'Idol' Wins This Audience
(6/4/03) NYNewsday.com

The uproar's loudest for Ruben and Clay at an all-star Zootopia

This year's edition of radio station Z100's Zootopia was remarkably high-powered - including the final performance of TLC, the best-selling female group of all time, a rare public performance by Mariah Carey, the best-selling female singer of all time, and a set from Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Aerosmith, who left the studio specifically for the show.

So who had the crowd of mostly teens and tweens going crazy? "American Idol" winner Ruben Studdard and runner-up Clay Aiken, as well as last year's winner Kelly Clarkson. After running through their respective singles, Studdard and Aiken closed the 5 1/2-hour extravaganza with a rousing version of "God Bless the U.S.A." complete with patriotic fireworks.

As Simon Cowell would say, they were all right, nothing special - especially when singing over cheesier-than-usual backing tracks rather than with an actual band.

The crowd, however, didn't care. When Studdard walked down the Z-shaped stage to get closer to the crowd as he sang The Carpenters' "Superstar," he faced a sea of flashes from cameras that had remained essentially unused until then.

The response to only two songs rivaled the welcome that Studdard and Aiken received for their mere arrival. The first was "I Know What You Want" from Carey, who received the first Z100 Achievement in New York Music Award, and surprise guests Busta Rhymes and Flipmode Squad, who have helped usher the diva back to the upper reaches of the charts. Carey was in fine voice during her 20-minute set, which included "Heartbreaker" and her new single, a remake of the Def Leppard power ballad "Bringing on the Heartbreak." She also seemed at ease on stage, putting to rest rumors that her recently downsized tour was due to an inability to perform.

The other huge ovation came after TLC's T-Boz and Chilli finished a moving version of "Waterfalls," as a tribute to the group's rapper Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes, who died in a car crash last year. The group's half-hour set, which they say will be their last, started off shaky, with the recent hit "Girl Talk" and "Ain't 2 Proud 2 Beg," where it didn't seem like T-Boz and Chilli were singing, only lip-synching and dancing when video of Left Eye rapping ran on the big screens. Once they got to "Baby Baby Baby" and "Creep," though, T-Boz began to sing and the dance moves got fiercer. "Waterfalls" became a huge sing- along, as the crowd shouted along with Left Eye's rap.

Aside from the special sets, the rest of Zootopia was the usual mishmash of pop, rock and R&B, with the usual mixed results. Simple Plan was surprisingly fun with a set of solid punk-pop, especially the timeless single "Addicted," as was Bowling for Soup, who even added a medley of hits from "Jenny From the Block" to "Complicated," done in the punk-pop style.

Ashanti also did well with her new single "Rock Wit U" and her hit "Foolish," which was essentially an a cappella audience sing-along. J.C. Chasez provided the best spectacle, with dancers, a drum corps, a flag corps and an entire marching band backing him up on his underrated hit "Blowin' Me Up (With Her Love)."

Sometimes, though, the over- the-top singing that "American Idol" tends to reward creeped in, especially in the usually charming Daniel Bedingfield's set. What took the cake, though, was Third Eye Blind's Stephan Jenkins' amazingly tuneless singing during "Blinded" and "Graduate." Maybe Clay could replace him and they could get another hit.