Mercury Tribute Aims for Mainstream Audience : Pop music: London concert is for the body of rock fans who may not be fully aware of the AIDS threat.

Guns N’ Roses, Robert Plant, Metallica, Def Leppard, Extreme--those are bands that will draw the headbanging set to London’s 72,000-seat Wembley Stadium on Monday for the star-studded “Freddie Mercury Tribute: Concert for AIDS Awareness.” The concert honors the late singer of Queen, who died of the disease in November.

And though the lineup also includes David Bowie, U2 (via satellite from Sacramento), Elton John, George Michael, Annie Lennox, Roger Daltrey, Spinal Tap and the three remaining members of Queen, that hard-rock contingent is one of the event’s key elements.

“This is a rock show,” Queen’s drummer Roger Taylor said in a recent interview. “It’s aimed squarely at the main body of rock fans. I think people like Guns N’ Roses, Def Leppard, Metallica, represent the whole mainstream rock audience that really hasn’t been made enough aware of the terrible threat of AIDS that affects everybody.

“I think this is an important thing in that respect, that these people and Queen--what’s left of it--that these heavy acts are seen doing something to raise awareness of AIDS.

“So that, to me, is a nice pragmatic way of stating a tribute to Freddie. It’s a nice way to get some good from his death.”

Controversy has arisen over the inclusion of Guns N’ Roses, however. The London branch of ACT UP, an AIDS activist group, is demanding that the band publicly apologize for the allegedly anti-gay lyric in its song “One in a Million” and for other statements that were said to be anti-gay.

If the band doesn’t comply, ACT UP says it will ask other artists to apply pressure to have the band removed from the bill. And if that doesn’t work, ACT UP will urge the audience to boo GNR off the stage.

Taylor said he won’t put any pressure on GNR to make an apology. “I find the fact that the guys are going to play--I think that says an awful lot and I think (the protesters) should shut up. I see that as a totally negative thing. Whatever’s happened in the past . . . I’ve said so many things and written quite a few things that I wish I hadn’t.”

Taylor also doubts that ACT UP will be able to get the audience to disrupt the concert.

Aside from the GNR glitch, planning for the concert appears to be going smoothly. Taylor, who had just finished rehearsing a portion of the show in which Robert Plant will front Queen, did not want to reveal much about the format.

But he said there will be a section of music by the participating artists and a section devoted to Queen’s music in which a number of singers will fill in for Mercury.

It remains to be seen who will sing Mercury’s signature “Bohemian Rhapsody”--a hit once again, thanks to its inclusion in the film “Wayne’s World.”

The concert will be televised internationally. In the United States, Fox and MTV are co-presenting the concert with MTV News producing a half-hour, behind-the-scenes program starting at 7:30 p.m. and Fox airing two hours of the show beginning at 8 p.m.

Profits from the concert will go to AIDS charities worldwide, while Fox will donate all its profits to national AIDS charities and regional AIDS hospices designated by its local affiliates.

It was “heartbreaking” to watch Mercury suffer from the disease, said Taylor. “The changes were slow at first--very slow, almost imperceptible. Then you realized, especially if you hadn’t seen him for a couple of weeks, that it was all speeding up.”

The band “felt compelled to protect him” and enable him to keep working, the drummer said. “That is what kept him going and we felt a duty to help him do that. We also felt a duty to protect his privacy. He was a prisoner in his own house in the end.

“To visit him at his house in the last few months was incredible--you had to run past 20 or 30 reporters and cameramen. In the last few weeks it was unbelievable. They were photographing the groceries coming in.”

The decision to hold off stating publicly that he had the terminal disease has raised the question of whether he might have done more to promote AIDS awareness by revealing his condition earlier.

“That’s a difficult one,” said Taylor. “I’ve had many discussions about that. I know he went over it in his own mind a lot. I think in the end he just wanted some peace.”