Time to consider the alternative

When the radio station Indie 103.1 debuted last December, it was like tossing a hundred dinner rolls at a hungry man.

When, wondered those who’d been ready to vandalize their own car radios if they heard one more Spears/Timberlake/Madonna rotation, was the last time a commercial station played Joe Jackson, the Replacements and the Polyphonic Spree back-to-back?

The customary generational chronometer -- hairstyles -- was unreliable on April 12 at the Avalon, as young and middle-aged alike turned up for the station’s celebration of its first 103 days on the air, in Lolita pigtails and stiff Mohawks, bandanas worn a la Axl Rose and Von Dutch trucker caps, shaved heads and ducktails, and one foppish suede newsboy cap of the sort ‘60s icon Donovan wore, this last particularly fitting, as the night’s headline band, Camp Freddy, was fronted by his son, Donovan Leitch, whose cheeky charisma showed why he is a perpetual darling of the demimonde.

“I lost my virginity in the bathroom upstairs in 1982,” he confided to the crowd of several thousand, which included rockers to the left of the corporate radar -- Deborah Falconer; Jeremy Brown and Roxy Saint of Roxy Saint -- as well as those hoping to get back on the charts.

“I’m rebranding,” said Fabrice Morvan, the surviving member of Milli Vanilli, keen to chat up his new self-produced CD, “Love Revolution.” Did he ever wonder whether his lip-syncing was simply ahead of the curve? “Don’t get me started,” he said, albeit without rancor.

Opening act Zeitgeist Autoparts tossed rock-girl-hair and let mascara run as it tore through a fierce punk-pop set of paeans to Iggy Pop and Valley groupies.

A trio of Suicide Girls (the Web-based, alt-culture pinups who, according to Technorati, hold seven of the top 100 most-linked blogs) did a little burlesque, an art whose current ubiquity is, perhaps, taking a little luster off the pearl, though the word “yummy” was heard repeatedly as Siren covered herself in whipped cream and chocolate syrup.

And then Blondie’s “Rip Her to Shreds” came on, really loud.

“The joyousness of an independent radio station, finally,” said Leif Garrett, who wore a battered straw hat and a week’s worth of beard. “KROQ, 93.5 -- they play the classics, but it’s all the same classics.”

“Thanks to this station, we don’t have to listen to ‘Radar Love’ for the 100,000th time,” said impresario Johnny Fayva (who later stripped off his white rhinestone jumpsuit but not his platinum wig) by way of introducing Camp Freddy, an all-star cover band consisting of Dave Navarro and Chris Chaney (Jane’s Addiction), Billy Morrison (The Cult), Matt Sorum (Guns N’ Roses) and Leitch, who kicked things off with “Ballroom Blitz,” the throb of the music and the white-hot strobe lights pulsing one tic below seizure-inducing, making everyone remember that there is nothing like the adrenaline surge of rock ‘n’ roll.

Camp Freddy was joined by Juliette Lewis (singing “You Really Got Me”), Jerry Cantrell (“Jailbreak”), whose leather pants left little to the imagination, and 4 Non Blondes’ Linda Perry, both playful and ferocious as she laid waste to Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love.”

It was a hard act to follow for Lisa Marie Presley (singing Pat Benatar’s “Heartbreaker”), who with her velvet blazer and pretty curls was a little too polished for an audience that wanted it rough right about now.

Green Day’s Billy Joe Armstrong and the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones (who hosts the noontime 103.1 show “Jonesy’s Juke Box”) obliged with “Blitzkrieg Bop,” Armstrong running all over the stage, tangling mike chords and knocking over stands, the sort of rock star recklessness that makes people want to scream and rip off their clothes, an impulse followed by the girl who climbed on a friend’s shoulders and flashed Morrison as he growled his way through “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”

Motorhead’s Lemmy closed out the night with “God Save the Queen,” and a command to the audience. “This is the best show you’ve ever ... seen!”

It might have been; the audience wanted more. But there would be no encore, until ... “See you tomorrow at 12 o’clock!” shouted Jones.