Farm Aid: Down-to-Earth Marathon : Benefit: Fourteen-hour concert in Indianapolis breaks $1-million record in pledges while focusing attention on economic woes in agriculture.

Farm Aid IV wasn’t supposed to happen. Farm Aids I, II and III were intended to help beleaguered American farmers and educate the public about the economic crisis so that another benefit mega-concert wouldn’t be necessary.

But here were 70 or so country, rock and pop performers gathered at the Hoosier Dome on Saturday, a sell-out crowd of 45,000 and a cable television audience, all focusing once again on farm issues.

“I’m not happy about it,” said Farm Aid co-founder John Mellencamp, a native of down-the-road Bloomington and the ad hoc concert host backstage before his performance near the end of the 14-hour marathon. “When we started this in ’85 it seemed like a big deal, like we could take care of the problem.”

But, referring to the 1985 Ethiopian famine-relief Live Aid concert, Mellencamp acknowledged that such events can only accomplish so much.

“People are still starving in Africa,” he said.

And family farmers are still losing their land. So Mellencamp, Farm Aid co-founders Willie Nelson and Neil Young and the Farm Aid funding and lobbying organization hoped to make the best of the need for another show. And that’s just what they did.

Farm Aid IV was a triumph all down the line, from its variety of electrifying musical moments--including a moving tribute by surprise guest Elton John to young AIDS victim Ryan White, who died hours later at a nearby hospital, and a crowd-energizing appearance by Guns N’ Roses--to its fund-raising: At the show’s mid-point, Farm Aid executive director Carolyn Mugar announced that the mark of $1 million in pledges was about to be broken, surpassing the individual totals of Farm Aids II and III.

The concert also served as a catalyst for some savvy political coalition-building.

“Uniting the snuff-dippers on the farm with the bean-sprout-eaters in the city,” was the theme repeatedly stated by Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower throughout the long day. That was reflected most in the new alliance of Farm Aid with the environmental Earth Day organization.

The presence of Jesse Jackson, a longtime supporter of Farm Aid, emphasized ethnic minority and urban interests in farm issues.

Sounding like a candidate in search of a campaign, Jackson said at a backstage press conference: “An urban initiative and rural renaissance go hand in hand.”

A Jackson address to the crowd impressed at least one farmer.

“I think he’d make a great secretary of Agriculture,” said Dick Martin, from nearby Groveland.

But, for the most part, everybody’s thoughts were down on the farm Saturday:

“My grandfather was a farmer. . . .”

“My father had a farm. . . .”

“I grew up on a farm. . . .”

Everywhere you went inside the Hoosier Dome, a concrete structure with a fabric roof, you could hear a farm anecdote.

Farmers discussed their troubles without prompting. Backstage, Ben Cohen of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream and Ralph Page of the minority-farmer Federation of Southern Cooperatives worked a tentative deal for peaches.

And it seemed that each of the 70 or so performers, from Willie Nelson to Guns N’ Roses’ Axl Rose, had stories about days on the farm. Even the very urban Lou Reed, after stating in a backstage interview that, no, he didn’t have a farm anecdote, admitted that part of his reason for returning to the Farm Aid stage (he was in the lineup for Farm Aid I in 1985) was that he now lives surrounded by farmland outside New York City.

“Down on the Farm” was the title of a song performed by Guns N’ Roses, farm-boys-gone-Hollywood whose two-song appearance galvanized the crowd about two-thirds into the concert. The number, originally done by English punk band U.K. Subs, was far from the anthem-of-the-land kind of piece that other performers had done earlier. Sample lines: “I feel just like a vegetable / Down here on the farm.”

Indiana-born Rose explained before the song that “it’s the only farm song we know” and begged the crowd to take is as a good-natured joke.

What did the farmers think?

Dick Martin, who raises cattle, hogs, soy and corn on 950 acres, gave it an exaggerated thumbs down.

“It caused a stampede of my livestock,” he said, laughing.

But younger Kitty Poehler, sitting with Martin and his wife Debbie, expressed the opinion that more represented the audience as a whole: “They rule!”

While all-star benefits have become old hat in Los Angeles, Farm Aid IV was anything but in Indianapolis, where the show seemed to be on everyone’s minds, along with the Ryan White story. Tremendous appreciation was shown for virtually all the performers. Even Iggy Pop, whose hard-hitting appearance at first put stunned expressions on many faces, received a loud ovation after his two songs.

Particular favorites included hometowners Mellencamp, John Hiatt and Henry Lee Summer, a duet of Bruce Hornsby and Don Henley on “The End of the Innocence,” Grammy queen Bonnie Raitt teaming with Hiatt, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young repeating the reunion they made at two Santa Monica benefits last week.

The 70 acts were perhaps 20 too many (the concluding gang-sing of “This Land Is Your Land” came just before 1 a.m., nearly two hours later than scheduled), and some in the audience clearly could have done with less country, or less rock, or something. But with an average of about six minutes per act and relatively quick set changes, the show progressed fast enough to keep most from growing impatient. The only hole was the absence of truly urban artists. (Rapper LL Cool J had been scheduled, but was unable to make the show.)

There was one disappointed young couple, though. Matt Waters, 17, and Terri Hacker, 16, high school students from nearby Pittsboro, had bought their $30 tickets under the mistaken impression that country star Randy Travis would perform.

Nonetheless, the event was inspiring to the teens, both of whom live on farms. They took pride in the performers’ show of support for farmers, leading to comments that would make great ad copy for the Future Farmers of America.

“I want to farm when I’m out of school,” said an enthusiastic Waters. “I’m sure going to try.”

Added Hacker, “Most kids I know feel like that. I wouldn’t leave farm country if my life depended on it.”