Chart-toppers sex up Wachovia Screamfest

The sixth installment of Screamfest, the megastar concert series headlined by Ciara and T.I., and featuring Yung Joc, Lloyd and T-Pain, hit the Wachovia Center Thursday night, with 11 tour buses parked outside.

Young and popular, almost everyone on the bill is a chart-topping, radio-ruling Southern artist. Metal chairs appeared to be the no-frills prop of the evening - they were used when Lloyd performed mock foreplay on a female fan, and when a shirtless Yung Joc gave a blindfolded girl a midtempo lap dance. Neither went as far as the raunchiness of Akon's infamous "tango" with an underage fan this year.

T-Pain burst on stage to the tune of his first big hit, "I'm Sprung." In keeping with the high energy of the artists who preceded him, he eventually stopped his stadium-shaking bounce and said, "I'm too fat for this. . . . " No disrobing for T-Pain. Without Ashley Simpson-like embarrassment, he let a recorded track play while he danced, and made no attempt at feigning lip-syncing.

Ciara, the leggy lady of the show, rose up from the center of the stage in a plume of smoke. Flanked by six dancers and wearing a microphone headset, she put on a well-choreographed display of her dance prowess while roaring through her 2004 breakout hit "Goodies."

T.I., the self-proclaimed "King of the South," commanded the loudest screams of the night. Backed by Philly native DJ Drama, he delivered "Rubber Band Man" and ripped one of summer's anthems, DJ Khaled's "We Takin' Over."

Pompous and pretty, T.I. had no shame in exposing his combination of six-pack and birdcage chest to clawing stageside fans, proving skinny-boy sex appeal is alive and well.

Ciara returned with "Can't Leave 'Em Alone," this time without the surprise appearance of 50 Cent, who showed at the New York show. T.I. closed the show drenched in pyrotechnic showers and screams. While critics might shake their sticks at the overdone ad-libbing by multiple hype men, the often-unintelligible lyrics, the sexual undertones, and T.I.'s potty mouth, teens are much easier to please.