Spears a great concert- if you're 10

I was feeling like a smartass at Friday night’s Britney Spears concert, not because it was bad, but because I’m fatigued by the whole bubble gum juggernaut.

But then I looked to my left and saw this little 10-year-old girl wearing a “PRINCESS” T-shirt. She was exuberantly singing every word of every song and twirling blue and green glow sticks in her small hands. She looked like she was caught in a life moment, or at least in a priceless highlight in the summer of her youth. And my heart grew three sizes, like the Grinch. For a while, anyway.

Then I had a moment of perfect clarity, while 14,000 little screams darted into my ears at the MGM Grand Garden. The following is not an original thought, but it tastes like the truth: Britney Spears, B.S., if you will, is what would happen if Disney put on a Barbie show. She looks like a doll with hair extensions. She comes with expensive costume changes and elaborate bedroom sets populated with big teddy bears. At one point, she wears a wedding gown with feathery cuffs and a 25-foot train. Dancing, dressing up, wedding stuff — what more could a little girl ask for?

Parents had to be there, of course, to serve and protect the innocent. But in an ideal world, anyone older than B.S., who’s 18, would not have been allowed in. Adults looked about as out-of-place as Pat Buchanan at a marbles tournament. Especially the two half-cocked guys in front of me who keyed in on B.S.’s hot, female dancers. I’m not sure, but I think they were salivating.

B.S., as you may know, keeps telling interviewers that she’s tired of her bubble gum image. That would explain her dance routine during the song, “What U See (Is What U Get).” She glided around a stripper’s pole in a pink cowboy hat while stage guys and gals did a Disney Channel-like version of a Bob Fosse routine.

But even though B.S. strikes a few mildly suggestive poses like that, she perpetuates her own no-sex-before-marriage positions. Until she pulls an Alanis Morissette (who was a teeny bopper in Canada before she got worldly), until B.S. stops singing lines like, “You and I we’re, like, so ‘bye-bye,’ ” until B.S. starts singing bitter rock songs about what she does with a man in a movie theater, well then, she will not un-bleach her Debbie Gibson roots.

But I think she should ride out this electric-youth show until her fans leave her for someone younger and prettier. She’s performing a public service in a halter top. It’s safer for kids to listen to her ecliptic, exclamatory hit songs, “... Baby One More Time” and “Oops! ... I Did It Again,” than to the snarly meanie-pies of Slipknot.

If B.S. wants more adult credibility, she has to show us more skills. It’s hard to tell how talented she really is outside of the recording studio. Was she lip-synching Friday? There were many times when her lips did not match the sound, just like Trixie in every episode of “Speed Racer.”

Most of all, B.S. has got to stop the corporate shilling. It was bad enough that her concert was ensconced in “Got Milk?” images of B.S. lying cutely on her belly and wearing a milk mustache. But what was morally promiscuous was the shampoo ad that played on giant video monitors before B.S. went on stage. It showed Britney singing, “I’ve got the urge to herbal.” Man, oh man, oh man.

She better save the money from those endorsements, just in case she becomes overshadowed by one of her opening acts. It could happen, but who knows, the bubble gum market is getting sticky. Before B.S. sang, there was Mikaila, a 13-year-old who clearly was not lip-synching but was singing slick B.S.-like material with a powerful voice. She has an album coming out soon.

There was also Aaron Carter, the 12-year-old younger brother of Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys. Aaron was average and pre-teeny, but he had the funniest line of the night. He said, “It’s pretty hot here, but not as hot as all the girls in here!” Boys really do mature slower than girls.

And the A*Teens from Sweden covered a handful of Abba hits. They aren't going anywhere collectively, but they might individually. One of the blond singers looked like a young version of Elle MacPherson. Now that's talent.