"Picnic - Sandbox in paradise" by Marianne Messina

Child's play: Picnic's whimsical set of nursery-song bridges, wolf howls, and upbeat romps kept the kids on their feet

Sally Hebble, the blond dynamo who fronts San Francisco's Picnic, brought back the "girls wanna have fun" school of rock when she recently took the Paradise main stage with her four-piece band. She cinched the mood early on by breaking into the nursery-song bridge of "Chalkboard": "Give me back my boy toy / Don't be such a killjoy." With child-in-a-sandbox light-handedness and clip pins all over her Deborah Harry blond hair, Hebble (equally Harry-esque in stature) had the perfect persona to pull off the confidential boys-from-Mars girl-rap in "Umbrella."

Wearing knee-high boots, a tight skirt, and a sequined tank, Hebble used every inch of stage Ð and a cymbalstand or two Ð during Picnic's 11-song set. She had an endearing sense of whimsy, as when she grabbed the mic and guttered off a Neanderthal WWF-meets-German metal roar out of nowhere. Or when she surprised the ending of "One Live Love" Ð a song with a "Sweet Home Alabama" feel and love-in background vocals Ð by launching a moon-wrenching lupine howl.

The entire Picnic menu was way danceable Ð the kind of music you can go spastic to without worrying about how you look.

The happy ska feel of "Mockingbird," a song Hebble announced would be heard ("at least 60 seconds of it") nationwide in a Corona radio ad, had the crowd making with the bounce and looking like a world dance party. "Mockingbird" also cranked up the showmanship, offering a picnic-goodie solo from drummer Tim Van den Berg on his leopard-patterned drum kit.

Saving two of their most high-energy songs for last, Picnic finished off the night strong and wild. "Sorry We're Not Open Now," an upbeat alternative romp, had the guys singing the stratospheric title line in near-castrato voices behind Hebble's lyric "Am I ever gonna get inside you?" And the closing song, "Tug of War," escalated tensions by setting lines like "What are we fighting for? / It's such a fucking bore" against a train beat that steamed through the verses and fattened into something more thrashy in the choruses. All the while Hebble's love-stressed voice warbled with that estrogenated drive that over the years has served everyone from Gwen Stefani to Chrissie Hynde in good stead. Picnic play with Box Set Fri/4, 9 p.m., Slim's, 333 11th St., S.F. $13-$14. (415) 255-0333.