POP REVIEW : L.A.’s Rock Activists

When the Los Angeles rock community puts its moral and musical force behind a cause, it usually generates an event with enough special features to register in the city’s pop-music memory banks--from the late-’70s benefits for the punk club the Masque that first defined that community to the recent bigger-issue rallies that help maintain its bond.

Saturday’s AIDS benefit at the Hollywood Palladium can go pretty high on that list. It was the biggest L.A. rock fund-raiser yet for that cause, which seems to rank with pro-choice as the burning issue among activist rock performers.

And in terms of pure musical appeal, the six-band lineup was notable for its combination of major-league attractions and intriguing curiosities--notably, the eagerly awaited debut of Perry Farrell’s new band and an unexpected comeback by the Beastie Boys.

The undimmed drawing power of such rock heroes as Fishbone and the top-billed Red Hot Chili Peppers might have been one key reason that the concert sold out quickly. But so was the unveiling of the successor to Jane’s Addiction, and until the Chili Peppers got an after-midnight boost from some L.A. basketball heroes, the most memorable moments came courtesy of the show’s first two acts.

Since the dissolution last year of Jane’s Addiction, its mercurial leader Perry Farrell’s next step has been the subject of high anticipation. In contrast to the usual trickle-in pattern, the ballroom was pretty well packed for his scheduled 8 p.m. start.

The group’s name--Porno for Pyros--makes it sound perversely lighthearted, and the musicians casually took the stage with no fanfare or introduction. As cheers of recognition built in the audience, the band set up a slow, tribal groove, and when Farrell finally came in with his unmistakable, raspy voice, he sent a jolt through the crowd.

Jane’s drummer, Stephen Perkins, has stayed with his old boss, and he dominated the next song with a driving, repeated riff. Farrell piped in with harmonica, guitarist Peter Distefano ran a violin bow across the strings, and samples inflated it toward the breaking point.

It was hard to determine from the brief set exactly where Farrell is going--somewhere polyrhythmic and dissonant, apparently, maybe more psychedelic and less hard-rock than Jane’s. He and his musicians wandered off as casually as they’d entered, Farrell stopping to smile benignly in acknowledgment of the crowd’s applause.

After the murkiness of PFP, the Rollins band seemed all the more hard-edged, and they were lit up like some guys in a police helicopter searchlight. Former punk-rock hero Henry Rollins uses the stage as a platform for purging his demons, and on Friday he was like a furnace made flesh, a seething receptacle of rage and reassurance.

Crouching and bellowing, standing as if in a trance and rocking slowly like a Zen archer, pushed to the edge by his frighteningly focused band, Rollins (who headlines the Whisky on Tuesday and Wednesday) was pretty awe-inspiring, a force of nature capable of both impossible intensity and surprising grace.

After that, most anything would seem like business as usual. San Francisco’s Primus served up its shifty rhythms like some post-punk Zappa, generating mass movement on the dance floor but losing its momentum halfway into its set. Fishbone demonstrated how to get ardor out of chaos, its usual blend of hyperkinetic, punk-injected, James Brown-derived rock coming across with a little more focus than it often manages.

Before the headlining Chili Peppers came on, the Beastie Boys tried to recapture that moment--it seems so long ago--when they embodied the bratty rebellion of American Youth with their purposely obnoxious rap ‘n’ rock combination. Their effort seemed uncertain and a little desperate, though when they got hopping around like cartoon characters and rapping their hard cadences on some old favorites, they stirred up a bit of reaction.

The set by the Chili Peppers, who were reviewed here recently, picked up the intensity, thanks largely to a couple of fellows doing a little stage diving into the crowd--former Laker star Michael Cooper and current Laker star Vlade Divac. No harm no foul.

They were on hand as emcees because one of the beneficiaries of the event was the Magic Johnson Foundation. That organization and ACT UP/LA will split the earnings of $150,000, the show’s organizers said Sunday.