Concert Novices’ Heart May Outweigh Crowds : Pop Music: Two military veteran activists invest more than $200,000 in a lineup of acts well past their arena days.

Don Quixote had a better chance tilting at windmills than concert promotion’s oddest couple, Bruce Marich and Don Brigham, do at pulling off a successful, large-scale rock ‘n’ roll charity show at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre on Monday.

On paper, it looks as if these two utter innocents in the thorny woods of the concert business have no chance of attracting even a half-filled house for the 10-hour show they have dubbed Rock of the Century. Their headliners, Mark Farner (of Grand Funk Railroad), Blue Oyster Cult and Ambrosia, are long past their arena-rocking commercial primes. Orange County’s smart concert operators book them into 500-seat clubs.

But Marich and Brigham don’t pretend to be gambling with smart money. It’s heart money all the way--more than $200,000 out of their own pockets, they say, passionately plunked down because they want to make a big statement about the raw deal they think America is handing its disabled military veterans in health care.

Outrage and frustration drove Marich, who sports a ponytail, cowboy boots and a Harley-Davidson tattoo, to assign himself this go-for-broke mission. Not a veteran himself, this 6-foot-3, 245-pound man of 47 “fixes” (his own term) badly hurt or ailing veterans and other disabled people who come to his showroom and factory in Stanton. There he sells special wheelchairs and other devices for the paralyzed, and outfits vehicles with automatic lifts and electronic controls.

“These guys don’t deserve to grovel. There’s no way I will allow them to grovel,” said Marich, who has to hold back tears sometimes when recounting the worst instances he has seen of disabled military veterans who can’t get the equipment they need because of bureaucratic delays or cost-conscious denials of coverage by the Veterans Health Administration.

To him, gambling on a benefit concert is a matter of paying veterans a moral debt: “They went on the line for me. They’re the reason I’m in business today.”

Don Brigham, 63, went on the line in 178 combat missions as a Marine fighter pilot in Vietnam. He came home in 1967, went through a difficult adjustment to civilian life, then tried to put his warrior days behind him. After a long career as an airline captain, he remade himself at age 60 into a business executive, the founder and CEO of a Colorado-based pharmaceutical company that develops special prescription skin lotions for cancer patients. He has a second home in Corona del Mar.

A Chance Meeting at a Biker Bar

Their paths crossed in April at Cook’s Corner, the venerable biker bar in Orange County’s Santiago Canyon. Marich, who lives in La Habra, initiated a friendly exchange of insults by chiding this perfect stranger in fancy leather for riding a BMW instead of a Harley-Davidson.

“I didn’t know anything about him,” Brigham said. “He was so outrageous and loud that I thought possibly he’d just had too many shooters.”

Then Brigham overheard Marich talking to others at the bar about the big rock show he was planning. Marich said he needed “a few good men” to help, and something in the ex-Marine responded. They talked, exchanged numbers, talked some more, and soon were forming a company, Oceanic Productions, and looking to hire bands. The big ones wanted at least $250,000 to $300,000. They decided to spend less on talent, and more on advertising and promotion.

But as the concert pros see it, they’re throwing it out the window.

Gary Folgner runs Orange County’s two leading concert clubs, the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano and the Galaxy in Santa Ana, where he has promoted shows by all three Rock of the Century headliners.

“You add up 500 tickets and 500 tickets and 500 tickets, and I don’t know how you get to [15,000],” he said, alluding to Irvine Meadows’ 15,400 capacity.

In purely economic terms, this simply can’t work, said Gary Bongiovanni, editor of Pollstar, the concert business trade magazine.

“That lineup at that price doesn’t fit the current market. It would be something normal promoters would clearly stay away from. I hate to rain on their parade, because it sounds like a good cause. . . . The only way they’re going to be be able to be successful is to do personal pitches [to prospective major donors] and rely on people treating the tickets as a donation, rather than fair value for entertainment.”

Indeed, Marich and Brigham have made rookie mistakes. They gave themselves only two weeks’ lead time to advertise the show and sell tickets. Matt Curto, director of operations at Irvine Meadows, said the norm is four to six weeks. Prospective buyers also may have been daunted by the ticket prices for Rock of the Century, originally scaled from $32 to $100. A week into their campaign, with sales at a trickle, Marich and Brigham dropped the cost to $45 for all seats and $28 for the lawn.

They have sought sponsors--several have pledged to buy four seats for $5,000. They also invited the “Saving Private Ryan” team of Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks. But both sent their thanks and regrets, saying they were booked with film projects.

The Next Farm Aid? Future’s on the Road

Marich and Brigham aim to raise $100,000 for the California Paralyzed Veterans Assn., which has 1,200 members, mainly in Orange and Los Angeles counties. The money would be a windfall for a watchdog organization with an annual budget of $184,000. CPVA shepherds its members through the VA medical system to ensure prompt, quality treatment, donates to research on spinal cord injuries, and tries to influence national and regional health policy in veterans’ favor.

The duo would like to take these shows around the country over the next two to four years, staging one in each of the VA’s 22 health care districts. Would major acts flock to the cause? Could this turn into another Farm Aid, only bigger, with a huge constituency of veterans and their families, along with fellow citizens who want to honor their service?

“We’re counting on a large veteran turnout,” Brigham said.

Added Marich: “We know we’re taking a chance, and it might not come out the way we want. But successful people take ventures.”