POP/ROCK - Aug. 29, 1988

A group of younger celebrities and near-celebrities gathered at Palette restaurant-bar in West Hollywood on Friday night to help Amnesty International bang the drum a bit for its all-star “Human Rights Now!” show at the Coliseum--for which tickets are not exactly flying out of the box-office window. But the commitment of several of the attendees--including Judd Nelson, Judge Reinhold, Robert Downey, Justine Bateman and Catherine Oxenberg--was undeniable, with Reinhold commenting: “I’m here helping out because everyone in the U.S. needs to be reminded that the freedoms we take for granted are really precious in a lot of other places.” Amnesty International monitors human-rights abuses worldwide. News tidbits from the pre-party news conference: There will be a “Human Rights Now!” performance in Budapest, Hungary, on Sept. 6--the first Warsaw Pact date to be added to the tour. And quite a few good tickets remain for the Sept. 21 L.A. show.