Hedge Funders Band Together for Charity

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Photographers circulate. "Want to put my phone number next to my photo?" jokes one woman who gets her picture snapped. Another one makes the same crack five minutes later. Several men announce they are missing Game 7 of the Mets vs. St. Louis series to be here. A true badge of sacrifice.

Everyone is sucking back the beers they've plucked from the buckets of ice the staff carry around, gulping canapés, and chatting about who's performing and the good cause. "The drummer, he's worth like, $30 million," breathes one pretty young financial consultant after The Bull Path Jammers finish their set.

Powerful Performance

Backstage after the set, The Bull Path Jammers are kicking back, packing up their stuff, and passing around whiskey and taking swigs. It's a bottle of Bushmills Irish Single Malt, aged 16 years. "Hard to find an Irish single malt!" says the keyboardist. The band, composed of Brownstone Capital's Roy Ophir, Bull Path Capital's Rob Kaimowitz, and five others, is getting ready to join the crowd to watch the five bands that remain. "You were right on," the keyboardist tells the lead singer.

It's 9:40 p.m., and The Subscribers go on. It's the band started by Welles and Heasman, whose first benefit concert in 2003 ended up growing into today's Rocktoberfest. Unlike the others, they get a full hour for their set. As they charge onstage, the regular spotlights go down. Flashing, twisty blue and red ones come up. Machines begin to pump out plumes of steam.

This is the real rock-star experience. The lead singer, Timothy Wheeler of Lowenstein, Sandler P.C., takes the microphone full-tilt forward, grasps it with his right hand and then with both as he belts out Message in a Bottle by The Police. Men and women crowd in front to dance. The Subscribers take the audience through hit songs from the 1960s and '70s.

Money Never Sleeps

Then, "Give up your love for Laaaa-zzzzaaaaard!!!" A friend from Lazard Asset Management joins them to sing The B-52's Love Shack. Four young women wearing short black pleated skirts, fishnet stockings, and tight white tank tops take to the stage. Their tank tops are each emblazoned with the word "Subscribette." They begin to go-go dance.

The Subscribers finish. The crowd roars. The normal spotlights come up on the stage, and the next band, StoneHedge, heads up to follow them. There are still two more bands left to play, but as people get another drink or two, they begin to head home. By the time the last band, a group called Miles to Go (with Mario Manna from fund Moore Capital), goes on at 11:30 p.m., the place is almost empty. About four or five people are left on the dance floor.

"By 11 p.m., everyone is either thinking about their 4 a.m. train ride the next morning or the fact that the Tokyo markets are now open," says JAM Partners LP vocalist Tim Seymour, of Red Star Asset Management. His group kicked things off with a set at 6:30 p.m., what he calls a more "choice" spot, given the hours of the finance crowd. It's OK to be a rock star at night, so long as it doesn't conflict with managing that hedge fund during the day.

Helm is marketing editor for BusinessWeek in New York.