POP MUSIC REVIEWS : Benefit for ‘Peace’: Too Little From Too Many

LAGUNA HILLS —  Southern California could use a heartfelt, focused concert in which first-rank performers bring their talents to bear in support of nonviolence. The “Jam for Peace” benefit Saturday at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre 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. And its focus on the theme at hand--it was a benefit for Southland charities identified by organizer KACE (FM 103.9) as “peacekeepers”--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 interaction between groups, and few gave any hint that they had a special purpose in performing.

The bill consisted of rappers 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.

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.