OTTAWA - Kelly Clarkson is for kids. The inaugural -- and arguably most successful and enduring to boot -- American Idol can rawk out all she wants.

But in the end, her core audience is the little ones, who know every word to her songs and look as though they might faint with excitement when she casts a look in their general direction.

At least that's the way it seemed at the Corel Centre during Clarkson's too-short show last night, when a sold-out setup featured 5,000 mostly screaming females. I'd wager 95% of them were females, anyway, and the guys who did, inexplicably, turn out, weren't screaming. On the outside, that is.

It's the sort of conclusion I was forced to come to during the chorus to the title track of Clarkson's 2004 album Breakaway, when all the tiny ones joined in on the, "I'll spread my wings and I'll learn how to fly" part, and suddenly a place where hockey players will carve gouges in the ice in the not-too-distant future sounded instead like the gym where some overgrown Grade 6 choir decided to practise. Don't get me wrong. It was pretty.

The performer introduced herself to Ottawa fans after rising through the floor of the stage singing Walk Away barefoot and otherwise punkishly decked out. The decibel level was ear-splitting, greeted by hundreds of tiny hands waving frantically in the now-ubiquitous green glow stick teeny-bopper concert salute.

Showing Ottawa nothing but gracious, down-home charm, Clarkson wished her back-up singer a Happy Birthday, and acknowledged nearly every one of the homemade signs flashed in her direction.

"Real Girls Have Booty," she read. "Amen."

Pointing out a particularly enthusiastic young'un on an upper level she shouted, "I see you up there looking crazy. Crazy is cool."

And to another little fan, spazzing out just a little more than the rest, she laughed and said, "I promise, I'm not that cool."

The rest of the night was a string of Clarkson's hits from Breakaway and her post-Idol debut, 2003's Thankful. There was substance enough, with catchy hits like Miss Independent, Behind These Hazel Eyes and Since U Been Gone mixed in with the sort of power ballads she does so well, including the moving Addicted, The Trouble With Love Is, and her next single, Because of You. (Missing last night: The very Idol-esque A Moment Like This.)

No one can argue against Clarkson's singing chops.

Even a cappella, she can make the cavernous Corel Centre seem cosy. She did a very nice rendition of her favourite song, Annie Lennox's Why. And gosh darn it, those growing girls just love her. But at just over 60 minutes, the concert felt rushed -- a rip-off, even -- and too tightly choreographed, with an 'introduce song, sing, introduce song, sing,' rat-a-tat-tat sort of cadence.

Clarkson even seemed to acknowledge the pace. At one point, after stopping an introduction to read a sign and comment on it, she moved quickly back to the music.

"I just talked way too much there," she said.