An unpretty night with Tlc

------------------------- Music review

TLC, Christina Aguilera, Blaque and Vega last night at KeyArena, Seattle. -------------------------

Whose turn is it to do the pelvic thrust? Between TLC's Chilli gyrating on her knees, Vega's crotch grabbing and Christina Aguilera shaking her dinner-roll-size booty, last night's TLC concert was just a blur of inseams, belly buttons and button flies. It was a freak show - and we ain't talkin' about the carnival kind. We're talking about getting freak-ay.

But TLC didn't jut a hip until not one, not two, but three acts warmed up the crowd. Vega, a young R&B boy band with generic lyrics and melodies, first whipped the teenage girls into a frenzy. Then Blaque, three teenage silver Barbarellas, performed "Bring It All to Me" and "808." They were a fitting opening act, considering Blaque is essentially TLC Lite - looks great, less filling. They even have their own Left Eye, the brash female who's all attitude but can't sing to save her soul.

And, then came Christina. Ahhh, the stuff Humbert Humbert fantasies are made of: a 5-foot-2 nymphet. Aguilera, 19, sprinkled flecks of porn star everywhere, running her tongue across her teeth, tossing her hair all over the place and smiling naughtily out the corner of her eye. She's so thin, she really shouldn't be able to wear anything except a hat but she catwalked across the stage in pink mesh and black alligator skin with "Genie in a Bottle" and "What a Girl Wants" (which topped Billboard just this week).

But her giggles and bleached-blond hair belies an impressive voice. With her range and strength, Christina's a less trashy Mariah Carey, with flashes of Streisand in her performance of "Reflections" from "Mulan."

By the time Aguilera finished, the show felt like Kids Incorporated. The thought of TLC seemed positively geriatric . . . even though they have yet to turn 30. But, as the oval-shape video screen lit up and T-Boz, Chilli and Left Eye came rising through the floor, it was clear that they've got something the teen acts can't touch. No, not just Vicky, the C-3PO anatomically correct robot image, she of the video screen. TLC had the poise gained from being around more than three months.

The band rewound to its earlier hits, changing into the spray-paint, industrial-waste jumpsuits of "Oooooh . . . on the TLC Tip," then into "Creep's" slinky pajamas.

X Despite rumors of Left Eye's quitting the group, she was in her element - exuberant, maniacal and even strangely charismatic. Each member spent solo time on stage, and Left Eye spent it bouncing around the stage spouting nonsense, juggling, tinkering on the synthesizer, all in a purple-velvet jumpsuit with "Crazy" spelled out across her butt. (Her dancers were similarly branded.)

X Then came Chilli, aka Sexy, who slithered and brought up a slack-jawed man from the audience for "I Miss You So Much," who all but drooled on her when she sat in his lap.

And T-Boz, who looked exhausted at the beginning of the show, gradually perked up and did a Smooth Criminal-esque dance number, before stripping off the Velcro suit into black and silver.

The show had its cheesy moments, some of which were touching and some of which were just cheesy. During "Unpretty," they invited children on stage, which was genuinely cute. But the staged disappearance of a bag of fan mail and android Vicky's subsequent proclamation that fans' love is more than just pieces of paper should have been shunted to an "ABC After School Special."

But they don't allow pelvic thrusts on ABC.