SAN DIEGO -- Britney Spears, who has made tabloid headlines during a nearly three-year break from performing live, returned to the stage for the first time with a 20-minute show in San Diego.

Tuesday night's abbreviated performance, billed as a show by a band called M + M's, kicked off at the House of Blues about 10 p.m. Tuesday night with Spears singing her first hit, "...Baby One More Time," as a quartet of female dancers in hot pants and skimpy shirts gyrated by her side, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported Wednesday.

Spears' 20-minute performance included four songs, among them one of her last hits, "Toxic."

It was an abrupt ending to an appearance that had been buzzed about for days across the nation.

The chatter had been magnified by the fact that the show was a long time coming. Spears, 25, had not performed since an injury cut short her Onyx Hotel Tour about three years ago.

Since then, she's been a fixture of tabloids and gossip sites instead of the live stage. There was the marriage to a childhood friend in 2004 that lasted barely two days; the stormy, two-year marriage to dancer Kevin Federline, which ended with the filing of divorce papers last year; and the embarrassing photos of her nearly dropping her baby son and driving with him unrestrained on her lap, among other paparazzi lowlights.

Earlier this year, there was her much-publicized entry into rehab, and several more tabloid episodes, including one in which Spears emerged from a San Fernando Valley salon with a shaved head, which she reportedly did herself.

Ticket holders lined up around the building before last night's show, convinced that Britney would be performing. Although they guessed right, not everybody was satisfied with her 20-minute set, the newspaper reported.

"It wasn't a good move for her career," ticket holder Mackenzie Trimble said after the show. "When you come out and do four songs and lip-sync ... that's not what Britney fans came to see."