from its favorite Jovovich number, “Aggravated Rose”). And then there are the real, paying fans. For them, Jovovich’s little side-pocket appearance in between playing Joan of Arc in Luc Besson’s upcoming “The Messenger,” and pushing L’Oreal, is a rare opportunity to ogle expensive beauty up close--the room churns with geeky guys wielding cheap cameras. “Ja, it’s perfect, unbelievable,” says Jurg Ebneter, who flew in from Zurich after learning about the gig through an e-mail fan club. “Sure, for her, I would fly in again.” About the occasional overzealous fan, well, Jovovich doesn’t want to get into it except to point to the imposing hired presence standing close by. “Thank God for Big Will,” she says. “He comes to all my shows.”