Just What Dr. Rock Ordered : Physician and His Band to Play Benefit for Community Clinics

Dr. Howard Fishbein, amateur rock musician, says he used to stand backstage at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre and dream:

“Let me come on stage one time, for one song.”

Fishbein was used to watching and wishing from close quarters--he has been Irvine Meadows’ on-call physician, attending to performers’ medical needs, since the venue opened 10 years ago.

Last Sept. 2, the fantasy came true. Fishbein and his band, Dr. Rock, stepped under the flashing stage lights to play a 2 1/2-hour show for 900 guests at his 39th birthday party.

“I’d felt almost like I’d died and gone to heaven,” Fishbein recalled in a recent interview at his office in Irvine, where he has a family practice. “Once we got used to it, it felt so comfortable.”

So comfortable that Fishbein and his band mates (most of whom are health-care professionals) decided that once was not enough. They will be back at Irvine Meadows on Saturday, this time playing for a crowd of paying customers. And, in a newer and bigger fantasy, Dr. Rock’s members imagine their band becoming an annual fixture on the Irvine Meadows concert schedule.

The occasion for Dr. Rock’s return to Irvine Meadows is “Reach for a Star: the First Annual Clinic Aid Concert,” a benefit for Orange County’s network of private, nonprofit community clinics.

If throwing a birthday party in a 15,000-capacity concert bowl seemed like an extravagance (Fishbein’s wife, Linda Lee, decided it was worth the cost of renting the amphitheater last year to make her husband’s rock ‘n’ roll fantasy come true), so does hiring the same venue for a benefit show by a little-known band of part-time rockers.

Jackie Curran, who doubles as Dr. Rock’s lead singer and as executive director of the show’s main beneficiary, the Huntington Beach Community Clinic, says that renting out Irvine Meadows makes long-range sense. For now, she said, Dr. Rock can draw more attention to the cause of funding local clinics by playing a high-profile stage. And she hopes the show will lead to greater fund-raising prospects in the future.

“Next year, we hope to be the opening act for a name group,” Curran said.

Fishbein’s connection with Irvine Meadows began in 1981, before the amphitheater had even opened. The physician recalled that he was listening to his neighbor, Paul Hegness, one of the Irvine Meadows partners, talk about plans for the concert venue. Fishbein jokingly mentioned that one detail probably had been overlooked: having a doctor on call to tend to the performers. He has been the on-call doctor ever since.

At first, Fishbein says, he imagined that he would be facing the medical consequences of rock ‘n’ roll excess: “overdoses, and problems like that.” As it turned out, the concert doctor’s routine has been more, well, routine.

George Michael’s touch of bronchitis, an assortment of toothaches, headaches and ulcers among the Grateful Dead--these are the sorts of things that have occupied Fishbein. His biggest surprise has been the number or musicians who request preconcert shots of Vitamin B-12.

“A lot of performers believe that gives them the energy to perform on stage for a 2 1/2-hour concert,” Fishbein said. “I tell them I don’t know that it’s going to do anything, that there’s no medical proof. (But) it’s innocuous.”

While he grew up in Chicago loving rock music and playing in bands, Fishbein said he never was seriously tempted to make a career of music. “I could always play music, but I wanted to be a doctor. It was my lifelong goal.”

Dr. Rock’s members--Fishbein, Curran, drummer Tim Byron (a podiatrist), rhythm guitarist Tom Richardson (a dentist), lead guitarist Lee Offenhauer (a graphic artist) and bassist Bill Black (a financial planner)--typically practice once a week. Parties, smaller benefits and community festivals make up their usual round of infrequent gigs.

Fishbein says he isn’t reluctant to play his house guests a videotape of Dr. Rock’s Irvine Meadows debut, with its assortment of cover songs (including “Brown Eyed Girl,” “Good Lovin’,” a couple of Bonnie Raitt tunes and a credible version of Dire Straits’ “Sultans of Swing”), along with a few band originals. “I fast-forward (over) the parts I know no one should watch,” Fishbein said.

This time, he promises, “I’m going to talk less, first of all, and there will be more movement on stage. The (players) will be looser, but the music will be tighter.”

* Dr. Rock and comic Karyn Ruth White play Saturday at 7 p.m. at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, 8800 Irvine Center Drive, Irvine. Tickets: $10 in advance, $15 at the gate. Information: (714) 842-2829 (Huntington Beach Community Clinic) or (714) 740-2000 (Ticketmaster).

King of O.C.?: Maybe B.B. King should change his initials to O.C. Having already headlined shows at the Celebrity Theatre and the Pacific Amphitheatre this year, the master blues man will play a two-night stand Aug. 26-27 at Michael’s Supper Club in Dana Point. King, a friend of owner Michael Zanetis, was the first act to headline at Michael’s when it opened three years ago. Fire officials subsequently reduced the club’s capacity from 333 to 200, and Michael’s had to abandon its original plan to feature touring attractions. But Zanetis said Michael’s has found a solid niche as a banquet hall and a venue for local reggae and comedy acts.

King’s return does not signal a switch back to regular big-name entertainment, Zanetis said, although he does hope to bring in well-known musicians “maybe at least on a quarterly basis.” Information: (714) 493-8100.

New Venue: Local blues and big-band music will be the musical staples at the Meadowlark Restaurant and Lounge, a new venue in Cypress. The restaurant, at 6191 Ball Road, is operated by Yoshi Horio, who previously leased the Meadowlark Country Club in Huntington Beach, which staged alternative-rock and blues concerts occasionally. The Fabulous Footnotes will play big-band music on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Promoters Dan Jacobson and Ronnie Sax will bring in blues bands Mondays and Saturdays. Second Stage Blues Band, Ken Murray Blues Band and Jaime Woods Band play this Saturday, and Back Page appears Monday. The schedule also includes Luke & the Locomotives, 10, the Greenhouse Blues Band, Aug. 12, and Tone Dogs, Aug. 17.