POP WEEKEND : Northern Benefit, Southern Comfort : Grateful Dead and Host of Friends Come Together for ‘In Concert Against AIDS’

Headlining the first stadium-scale rock benefit for AIDS relief, the Grateful Dead started off by singing “A Touch of Grey”--as in hair.

The problem was that the venerable San Francisco band found itself facing swaths of orange--as in empty seats.

Assistants to producer Bill Graham estimated attendance for Saturday’s 9 1/2-hour “In Concert Against AIDS” marathon at 33,000--far short of a sellout in the 58,500-capacity Oakland Coliseum.

Graham and Tim McQuaid, the driving force behind the benefit, attributed those patches of uninterrupted orange to the persistence of more than a touch of unfounded fear about AIDS. Both said potential concert-goers avoided the show because of the continuing stigma attached to AIDS, and because of lingering fears that the fatal disease can be contracted through casual contact.

Graham tried to accentuate the positive in a backstage interview shortly after a funky, lighthearted set by Oakland’s Tower of Power, which opened a bill that also included John Fogerty, Tracy Chapman, Los Lobos, Joe Satriani and the Dead. Graham, no stranger to huge charity shows (his production credits include Live Aid and the two Amnesty International tours), pointed out that the concert would still raise several hundred thousand dollars for Northern California AIDS agencies.

“But the fact that we’re perhaps falling short does state the problem of public awareness,” Graham said. “There are people who are staying away out of fear, and they need to be educated.”

McQuaid, who runs fan clubs and handles mail-order merchandising for such pop stars as George Michael and Tiffany, was the main organizer of a week-long series of Bay Area AIDS relief concerts that ends tonight with a Latin music show in San Francisco featuring Linda Ronstadt.

“There’s no reason these shows shouldn’t have sold out,” McQuaid said a few days before the stadium concert. “The only reason we can attribute it to is that people want to put the blinders on and look the other way when it comes to AIDS. But that is the reason we’re doing it. Maybe it will open doors.”

Graham said he was confident that the Grateful Dead’s full contingent of Bay Area fans had bought tickets to the show, and that the draw was not hurt by three Dead concerts earlier in May at Stanford University and three more coming in June at another Bay Area venue, the Shoreline Amphitheatre.

“In Concert Against AIDS” had the look and makeup of a typical Grateful Dead gathering--a predominantly young audience decked out in hippie throwback regalia and given to responding to music with trance-like, free-form movements.

Interviewed before the show in a parking lot that had been turned into a Deadhead bazaar of trinket stands and tie-dye T-shirt stalls, several fans said they were happy the band was spearheading an AIDS benefit. But they were there out of loyalty to a rock group, not to a cause.

“I like the message and I like the crowd,” said Andrew Castellini, 22, who was attending his 59th Grateful Dead concert. “A Dead show’s always a Dead show. You can see without the Dead this wouldn’t be anything.”

It was possible to find non-Deadheads who came to the show at least partly because of its purpose. Tricia Ebding said that taking a junior college course in human sexuality recently had made her see the importance of supporting the fight against AIDS.

“It was a spur of the moment thing,” she said. “Because of AIDS, I bought a ($25) ticket. It’s one of the most expensive concerts I’ve been to.”

Gerry Shebar, a 44-year-old veteran of Woodstock, said he rarely goes to rock concerts, but he saw the AIDS benefit as a chance to make his 11-year-old son’s first rock show a special one.

If the event was special, though, not many were moved to commemorate it with a souvenir. Vendors reported slack sales for shirts depicting a glistening musical note smashing the word AIDS like a wrecking ball hitting a wall.

And outside the stadium, clipboard-carrying activists hoping to sign up volunteers for an AIDS walkathon were getting even less business than the T-shirt stands.

Inside, there was plenty of AIDS information to be had for those interested in watching the question-and-answer items on the disease that flashed on the stadium message board or the educational videos that were screened between sets. As for the musicians, only Chapman even uttered the word AIDS from the stage.

The Grateful Dead was the only act to play more than 45 minutes. They offered 2 1/2 hours of typical Dead fare, said nothing at all between songs, and left it to those looking for some sense of occasion and theme to grasp on to a few elegiac numbers about giving comfort and persevering--including “A Touch of Grey” and a new ballad with the refrain, “If your fears should start to get inside you, I will take you home.”

Fogerty’s set also was barely tangential to the AIDS theme; still, it was a wonderful occasion in and of itself. It wasn’t just that Fogerty devoted most of the show to old Creedence Clearwater Revival hits that he rarely plays because of bitterness toward his old record company. It was the sheer, smiling delight and vocal aplomb he brought to the performance.

Grateful Dead guitarists Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir lent unremarkable support, but Fogerty, drummer Steve Jordan and bassist Randy Jackson supplied all the sizzle one could ask. Saxophonist Clarence Clemons, the day’s only surprise guest, turned up to haunt through an encore rock-out to “Suzie Q” and “Long Tall Sally.” Clemons later sat in with the Dead as well.

Chapman, known for her pointed avoidance of between-song chatter, told a respectful audience that the occasion demanded talk as well as music.

She decried a lack of government commitment to fighting AIDS, then called for listeners to have personal commitment that might lead to change.