O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : A 9 1/2-Hour Bill Packed With B Players and Newcomers : Peace ‘Jam’: A Marathon <i> Sans </i> Best Runners

IRVINE —  Southern California could use a heartfelt, focused concert in which first-rank performers bring their talents to bear in support of civil nonviolence.

The “Jam for Peace” benefit Saturday at Irvine Meadows certainly wasn’t it.

This 9 1/2-hour endurance test was a lax and bloated affair. Its absurd 32-act bill was overstuffed with too many B-level (if that) performers and rank newcomers. Its focus on the theme at hand was practically nonexistent.

Bringing together so many acts might have made sense if they had created some aura of community and a shared purpose on stage. But there was very little between-groups interaction, and few gave any hint that they had a special purpose in performing.

Forgettable as most of it was, “Jam For Peace” may deserve a place in the Guinness Book of World Records--as the longest concert ever given without benefit of musical instruments. The bill consisted of rappers (many of whom didn’t even bother with the customary dual-turntables to generate their beats) and an array of R & B singers and vocal groups performing to taped backing.

The day was partly redeemed by a solid set from the Geto Boys, the controversial Houston rap group that was making its Los Angeles-area debut.

Ice-T also turned in a typically forceful, if typically self-contradictory performance. Both managed to produce sets that resonated to the day’s theme of stopping street violence.

The vocal group Shai also turned in two beautifully harmonized romantic ballads that made it by far the best of the day’s R & B contingent. Veteran pop-soul singers Miki Howard, Vesta Williams, Michael Cooper and Howard Hewett also came off well in brief appearances. These accomplished pros were able to find ways to overcome daylight slots that were hardly conducive to their romantic-ballad specialty.

Most of the other vocal acts--among them Intro, H-Town, Portrait, Christopher Williams and Men at Large--illustrated the key problem with today’s radio-ready R & B: good singers trying to use flimsy, cliched, utterly disposable songs as springboards for displays of vocal gymnastics.

Isn’t anyone trying to write worthy successors to the classic soul songs? Shai’s two numbers, “Comforter” and “If I Ever Fall in Love,” aren’t in that league, but compared to the day’s competition, they sounded like gems.

The Geto Boys avoided the extremes of horror-movie imagery and sexual crudeness to which they are prone on record. Built around three strong rappers, including the trenchant newcomer, Big Mike, and the tiny, charismatic Bushwick Bill, the trio started with party music and progressed toward disdainful, threat-packing raps.

But the 22-minute set ended with songs that acknowledged the day’s theme. “It Feels Good to Be A Gangster” sought to redefine the term “gangster” under some new, quasi-chivalric code (“real gangsters . . . don’t start fights”).

“Mind Playing Tricks on Me” allowed Bushwick Bill to revel in a gory scenario--but only by way of illustrating the constant paranoia that stalks those who live by the sword (or the automatic rifle).

“Six Feet Deep,” a dirge for victims of gang violence, climaxed with a memorable image: rapper Scarface forming the sign of the cross on stage by pouring out the contents of a water bottle, and Bushwick Bill tracing the watery pattern with his feet. Evidently not willing to risk a long, slow number, the Geto Boys cut “Six Feet Deep” too short.

Like several other acts down the home stretch, the Geto Boys seemed rushed at the end of their set, as if somebody was telling them they had to get off due to time constraints.

This was unnecessary, considering all the time that had been wasted earlier--not just on dull acts, but on two long, inexplicable breaks. After all, it wasn’t as if any instruments had to be set up between acts. Does it take 55 minutes or 20 minutes (the length of the breaks) to cue up a cassette?

The show’s organizer, KACE (103.9 FM), also appropriated 17 minutes of prime, late-afternoon stage time to congratulate itself with flowers for staffers and a self-laudatory rap number promoting the station. This, and the huge station logo banners that served as stage backdrops (a less ostentatious promoter would have emphasized the cause instead) smacked a bit much of trying to do well while doing good.

Organizers also insisted on presenting plaques to each artist after each set, filling the air with redundant exchanges of platitudes until time grew too short to continue the practice. It was almost worth it to hear Ice-T receive his plaque and grouse: “They don’t even play my (expletive) records.”

Ice-T’s 18-minute set was a mixture of sheer ego (“I Ain’t New to This,” which noted his credentials as the first rapper to use “gangster” themes) and commentary. He ended by talking about the need for peace between gangs, and lamented the toll of the gang wars.

But--and here’s where the self-contradiction comes in--his most effective rap was “Colors.” Spitting out his words in a sharp, bitter voice, Ice-T flung down his sunglasses as he moved into an angry declaration of gang warfare: “You ain’t (in) my set, (then) you ain’t my friend/Wear the wrong color, your life could end.”

Not the song you’d expect him to do before proclaiming his support for the truce between Bloods and Crips. Maybe he felt it was important to illustrate the problem before talking about a possible solution.

Beyond those highlights there were a few small pleasures, and a whole lot of stuff that was just filler. Some of the filler was obnoxious (the nadir being Tag Team’s shades-of-2 Live Crew sexploitation fest, in which female “dancers” wearing thong bikinis tried to copulate with the stage).

Most of it was merely dull.

On the plus side, the gruff-voiced rapper, Positive K, and two unidentified but essential female counterparts did a nice, comic play-acting turn on his battle-of-the-sexes number, “I Got A Man.”

Rap group College Boyz had nothing distinctive to offer, but got across with sheer high-energy. Tag Team’s like-minded fellow Atlanta rap band, Duice, served up its hit, “Dazzey Duks”--an ode to female buttocks clad in short-shorts. The song resembles 2 Live Crew’s “Me So Horny” in that it is both incredibly stupid and indelibly catchy. Duice member Creo-D delivered his lines in an impressive foghorn voice.

Any profit after expenses was to have been divided among 20 Southland charities identified by KACE as “peacekeepers.” No announcement was made concerning the amount raised by the benefit; it played to an audience of perhaps 9,000 to 10,000 people, about two-thirds capacity.