ongoing - Oct. 17

Classic line from "Spinal Tap," as the guys in the band philosophize on the art they're creating: "There's a fine line between stupid ... and clever." The line comes to mind after viewing "Rock of Ages," up and running at the Colonial through Sun. Oct. 17. It may just be the "Mamma Mia!" for this millenium. "Rock of Ages" - the musical drawn from '80s hair metal and set on Hollywood's Sunset Strip - has a couple of dozen songs that you may consider cringe-worthy and still might make you want to flick on the fake lighter they give you when you enter the theater. Then again, there was a huge audience for this music when it happens and these folks get to have their nostalgia, too, right? And, of course, there's handsome "American Idol" finalist Constantine Maroulis in the lead role of Drew (later Wolfgang and Joshy J) You see, he takes a metal name when he's trying to front a metal band, and then a boy-band name when he's compromised into the boy-band world. 

   What you get with "Rock of Ages": A ton of songs you may have once loved (or loathed) that are pumped up bathetically on stage and somehow, some way, integrated into the insubstantial script as intros or outros to what the characters are thinking, saying or about to do. It's like this music speaks to them and - when words fail - for them! Sometimes, these songs are delivered straight-on, when they sing Twisted Sister's "I Wanna Rock" and "We're Not Gonna Take It" - ABC theme songs for the hair metal crowd. Other times, say during REO Speedwagon's "Can't Fight This Feeling" there's a profound twist, given the action taking place on stage. (It's one of the show's surprise moments; we won't reveal it here.)

   Now, when we said "insubstantial" earlier, we should qualify that by saying "knowingly insubstantial," as written by Chris D'Arienzo and delivered with an implicit nod and a wink by the cast. Well, sometimes. Sometimes you supply your own nod and wink. The versatile four piece band at the rear of the stage - all dressed very much for the part - play this stuff perfectly. And the sound mix is just right. They're loud, but don't overwhelm the vocals. And Constantine - who sang "Bohemian Rhapsody" in "American Idol" - is perfect for this part, a bashful puppy who occasionally barks out loud.

   Ok, what's it about? "Rock of Ages" is "about" a boy from Detroit and a girl from the hinterlands who go to L.A carrying only their dreams. She wants to be an actress and he wants to be a rock star. Perhaps they'll meet, fight and fall in love. Other stuff will along this path, like she becomes a stripper and he a janitor at The Bourbon Club while trying to pursue their dreams. Oh, and a nasty German developer and his son try to take the Strip by eminent domain (?) to build bland homogenized stoers and displace the Bourbon Club and its ilk. The club's owner Dennis (Nick Cordero) is a hoot, by the way, the epitome of the dumb/clever divide. The tearing down of the strip prompts a protest and one of the protest signs held by one cast member: "Strippers Not Strip Malls." Also in the mix: The (fictional) top dog on the metal circuit, Arsenal, whose ultra-hedonistic singer Stacee Jaxx (MiG Ayesa), has just left the group in the lurch. He's going solo and trying to score all the chicks he can, which, yep, happens to include Sherrie (Rebecca Faulkenberry), who is Drew's love interest too (she just doesn't know it yet.)

   It's a series of rock and Broadway musical cliches - which the narrator-soundguy Lonny (Patrick Lewallen) tips us to sporadically throughout the show, which we should also note is five-time Tony nominated musical. Lonny peruses one of those "For Dummies" books about how the first act should end (big crescendo!) and steps out of character near the end of the second act to bitch about how he wanted to act in some important, serious play, not this cheeseball. Then, he allows, he's having fun here. There's other hints at the cheese. Like "Waitress No. 1" - you know, that's how the bit players are referred to in cast lists - is actually called "Waitress No. 1" by the actors in the play.

   But plotting is not really why people are going to be packing the Colonial. No, it's the music - the celebration of what co-producer Janet Billig Rich called "the other side of the '80s," when we talked about it recently for a Herald story. Thing was, Billig (unmarried then) worked with and for Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr. and Hole among others, bands that were the anti-thesis of the hair-metal, quasi-decadent bands like Whitesnake, Quiet Riot and Poison, whose music (and music by kindred spirits) courses through this thing.(See her take on it all following this item). After Jaxx leaves Aresenal, they get a new lead singer and score a hit with the succinct and subtle "Beaver Hunt," not a far leap from Warrant's "Cherry Pie." (Note: Current rock and hip-hop lyrics are way more explicit than anything here. The idea back then was to be, y'know, suggestive without being overtly obscene.)

   I spent a week out on the Strip during the mid-late '80s, doing a piece for the Globe. This is the period of when "Rock of Ages" is set. The dumbed-down characters and setting ring true, but the excess - trash, drugs, booze and sex - is tamped down. The emotions in the songs? Big, broad, boiled down to basics. Arena rock. Power ballads - lots and lots of power ballads - that reek of earnestness and rockers about, well, wanting to rock.

   One of the characters in "Rock of Ages" dies near the end. No, we won't spoil the surprise. But we will say that when he discovers he's dead - he has to be told - he's pretty accepting of it, and ends up sporting angel wings for the grand finale of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'." God, I hated that song for years. I still hate it, but it certainly made sense in this universe, so I grudgingly smiled as it wrapped up in this glow of glory.

    And now a few words from Janet Billig Rich ... taken from the interview I did with her for the Herald.
    “It is wild,” she says, of the music. One of her tasks was securing the rights. “A whole different world. But I wasn’t a hater. It just wasn’t what I did. When you start listening to the songs, there’s such epic storytelling. These songs were like an inch away from show tunes anyway. These are big, almost the same as songs from ‘Cats’ or ‘Phantom.’”
    Billig Rich also said she grew up on Long Island, thus unable to avoid exposure to this culture.
   We asked one of Billig Rich's best friends, Letters to Cleo singer Kay Hanley about it. “When she first told me about ‘Rock of Ages,’ I was, like, “Eh, OK,” says Hanley, who relocated to Los Angeles seven years ago. Upon moving west, she and Billig Rich became fast friends.
    “I went to see it work-shopped three times,” Hanley continued, “and then saw the full show. I love it so much. There’s a nostalgia factor, but it doesn’t matter. It’s not a wink-and-a-nod enjoyment. No irony." (Ok, this is where Kay and I differ.)
    Back to Billig Rich: There is a tongue-in-cheek element, right?
   “Absolutely. We take our rock seriously. We want the sound to be authentic and it sounds amazing. But the time period was so funny. It’s not a joke-fest, but with the big hair and the C.C. DeVille-ness of it all … We knew what we were doing.”
    Billig Rich sat with Motley Crue singer Vince Neil at one of the L.A. performances. She said, “He turned around and said to the writer Chris D’Arienzo. ‘I lived the Sunset Strip in the ‘80s and now everyone can see what we were doing.’”
    So drugs are in the show?
    “Not as many as Vince Neil took,” Billig Rich said with a laugh. “But we don’t recommend it for kids under 14. It’s not a family show. It’s sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, baby.”
    Still, music by the likes of Whitesnake, Styx, Poison and Night Ranger is the kind of rock the alt-rockers rebelled against.
   “We understand people are going to be rolling their eyes,” Billig Rich said, “and on paper it doesn’t look great. But what we know is once people come to see the show, they lose their minds. [Counting Crows] Adam Duritz loves it. Rob Zombie loves it. Tom Morello, the king of cool thinks it’s the greatest show ever.”

Tickets: $99,25-436.50. Remaining shows: Sunday at 2 and 8,

106 Boylston St., 800-745-3000 www.ticketmaster.com