Chilled by Jingle belles

When the smoke cleared after Friday’s showdown of the Top 40 Queen Bs -- Britney and Beyonce -- the one left standing was the fan. In fact, thousands of concert-goers at Staples Center looked on in disbelief at an empty stage following the anticlimactic conclusion of the annual KIIS-FM Jingle Ball concert.

One teenage boy in a homemade “#1 Britney Fan” T-shirt stared slack-jawed, looking a lot like the heartbroken kid in the movie “Shane” as he half-heartedly told his friends, “She’s coming back ... she’s coming back” when Spears bolted from the stage after barely 15 minutes.

Spears’ three-song set was Grinchishly short even by the keep-it-moving standard of radio station multi-act concerts, a wham-bam, no-thank-you-fan appearance that satisfied her headliner billing but little else.

For the first third of Beyonce’s 30-minute set preceding Spears, it looked as though she would be firing a musical bullet Spears would be unable to dodge. After a dazzling entrance accompanied by fireworks, Beyonce, by far the superior singer, exuded an ease on stage that, in contrast to Spears’ relentless aerobics, conveys the charm of a real human being beneath the pop sex-symbol persona.

But she pulled her punches, putting her hot band on ice midway through so she could sing snippets of Destiny’s Child hits to recorded backing tracks. By the time the band kicked back in for the last couple of songs, she’d lost the momentum that could have pushed her to an uncontested victory.

Spears, in retrospect, seemed to be aiming with a troika of songs from her new “In the Zone” album for a quick 1-2-3 punch that would bowl fans over. Yet with little communication to a public that so unequivocally adores her, Spears squandered her chance to capitalize on that bond. There’s reason to be grateful for at least one thing though: She and Beyonce didn’t lip-lock.

What made the show’s finale so odd was that Spears and her squadron of dancers quickly marched off stage after “Me Against the Music” as the house lights went up and the crew began to disassemble everything. No “Thanks for coming!” or “Have a happy holiday” from performers or KIIS staff -- the equivalent of a giant “Bah, humbug!” at evening’s end.

The remainder of a long show that ended almost 80 minutes late had a few bright spots and several tedious ones.

Canadian pop-punk band Simple Plan, which is to the Sex Pistols what the Monkees were to the Rolling Stones, provided a good share of the highlights with its unforced exuberance and genuine affection for its young, mostly female fans.

Jennifer Lopez popped in to up the celebrity ante, but except for an impromptu bit of caroling with KIIS host Rick Dees, she left the singing to the women who dominated the bill, including Kelly Clarkson, who let fly the human-voice-as-water-cannon approach that brought her “American Idol” fame and fortune.

The less said about Jessica Simpson’s 10 minutes of helium-soaked nasal droning the better.

Jamaica’s Sean Paul was more at home with his reggae numbers than the straight hip-hop tunes. But even his raps were more engaging than those of Fabolous, who early in the evening could conjure up only the most rudimentary grooves to provide relief from his crew’s monotonic delivery and rhythmically straitjacketed rhymes.

As for the five hour-plus event itself, evidently the “jingle” refers not to the sound of sleigh bells but to that of marketing money hitting the cash register. The near-capacity crowd was regaled with one advertisement after another on the multiple video screens framing the stage.

When they weren’t being hit with commercials, often they were treated to the one thing you’d never expect at a concert put on by a radio station: dead air. The stark contrast enervated the audience, whose patience also was tested by the various delays.

Ho ho ho? More like Ho ho hum.

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“Jingle Ball Rock” airs Dec. 15 at 8 p.m. on KTTV Channel 11.