POP MUSIC REVIEW : Concert for Fallen Deejay Selwyn

Three beefy, beer-drinking bikers in black leather sat in a crowded corner of the sold-out Palace on Tuesday night during the benefit concert to raise money to help find the killer of Lee Selwyn, a fellow biker.

“I liked Lee,” said the biggest biker.

“Well, I liked him more than you did,” bellowed his buddy.

“I liked him more than all of you put together--what do you think about that?” shrieked the third. All had tears in their eyes.

That scene symbolized this night of macho and maudlin, of the festive and the melancholy. Billy Idol, Julian Lennon and Charlie Sexton led a contingent of bands eulogizing Selwyn--a popular 26-year-old local club disc jockey--who on Oct. 8, while on his motorcycle, was run down by a man in a truck after an argument. The police are conducting a murder investigation.

Singer-guitarist Sexton, a young blues-rocker, played a short but surprisingly sharp set--easily the best of the night. Lennon sang two songs with a hastily assembled band and then joked about how bad they had sounded. He redeemed himself on his third and final song, “Stand By Me.”

Idol, Mr. Macho himself and one of Selwyn’s biker buddies, closed the show. In his patented snarl, he ordered the crowd not to be sad and to get in the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll. Selwyn, Idol said with clenched fist in the air, would have wanted it that way.