The Black Eyed Peas' Will.I.Am performs at the American Music Awards on Sunday
Photo: ABC/ Dick Clark Productions

The Black Eyed Peas have dominated the Billboard charts for the majority of the year and, on Sunday at the American Music Awards, they took the stage for their coronation.

The Peas performed a duo of their chart-topping hits — "Meet Me Halfway" and "Boom Boom Pow" (strangely, they left out the massive "I Gotta Feeling," which sat atop the Hot 100 for a record-setting 26 weeks) — during the AMAs, strutting, posing and letting the audience know that they really were royalty.

They started with a clubby take on "Halfway," augmented by turntables, keyboards and, oddly enough, Will.I.Am's keytar (and his outfit, which could casually be described as "Intergalactic Elvis," complete with space boots, rhinestone coat and, yes, a pompadour wig). Fergie purred her way through the opening notes, and the performance spilled out into the aisles, as Tabu spit his verse standing next to fellow AMA performer Adam Lambert (whom he also high-fived).

The sonic fireworks fell away, leaving Fergie to belt out an extended vocal solo which lead directly into a bumping version of "Pow," which saw the DJ work in a few bars of Rob Base and E-Z Rock's classic "It Takes Two," and had the Peas joined onstage by an army of dancers, each disguised as a speaker (seriously).

Will worked through his verses with added swagger, and as green lasers shone from the stage, the Peas quickly changed it up again, mutating the song into a version of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (for reasons apparent only to them). And then, as the crowd cheered wildly, Will reminded them that 2009 was very much the year of the Peas, pointing to his getup and shouting, "Six months #1! The new kings!"

Well, at least that explained the Elvis wig.