Last Monday, a couple thousand real-life teenage girls, pre-teenage girls, and their mothers plus a few boys had the privilege of playing the part of the studio audience on the set of the ABC reality-television series Making the Band, which follows a made-for-TV singing quintet through their real-life adventures as an almost believable mini–’N Sync pop phenomenon. O-Town have an actual recording contract (with Clive Davis’s J Records), an actual album (O-Town), and a fairly silly single and video (“Liquid Dreams,” which, to be fair, is not their best work) that are getting actual airplay on radio stations (including Boston’s Kiss 108) and on MTV (which is a co-producer of the television show). On this night, the series was set at Avalon, an actual club (for which actual tickets were issued) that regularly hosts performances by real-life pop performers like Aaron Carter, the younger brother of Backstreet Boy Nick Carter. If you could look past their lack of seasoning — O-Town have been together for less than two years — and a particularly obtrusive camerawoman, there was very little to distinguish the performance from that of, say, an actual group doing an actual concert.

There were, after all, the requisite glowstick-clutching screaming teens holding attention-grabbing signs that said things like i talked to you on trl. There was a local radio DJ serving as over-jovial MC who simultaneously plugged his upcoming gig hosting movies at the far end of the TV dial. There was a five-piece band of faceless aging session musicians backing O-Town’s enjoyable, unprepossessing R&B. There was canned stage banter and audience participation and a Special Guest Star — local hero Rich Cronin of the real-life boyband LFO, who assisted on a cover of his hit “Summer Girl.” And there was a an enthusiastic show by a group whose natural talents are limited. O-Town played “Baby I Would,” which was the unofficial soundtrack to the TV show’s first season. They played “Sexiest Woman Alive” and “Every Six Seconds,” the latter prompting one mother to opine that as much as she hated the song (like “Liquid Dreams,” “Six Seconds” is built on crass and formulaic pandering to teen sexuality), she thought the performance rocked.

Blond cutie Ashley was the most modest and the closest thing to a natural star; awkwardly dreadlocked shrimp Jacob was the most clownish, especially during a slightly embarrassing segment in which he attempted to pull off — sans irony — a classic Michael Jackson dance routine. On TV, the group’s handlers often berate the boys for being lackadaisical dancers, and you could see why. Their singing, which appeared on at least a couple occasions to be aided by recorded backing tracks, was decent — and downright excellent compared with last season’s performances — but far from exemplary. Still, by the time they played a very good version of one of their best songs, the gently rocking “Love Should Be a Crime,” I’d almost forgotten that we were in a television show. Then, in the midst of the screaming that followed the song, I was reminded. “C’mon, Boston!” shouted Erik, encouraging a louder response. “Do it for ABC!”