At Jingle Ball, Nelly leads lineup that looks to pop's past and future

It was cold outside but "Hot in Herre" at Little Caesars Arena on Tuesday night, as Nelly headlined Channel 955's annual Jingle Ball concert, a mixed bag which featured a slew of pop and hip-hop performers and more corporate sponsorships than you could shake a candy cane at.

Nelly's brief 15-minute set, during which the St. Louis rapper ran through snippets of about eight hits from his robust catalog, typified a night that saw scattered attendance — the majority of LCA's upper deck was curtained off — and lacked the galvanizing energy of a superstar headliner.

In its place were sets by B- and C-level pop acts, the best of which was Zara Larsson, the 27-year-old Swedish pop singer who was the most in the holiday spirit of anyone on the bill, remixing this year's "Pretty Ugly" into "Pretty