Diversity ... well, almost

The annual KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas shows, like their summertime sibling the Weenie Roast, can function as a window on trends in the modern-rock world, whether it’s melodic punk-pop, guitar-dominated garage rock or testosterone-laced rap-rock.

So what can we glean from the lineups for this weekend’s shows at Universal Amphitheatre, which include Audioslave, Disturbed, New Found Glory, P.O.D., Queens of the Stone Age and Zwan on Saturday, with Beck, Coldplay, Creed, the Vines and Jack Johnson on Sunday?

This year’s trend appears to be the absence of a trend.

“I don’t think we’re seeing any galvanizing music trend right now,” says Kevin Weatherly, vice president of programming at KROQ-FM (106.7). “We’re seeing all these different pockets of sounds that are all doing well, all having fans. That’s led to more diversity on the station than there has been in a while.”

With one key exception, the mix is impressively broad, running stylistically from garage rock (the Vines) to rap-rock (P.O.D.) to hard rock (Queens of the Stone Age) to you-name-it (Beck), from big names (Creed) to new bands with imposing pedigrees (Audioslave consists of members of Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine; Zwan is Smashing Pumpkins’ singer Billy Corgan’s new band) to just emerging (Good Charlotte, Taproot, Trust Co.).

“Annually I think it’s a pretty good showcase of what’s around the corner in terms of bands that are ready to break through,” Weatherly says.

The one chink in the shows’ diversity is the lack of female performers.

“This is one of those topics that for whatever reason seems to come up year after year,” Weatherly says. “We play the music our audience wants to hear. We’re certainly not opposed to playing women on KROQ. We’ve been one of the champions of the Distillers and at the same time one of the few alternative stations that still supports the hometown favorites No Doubt,” which played last year’s Christmas show.

Because No Doubt and the Distillers played Southland shows together recently, it might not make sense to include them this year, but what about, say, the Donnas?

Weatherly suggests it’s a little too early in the rising all-female punk-pop band’s career, adding, “But who knows whether they might be playing at this year’s Weenie Roast? We would love to have these things break out and work for us. We’re looking for them.”