POP MUSIC REVIEW : HEAVY-METAL FANS TURN A DEAF EAR TO VOLUME

If the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals expanded its concerns to include humans, there would have been pickets all around the Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre on Friday night.

The volume was so painfully high during the three-hour heavy-metal concert that any thinking person in the first 40 rows should have been wearing ear plugs.

But, of course, no one did. Part of the lure of the heavy-metal ritual is the sense of reckless abandon. Playing free and loose with your hearing is like riding a motorcycle without a helmet. And the heavy-metal crowd is big on macho . The idea is release.

The teen-oriented heavy-metal crowd exorcises school-week tensions by drowning itself in noise. The numbing, high-volume guitar assault and piercing vocals allow members of the audience to lose themselves in the loud, uncomplicated music.

Look at the faces of those around you during the concert and you can see much the same cleansing aura of people standing in a cooling rain on an unusually hot day. Almost everyone shakes his head forcefully in time with the music or plays air guitars.

The lack of character or depth deters anyone who prefers sophisticated textures and challenging themes. For those who want simply a visceral supercharge, however, the whole thing can be quite hypnotic.

Don’t get the idea, however, that music is the only lure at a heavy-metal show. There’s also the social scene. Far more so than other rock concerts, heavy-metal events are like giant swap meets, only the concertgoers roam around constantly--before, after and even during the show--eyeing each other rather than merchandise on tables.

Though heavy-metal music once was a male experience, there is an increasing number of females on hand and many of these macho -ettes have advanced way beyond the innocent (by comparison) Madonna school of dress. We’re talking hard-core images here: tight black leather skirts, fish-net stockings and thread-bare blouses.

By the end of the evening, this combination of frustration and fantasy has subsided and the audience stepped back into the real world. If the fans can’t hear too well for a few days, so be it. Maybe everything they hear at school and home isn’t that great anyway. After all, the message of most of the heavy-metal songs is “GET OFF MY BACK!”

At most of these shows, the band on stage seems less important than the heavy-metal tradition itself. This is why there was no need until now to mention the name of Friday’s headliner: Judas Priest. For the record, however, Priest--a veteran British group--has evolved into the aristocrat of heavy metal.

The quintet plays with such straight-ahead concentration that you get the idea that these musicians actually take the genre seriously. Lead singer Rob Halford has shed much of his old, sinister storm trooper image in favor of long blond hair and an almost friendly, relaxed manner.

While this purity of musical approach is attractive, the absence of the cartoonish spirit of such bands as Van Halen and AC/DC also leaves Priest somewhat plain. Friday’s opening act, Raven, operates from a more loony perspective. The heavy-metal road show (Judas Priest and Dokken) is scheduled to wrap up a two-day stand tonight at the Los Angeles Sports Arena.