2,000 Sing for Unity, Healing After the Riots : Image: Rebuild L.A.’s anthem, ‘Stand & Be Proud,’ is recorded and taped for an album and video. Religious and community groups representing the city’s diversity join the project.

Eleven-year-old Anthony Smith looked bewildered as he stood elbow to kneecap with Mayor Tom Bradley, surrounded by Crips gang members with walkie-talkies and hundreds of choir members singing at the top of their lungs.

Not to mention former teen idol David Cassidy standing right behind him, and several ponytailed Hollywood producers in front, bellowing to camera crews to get a close-up of Anthony’s face as he joined in the singing.

A short, skinny kid from the Nickerson Gardens housing project, Anthony was not the only one who seemed a bit lost and confused Saturday. He was at the Hollywood Bowl, along with more than 2,000 participants, to tape “Stand & Be Proud,” billed as the official anthem of those working to rebuild Los Angeles after the riots.

Rebuild L.A., the group chaired by former Baseball Commissioner Peter V. Ueberroth to spearhead those efforts, had helped bring everyone together not to only sing the anthem, but to be filmed singing it so that an album and a video can be produced and marketed.

Also participating in the event were the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra and 1,400 singers from religious and community groups throughout the city, representing the cultural, ethnic and racial diversity of Los Angeles. Dozens of inner-city youths were provided with camcorders to help record the event.

All the money raised from the venture will be funneled through Rebuild L.A. into various community enterprises, most of them in South Los Angeles, executive producer Bob Ezrin said.

“If you have a hit, you make a fortune. If you don’t, you make nothing,” Ezrin said as he attempted to create order out of the chaos unfolding on the stage in front of him. “We’re just trying to elevate the consciousness of people, and use this music as a healing and unifying force.”

Cassidy, the former Partridge Family lead singer who wrote the anthem with wife, Sue Shifrin, held his infant son through much of the event, which survived threatening skies and went off without too many hitches. “It’s an amazing event to be part of,” Cassidy said. “Next to the birth of my son here, this is the highest moment of my life.”

The idea was to have everyone cram themselves onto the amphitheater’s vast stage and sing the anthem while swaying in unison. That happened, sort of, except that many--especially Bradley and Ueberroth--apparently did not know all the words and were forced to mumble and smile self-consciously as the cameras rolled.

Anthony, in the front row, did know the words, and appeared to be having a good time of it once the initial trauma of being at the center of such cacophony subsided. Like most others in attendance, he expressed hope that the video will give the world a better image of Los Angeles than as a city in flames and at war with itself.

“It’s great,” Anthony said. “This will make things better.”

Ueberroth commended the Hollywood artists, filmmakers and production crews who donated their time and equipment for the event. “This is the part of rebuilding L.A. that isn’t bricks and mortar, but it is equally important,” he said.

The video and album will “show the spirit of the city coming to life again, rising from the ashes and bringing everyone back together,” Bradley said.

For “Ike,” one of two dozen 107th and Hoover Crips who volunteered to help out with security, the event showed that all of the city’s diverse elements “can get together and harmonize.”

“This here’s a melting pot,” Ike said. “We came to be part of the melting pot. We all need to get together. We all need to get along.”