Eric Carmen: Avery Fisher Hall, New York NY

ERIC CARMEN looks like his music, the slickness of which is so overwhelming that the ragged edges are jarring until you realize they've been placed there as self-consciously as the rest. His only major problem is a lack of spontaneity, and this is particularly annoying because his talent is so natural. Even his occasional lapses of taste and sense seem calculated. His new band is a good example. Its six members are so unlike Carmen that they seem chosen deliberately to remind us of how pretty the star is. The two guitarists are not overweight. They're fat. The sloppiness of the group's dress is appalling. They make Bruce Springsteen seem like a page from Esquire. And their music is also excessive. Two drummers is one too many for a mainstream rock & roll sound like Carmen's, and the three guitars (Carmen is the third when he's not playing piano) are pointless.