For a moment Friday afternoon, the spotlight in the Bangor Auditorium shifted from the stage to the soda machine.

One of the featured acts at the Bangor State Fair takes what steps it can to speak out against apartheid in South Africa. And when the Superiors’ manager Travis Gersham spotted a Coca-Cola machine on the main floor of the Auditorium, he asked that it be removed.

“With the whole thing of (Nelson) Mandela coming to Boston, I was made aware that Coke was one company that did not divest of its South African interests,” Gresham said back stage after the Superiors first show. “Everyone should do what they can to help the cause.”

The management saw no difficulty in complying.

“They said they wanted any references to Coca-Cola in the performing hall to be removed if possible,” Michael Dyer, marketing director of the auditorium and civic center, said Friday afternoon. “Since we didn’t have anything more than a Coke machine in there it was an easy request to meet.”

Backstage, members of the Boston-based singing group offered Pepsi and Diet Pepsi to a visitor. More or less in unison they said that when they can, they request that Coca-Cola logos be removed.

But, Gresham said that he understood in some cases, with contracted advertising, complying with their request would be difficult for hall managers. “Just because the machine or sign is here, is no reason not to play,” he said.

Very little could have been farther from the minds of the entertainers or their audience than international politics Friday afternoon when four of the members of the Superiors took the stage.

Stepping out and singing to taped music, they had young girls in the audience screaming soon after their first choreographed moves.

The Superiors, consisting of Jay Greer, 18, Dwight Burgess, 22, T-Vaughn Fountain, 19, Delin Green, 18, and Lee Dias, 21, who missed Friday’s show because of illness, grew up in Roxbury, Mass.

Since 1987, the Columbia Recording artists have been one of the acts managed and produced by Maurice Starr, who has shepherded the phenomenal progress of the New Kids on the Block. Gresham, who works with Starr, said that the group’s music appeals to a broad spectrum and is not aimed at any particular segment.

Playing for a nearly all-white audience in Bangor presented no unique challenges.

“When I think of Maine markets I think of Randy Travis and soft rock,” he said.

But, the audience Friday afternoon was appreciative and the band fed on it. “I think we enjoyed playing for the people more than the people enjoyed us,” Greer said.

The Superiors were one of three acts Friday. The feature opened with Heart Body and Soul, who were followed by the Superiors, and it closed with Partners in Kryme.

Between sets by the Superiors and Partners in Kryme, Heather Clark, a 15-year-old Bangor resident, said that the show was the first time she had heard of the Superiors.

“They’re all right,” she said. After thinking about it a little, she said, “No, they’re cool. But we came to see Heart, Body and Soul. They’re like the New Kids on the Block, but they’re girl singers.”

An attempt to solicit a statement from the Coca-Cola Co. at its Atlanta, Ga., headquarters Friday evening was unsuccessful.