P. Diddy and pals to heat up new Seahawks Stadium with all-day fest

What's the BFD? How about a daylong concert by some of the hottest Top 40 acts in pop music, combined with the inaugural performance gig at the brand-new, multimillion-dollar Seahawks Stadium? Now that's a "Big Freakin' Deal."

Radio station KISS-FM (106.1) sponsors this fourth installment of what has become its annual mini summer music festival (proceeds are going to Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center). The headliner may be a pop-culture superstar, but some of the dimmer marquee names could be the real standouts in the lineup.

Hip-hop and rap impresario P. Diddy (aka Sean Combs, but not Puff Daddy, mind you) has carried an aura of royalty since his early days as a recording-industry bigwig, then as a multi-platinum artist for his own Bad Boy Entertainment organization. He's often been accused of relying too heavily on samples in the hits he's created for others (Notorious B.I.G., Faith Evans) as well as in his own mixes, a charge not rebutted in Diddy and Bad Boy's most recent opus, "We Invented the Remix."

No word on exactly which members of the Bad Boy Family will be onstage with P. Diddy, but his recent protégés Loon and Usher are good bets to back him up on "I Need a Girl," a winning new story-rap about his failed relationship with multimedia superstar Jennifer Lopez.

P. Diddy is barely 32, and reggae popster Shaggy just 34, but that's positively ancient compared to all the other acts on the BFD bill. One of the youngest and most appealing is 17-year-old Canadian rocker Avril Lavigne. Her debut album, "Let Go," is an impressive collection of power-ditties that fits right in with a growing category of pretty young things making personal yet accessible pop rock for modern ears.

Ditto Michelle Branch (keyboard kitten Vanessa Carlton would have completed the trinity of up-to-the-minute sweetheart rockers). The 18-year-old released her debut "The Spirit Room" last summer, and the authoritative rock-'n'-roll flavor of songs like "If She Only Knew" and "Everywhere" have launched a well-deserved rise to fame.

The post-pubescent boy rockers on the BFD schedule aren't quite as interesting, unless you're a pre-pubescent girl, that is. Britain's answer to the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync is, at the moment, BBMak, a young trio of harmonizers with Fab Four teeny-bopper sex appeal. The five singing-and-dancing boys in O-Town, young crooners Daniel Bedingfield and Mario and power balladeers the Calling will no doubt also make the stadium swoon.

So might hunger and thirst for those without bundles of cash. The concert is expected to last at least 10 hours, and no outside food or beverages will be allowed in.

Ted Fry: tedfry@earthlink.net.