ROBERT HILBURN : SOME GEMS IN UNWIELDY BENEFIT

Glenn Frey made an appearance after all at the Get Tough on Toxics benefit concert Thursday night at the Long Beach Arena, but it was on film.

Too bad several of the artists who performed live on the bill--which included Stevie Nicks, Jimmy Buffett, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell--weren’t also on film. It would have helped ease the logistical nightmare.

Frey, who had to bow out of the concert because of an intestinal disorder, kicked off an Eagles semi-reunion by strumming the opening notes of “Best of Our Love” on an acoustic guitar from his hospital bed in Aspen, Colo. When the film clip ended, former Eagles sidekicks Don Henley, Don Felder and Timothy B. Schmidt then played the song live.

The device worked nicely. All the stage crew had to do was lower the screen and turn on the projector.

Unfortunately, the crew had too much to do the rest of the evening. Indeed, they seemed to spend as much time on stage as the musicians.

This not only crippled the show’s momentum, but contributed to an exhausting five-hour length that resulted in almost half the estimated 11,000 fans heading for the freeways well before 1 a.m., when Henley, Schmidt and Felder got around to “Hotel California.”

Where the smooth pacing and dynamic execution of the recent Amnesty International concert at the Forum made one think fondly about a return of the “package” show format in rock, this event would have been more effective if it had just presented Henley--the real star of the night--and an opening act: either Lindsay Buckingham or Warren Zevon, both of whom played with endearing passion and freshness in brief segments Thursday.

The show raised about $300,000 to support two environmental initiatives: Prop. 65, a state measure that deals with safe drinking water, and Prop. U, a Los Angeles City ballot measure that sets limits on commercial buildings and traffic.

As an Eagle, Henley was consistently underrated by those critics who downgraded the Eagles as too self-satisfied and laid-back. Yet the band--which called it quits after the “Long Run” album in 1979--ranks as one of the great American rock groups, and Henley has moved into a solo career with equal authority.

Indeed, his emergence as a strong performer--after years of simply sitting behind the drums with the Eagles--is one of the most remarkable pop stories of the ‘80s.

When the Eagles were starting out in the early ‘70s, it would have been hard to imagine anyone in the fledgling, country-accented rock group someday seriously challenging the artistic punch of Neil Young or Joni Mitchell.

But Henley has evolved into a more consistent and compelling writer and performer than either of them has been lately--though the benefit setting (where Young and Mitchell appeared briefly in supporting roles) was hardly a battle-of-the-artists test.

Young, accompanied for the most part only by his acoustic guitar and harmonica, did a four-song set that emphasized the weary idealism in his work. Mitchell’s jazz-based folk approach worked well on an imaginative treatment of the Sons of the Pioneers’ old “Cool Water,” but generally smothered the poetic grace that characterized her best offerings.

Although Jimmy Buffett did perk things up just before intermission with lively renditions of “Margaritaville” and “Brown Eyed Girl,” the only notes I made to myself about the opening half of the program were these: Be sure to catch Zevon’s next club appearance, and why isn’t singer-songwriter J. D. Souther (who delivered some of his troubled romanticism in the one song he performed) a bigger seller?

Stevie Nicks opened the second half of the program with some of her swirling, obsessive music, backed by a forceful band that included Mick Fleetwood on percussion. She can rotate between spacey narcissism and compelling eccentricity, but in her short set she didn’t have time to establish either identity, ending up simply a blur.

After Buckingham’s brief but richly animated appearance, Henley delivered a series of songs, many of them purposefully coupled.

He contrasted the media irresponsibility outlined in the savage “Dirty Laundry” with the solitary commitment saluted in the more nostalgic “Sunset Grill.” He followed by pairing the biting, hyperactive “All She Wants to Do Is Dance” with the wistful longing of “Talking to the Moon,” one of his most eloquent statements of roots and beliefs.

He also dueted with Nicks on “Leather and Lace” and was joined on “The Boys of Summer” by the song’s co-writer, guitarist Mike Campbell.

If the event itself seemed hopelessly unwieldly, Henley’s own performance and manner--he offered short pointed comments of advocacy between a few songs--exhibited dignity and control throughout. After years of hearing how the Eagles represented a retreat from the activism of the ‘60s, Henley must appreciate the sweet irony of now standing at the forefront of the revived social consciousness in American rock.

LIVE ACTION: Tickets go on sale Sunday for an Oct. 17 reggae bill at the Universal Amphitheatre headlined by Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespeare and Yellowman. . . . Morris Day will be at the Roxy Sept. 11. . . . Richard Thompson will play the Palace Oct. 3 and the Coach House Oct. 4. . . . X will be at the Palace Oct. 14.