A Medley of Rock Stars and Stripes

It’s been like one of those old Mickey Rooney movies, in which Mickey or Judy Garland says, “Let’s put on a show!,” and the other kids cheer, and then they do it, right in the backyard barn.

Except here it’s Paul McCartney putting out the call, or the Backstreet Boys or the royalty of country music, and they’re not putting on shows in a barn, but at Madison Square Garden, Washington’s RFK Stadium and at Nashville’s Gaylord Entertainment Center.

Since Sept. 11, everyone has wanted to do a benefit, it seems, a phenomenon never more evident than this weekend, when a quartet of concerts is being staged in a 24-hour period, kicked off by this evening’s “The Concert for New York” that’s virtually re-creating the British Invasion of the ‘60s.

The Who, Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton will be joining ex-Beatle McCartney and a score of others to entertain 5,000 firefighters, police and rescue workers, who are getting in for free, and 7,000 others paying from $200 to $10,000 per ticket.

“Whatever we do, it’s not enough,” said Harvey Weinstein, co-chairman of Miramax Films and one of the evening’s organizers.

At 1 p.m. Sunday, a younger crowd will fill RFK Stadium in the nation’s capitol, paying $25 to $75 to witness “United We Stand,” eight hours of MTV veteran stars Michael Jackson and Mariah Carey to the reigning boy bands, ‘N Sync and the Backstreet Boys, along with such older acts as James Brown, Aerosmith and Bette Midler.

Sunday night, the action moves to Nashville for the “Country Freedom Concert” featuring George Strait, Alan Jackson and others. At the same time, in Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, Alanis Morissette and others will perform in a benefit titled “Music Without Borders Live.”

And even before those large-venue events, the cozy (1,424 seat) Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, N.J., was the scene of shows Thursday and Friday to benefit the Alliance of Neighbors of Monmouth County. The concerts featured local acts, members of Elvis’ old band, a 75-member church choir and, as the group put it, “our local neighbors Bruce Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi.”

Benefit concerts are not the only musical response to the day’s crises, either. The tribute song--or songs--are surfacing as well.

In Washington, Jackson is expected to debut his “What More Can I Give,” an ensemble piece in the mold of his 1985 anthem, “We Are the World.” And for tonight’s Madison Square Garden event, McCartney will perform “Freedom,” which he wrote after the attacks. There were also rumblings that Elton John might unveil a song inspired by Sept. 11, in the spirit of his best-selling tribute to Princess Diana, “Candle in the Wind 1997,” though a spokeswoman for the singer said she had “heard nothing” of such a plan.

But such rumors are part of the intrigue of such an improvised event, where two veteran Brit rockers named McCartney and Jagger could well wind up doing a duet.

This weekend concerts are hardly the first, of course, to raise funds for the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Within days, clubs in Greenwich Village were passing around glass jars for donations instead of tips. Then a worldwide audience watched the night of Sept. 21 as some of the artists performing this weekend were part of the unprecedented multi-network telethon, “America: A Tribute to Heroes,” which raised more than $150 million. That same evening, patrons who dined at a Mexican restaurant in suburban Westchester County discovered that a local bluegrass band had turned its Friday night gig into a benefit as well. On it went, by the millions or by the dollar in others.

The big-name benefits pose a variety of challenges for organizers, from the logistical--simply getting all those bands on and off--to the artistic, whether it’s deciding which songs are “appropriate” or creating pairings of performers that may generate “a moment.” No matter how much they protest that it’s all about “the cause,” everyone is aware of how some such events wind up being magical, in a way that can’t be manufactured. McCartney and Jagger were part of the 1985 concert that set the standard for such events, Live Aid, which not only raised $80 million to help ease African famine but also signaled the emergence of a young band, U2, on the world stage. Two of its members--Bono and the Edge--will be in New York.

The late promoter Bill Graham, who put together countless benefits, once was asked why he worked so hard to assemble a “big-name” lineup if the cause was so compelling. Graham laughed first. Then he said that you could announce a concert that would guarantee a cure for cancer “and the first call would be someone asking, ‘Who’s on the bill?”’

Another producer predicted that the second call would be from performers you want for the show, asking, “Where are we on the bill?”

Everyone talks about the need to check egos at the door. But it was hard not to notice that the first announcements of Sunday’s Washington concert called it merely “United We Stand.” Then it grew to “United We Stand What More Can I Give?”--tacking on the name of Jackson’s new song.

“The Concert for New York” was born in the days after Sept. 11, when several executives at VH1, the cable music channel, got on the phone and posed the question echoing all over the country. “We all asked, ‘What can we do?”’ recalled Rick Krim, VH1’s executive vice president for talent and music programming. “And what we could do best is music. We said, ‘Let’s do a concert, a really big one.”’

But they did not anticipate how the pieces would fall into place. The first call went from the network’s president, John Sykes, to his counterpart at Cablevision, James L. Dolan, whose empire includes Madison Square Garden.

“Jim offered the Garden immediately, free of charge,” Sykes said.

Then they needed talent.

A handful of performers, including Jon Bon Jovi and Melissa Etheridge, had already agreed to do public service spots for the network. They were a start, but far from enough to carry such a concert, or even attract the other acts that might.

Enter Weinstein, the Miramax mogul who may be the current godfather of benefits, often for political causes. Pushed out of Miramax’s TriBeCa offices blocks above the World Trade Center site, he was doing business from a Manhattan coffee shop, where he had a lunch with Dolan, who mentioned the project. It quickly had a new partner--and soon a headliner.

Weinstein said he ran into McCartney at a wedding on Martha’s Vineyard, and that McCartney did not need much convincing.

His father had been a volunteer fireman in Liverpool during World War II, doing rescue work “when the bombs were falling,” Weinstein noted.

They sealed the deal Sept. 23, when both were on a flight from New York to London. “He agreed on the plane,” Weinstein said Friday. “And once Paul came on board, the floodgates opened.”

The Who and Jagger signed on almost simultaneously. Clapton agreed to fly in from Mexico City, Elton John from London.

By this week, Krim was having to say, “Sorry, no more room,” to the likes of Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys and Ricky Martin, the swivel-hipped Latin singer. Krim said he suggested to Martin’s people that he’d be a natural for the stadium show in Washington. He’s on that bill now.

Twisted Sister placed a feeler about getting on the card with “We’re Not Going to Take It.” So did Bobby “Boris” Pickett, who figured this was the season of his “Monster Mash.”

Krim had to explain that “it’s not an oldies act in Vegas.”

The show will benefit the Robin Hood Relief Fund, which is assisting low-income victims of the Sept. 11 attacks. It was in the Robin Hood spirit of taking from the rich that the top ticket price was set at $10,000. For that, they throw in a pre-concert reception with the artists.

Another corporate partner in the event, AOL Time Warner, is supplying its 6,000 customer service agents to take pledges over the phone.

The organizers know they won’t raise nearly as much as the Sept. 21 telethon, or approach the solemnity of that event, in which Springsteen, Bono and others performed without audiences, before backdrops of lighted candles.

At a time when the nation was mourning, “they captured that particular moment,” said Fred Graver, who is executive-producing the Madison Square Garden concert for VH1 as a five-hour, commercial-free telecast starting at 7 p.m. (and airing at that time on tape delay in the West).

“We’re capturing a very different moment, New York standing up, dusting itself off, saying, ‘We’re back.”’

But how to make that statement through music?

The evening’s tentative lineup was scribbled on a large grease board in Graver’s office in VH1’s Times Square headquarters. He hurried to erase it when a visitor entered, apologizing, “it’s not like we’re planning a set of airstrikes, but ... “

Word was out, though: The concert would begin with David Bowie’s “Heroes,” performed to some of the police, firefighters and rescue workers being given the prime seats on the floor of the Garden.

After that, they are alternating the musical sets--on a revolving stage--with introductions by movie stars (Harrison Ford, Meg Ryan and others), appearances by comedians (Adam Sandler, Mike Myers and others) and the showing of short films by a cadre of directors lined up by Weinstein: Woody Allen, Edward Burns, Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, Jerry Seinfeld and Kevin Smith.

As for the music, some choices were obvious, like Billy Joel doing “New York State of Mind.”

“We’re also trying to create some ‘moments,”’ Krim said.

Might Jagger do some of his Rolling Stones classics with the Who’s Pete Townshend on lead guitar? Might the duo from U2 create magic if they paired with Destiny’s Child to ask Marvin Gaye’s question, “What’s Going On?”

And how to climax such a concert?

It’s become expected at such affairs that you end with everyone on stage around the headliner, performing one of their classics.

Promoter Graham used to advise others not to cheat the audience out of what they want, however obvious it seems. “You’ve got to give them dessert,” he preached, “after the meal.”

The trick, Krim fretted, is not to make it “too cliche, not some sloppy blues jam.”

So McCartney will be up there, with others, doing a Beatles classic. But which one?

“With a Little Help From My Friends” may sound like a message for the rescue workers, but it’s also about getting high. It’s out. “Hey Jude” is a terrific song for an ensemble, with everyone doing a verse, but is the message on point? Or is “Let It Be” what they want to say?

“Some things are going to be a surprise ... even to me,” said Krim. “Paul may go around to different people during the concert and talk to the people he wants. And they can work it out right there.”