Carmine Appice’s SLAM! performs during last night’s benefit concert at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence. Other acts included Tesla, John Rich, Dierks Bentley, Winger and Aaron Lewis.

The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch

PROVIDENCE — Five years ago, the Station Family Fund made its first organized fundraising appearance at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center — setting up a T-shirt table at a Def Leppard show.

Cheryl Schadone, the Dunk’s director of marketing, reminded Station Family Fund board member Todd King of those humble beginnings yesterday afternoon, while artists and crew were scrambling around the arena setting up.

“You did it,” Schadone told King.

He looked like he’d done a lot.

“I haven’t slept in about six weeks,” King said later.

King was co-organizer of last night’s Phoenix Rising concert, which brought 16 acts of various musical genres for four hours to the Dunkin’ Donuts Center to raise money for the Station Family Fund, which helps with the medical expenses of fire survivors. The biggest names included country stars John Rich, Gretchen Wilson and Dierks Bentley; and rockers Tesla, Twisted Sister, Winger and Aaron Lewis.

The attendance was announced at 5,430; the artists, union stagehands (after an impromptu morning meeting), light and sound crews, merchandise sellers, police and fire details — pretty much everyone worked for free, King said. “This is a community thing,” King said of them all, “and they know it.”

And the organizers and survivors of the fire said that the attention brought to the cause of Station fire survivors was just as important as the money raised. Rolling Stone magazine and TV stations from Providence and Boston were covering the show; VH1 was in the house, recording the show and interviews with the stars for a documentary that will air on Easter.

“The last time I saw this many [media] trucks,” said King, a fire survivor who lives in North Carolina, “was the day after the fire at the site.”

“It’s been a long time coming,” said fire survivor Donovan Williams, who was hospitalized six months and numbers his surgeries “in the twenties.” “I guess everyone is forgetting about it.”

After a benediction, the show began with the national anthem played on electric guitar by former Mr. Big guitarist Gary Hoey; and Christian rock singer Kevin Max of DC Talk singing “Amazing Grace,” followed by the first of many emcee segments by irrepressible Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider.

“Tonight is the night,” Snider shouted, alluding to the VH1 cameras, “that we let the world know that the victims of the Station fire have not been forgotten.... The music industry has to help its fans.”

Rich, Wilson and Bentley performed a song circle, alternating acoustic performances of their hits including “Redneck Woman” and “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.” Before performing, Rich said that the commonalities between rock and country fans were more important than the differences; Wilson recalled spending years performing, waitressing and tending bar in small nightclubs like the Station in her early days. “We all paid our dues in places like that; it made us what we are today.”

The ’80s Christian metal band Stryper played two songs, including Boston’s “Peace of Mind” with none other than Boston guitarist Tom Scholz. Scholz and Stryper frontman Michael Sweet met last summer at a benefit for late Boston singer Brad Delp, and the connection stuck. “I just wish we’d sounded better,” Scholz, who donated $10,000 to the fund, said afterward, ruefully recounting how he messed up his own song.

Even though 100 people were killed in the fire, roughly 200 were injured and more than 60 children were left without one or both parents, there hasn’t been much help for the survivors from the higher echelons of the music business.

King said, “I never once said nobody cared; I said they never knew.”

Snider, as is his wont, was more direct. Before the show, he called the response from major musical acts “lame and ineffectual.” An A-lister or two would’ve put the concert on the next level of popularity, he said.

“It was not in an opera house,” Snider said. “... It wasn’t U2 or Springsteen. It wasn’t cool, hip, chic rock fans. It was older rock fans, mullet-wearing rock fans, overweight rock fans....

“Tonight’s great,” Snider said, “maybe Oprah’ll get interested.”

While top-flight rock stars would raise more money, last night’s show was homegrown.

“This fund has always been by and about the survivors,” said John Bell, a Providence lawyer and chairman of the fund, before the show, pointing out that survivors were buzzing about the area helping out in various ways, including driving performers in from the airport (in vans that were donated for only the cost of the insurance premiums).

“Everyone knows each other,” King said as he walked through the backstage area, his work mostly done, answering questions and shaking hands from artists, crew and people he’s worked with on the fund for years. “It’s a good feeling.”

Tesla drummer Troy Luccketta, a co-organizer of the show, said his commitment was long-term. As a committed Christian who lost band assistant Jeff Rader in the fire, Luccketta looked around at the collected survivors and volunteers running around backstage and said, “This is my new family.”

“I look out,” said Shirley Moretti, outreach chairwoman of the Station Family Fund, late in the show, “and I say ‘wow; we did it.’ ”

rmassimo@projo.com