Buffalo Springfield

Summer officially started for us Sunday night as we stood outside the Wiltern theater, waiting to see the recently reunited band, Buffalo Springfield. Sure, we had seen Paul Simon perform in an amazing concert just a few weeks before; but Sunday night’s audience was truly a summertime Woodstock crowd in jeans and vintage rock t-shirts. This was the first time Buffalo Springfield was going to perform in L.A.—the group’s hometown during the 1960s—in over 40 years.

Our tickets said the show started at 7PM, so we arrived by 6:15PM. Walking from our secret parking spot two blocks away, we passed the band’s tour buses tucked behind the theater. A handful of fans stood outside the barricades, clutching albums and posters they obviously hoped would be autographed. We walked around to the front of the theater and joined a short line. Two men panhandled us, while a woman hawked peace symbol stickers, supposedly to raise money for hungry families. We eavesdropped on the couple behind us as they related what just happened to them at dinner.

“We mentioned to the young waitress that we were on our way to a concert,” the husband said.

“Who are you going to see?!” the waitress asked excitedly.

“Buffalo Springfield,” the couple replied.

“Buffalo Springfield—how great!” the young woman responded. “Isn’t that the guy who also starred on a soap opera several years ago?”

“I think you’re thinking of Rick Springfield,” the wife told her, stifling a laugh.

The theater doors opened at 6:30PM as we all headed into the lobby. The concert was sold-out. A guy, who had bragged that he was going to sell his ticket for twice what he paid for it, yelled to a group of passersby, “Last chance to see Buffalo Springfield!” while waving his ticket. No one bit, so he entered the theater with the rest of us.

Built in 1931, the Wiltern is an art deco masterpiece clad in blue and bronze terra-cotta. The interior is equally beautiful, with hand-painted murals on the walls and ceiling. Renovated many years ago, the Wiltern remains one of L.A.’s most magnificent theaters. Its sound quality is outstanding, too, as we eventually found out.

We were in the relatively cheap seats and so headed upstairs. The doors to the mezzanine didn’t open till 7PM, so we had plenty of time to gaze at our fellow audience members. Most of the people were our age, looking ready to spend the evening reliving their youth. Some had seriously outgrown their tie-dye t-shirts (yikes!), but overall our generation has aged fairly well.

The opening act—folksingers Gillian Welch and David Rawlings—were terrific, but they didn’t start till 8PM—meaning, of course, that Buffalo Springfield wasn’t going to take the stage until well after 9PM. Now, we had waited 8 hours—in the rain, no less—when we saw them at the Bridge School concert in northern California last October, so I can bide my time with the best of them. But come on! The tickets said 7PM!

Still, all was immediately forgiven the minute Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and rock legend Neil Young began to play. The three surviving bandmates (two others had died several years ago) took turns singing the lead on their greatest hits, while the crowd went wild. At one point, Neil introduced the band as “Buffalo Springfield—we’re from the past!” They obviously had a blast playing together again and had clearly practiced many times since we saw them in October.

Before they came out, the woman sitting in front of us kept asking whether we thought they’d play “For What It’s Worth,” one of the most famous anti-Vietnam War anthems and arguably their best song.

“They’ve just got to play it!” she insisted. “It wouldn’t have been the ‘60s without that song!”

And play it, they did, during their show-end encore. And, yes, it was almost like the ‘60s all over again.

For an excellent review of the concert, click here.

Bridge School Concert

I’ve been a fan of rock legend Neil Young for more than three decades. I, of course, have always loved Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, arguably the most popular of all the bands he’s played with. But it wasn’t until I heard his solo album Harvest in the late 1970s—many years after it had been released, by the way—that I became a huge fan. I have followed him ever since. We don’t always like all of his music, but Tim and I have seen him perform on stage countless times. Each concert is as youthful and as memorable as the one before, even though Young is now well into his 60s.

An outspoken liberal, Neil lives in northern California on a ranch close to where counter-culture author Ken Kesey once lived. For the past 24 years Neil and his wife Pegi have organized a benefit concert for the Bridge School, which Pegi helped found in the mid-1980s. The concert traditionally attracts megawatt artists, like Bruce Springstein, Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Sheryl Crowe, Jackson Browne, and The Who. The announcement of each year’s lineup is always highly anticipated. Although I’ve wanted to go forever, the thought of schlepping all the way up to Mountain View for a concert was never appealing. That is, until I opened the newspaper one morning last month and read that Buffalo Springfield, Young’s first band, was reuniting for this year’s Bridge School benefit. We had been wanting to visit Tim’s brother, who lives in Sebastopol, north of San Francisco, anyway, so we bought tickets to the concert and made plans to fly up on Saturday, even though all weather reports were predicting a wet weekend.

We landed in Oakland at 9:15AM. The sky was cloudy but dry. We congratulated ourselves for having such good fortune. By the time we got to Sebastopol, however, the skies had opened up, pouring down rain through the night and into the next day. The concert started at 2PM on Sunday.

We spent the night with friends in Bodega Bay and then left at 10AM to head south to Mountain View, where the outdoor Shoreline Amphitheater is located. The drive was harrowing. I am not the most adventurous driver even in the best of weather, so my brain was on major “red alert.” My biggest fear was crossing the Golden Gate Bridge at the height of the storm; but surprisingly the bridge ended up being the least scary stretch of all, even though (as you can tell from the photo) we could hardly to see the other side!

It took us nearly three hours to drive 100 miles, but when we arrived in Mountain View the sky was only partly cloudy. Could Neil Young possibly control the weather, too? We were ecstatic, though I took my rain parka along just in case. I also convinced Tim to buy a cheesy $5 parka when we were paying for our souvenir t-shirts. And, lucky, too, because about 30 minutes into the concert it started to rain and pretty much didn’t stop till we were back in the car several hours later.

The audience was fairly mixed: some young people, but mostly folks our age or even older. Tim was thrilled when a woman came up to him and said he looked like Mike Love of the Beach Boys, though I didn’t think that was much of a compliment!

The musical lineup was incredible: Kris Kristofferson, actor Jeff Bridges, country legend Ralph Stanley, Elvis Costello, Leon Russell, Elton John, Pearl Jam, and, of course, Neil Young and Buffalo Springfield. Bridges sang a couple of songs from his Oscar-winning movie Crazy Heart, while Stanley treated us to some old-time country standards, which drew a standing ovation. Tim was most moved by Kristofferson who, even though sounded kinda creaky, can still break your heart singing “Me and Bobby McGee.”

With all the rain and marijuana smoke in the air, we pretended we were at Woodstock, though we doubted garlic fries and pulled pork sandwiches were part of that particular outdoor festival!

The Bridge School concert is typically an acoustical event. Still, Elton John and Leon Russell, who just released a joint CD together, managed to rock the theater with their pianos and unplugged band. It was wonderful seeing the white-maned Leon pounding the keyboards after walking on stage using a cane. Elton, too, looked fabulous and sounded as good as the last time I’d seen him playing at his now historic Dodger Stadium concert in 1975. They brought the house down.

Russell and John were followed by Neil Young’s protégés Pearl Jam, whose music we don’t know, though they did open for Neil when he was touring in 1993. We went to that concert, but stood outside the arena until Pearl Jam was done because their music was just too damn loud. Playing acoustical, though, was much easier on the ears—so much so, I might even buy a couple of their songs on iTunes.

After a break, the stage was then set for Buffalo Springfield. We had by now been sitting in the on-again-off-again rain for six hours, but it was well worth the wait. Although the first couple of songs were a bit shaky, Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and Neil Young then launched into their biggest hit, “For What It’s Worth,” and we were suddenly transported back in time. The young woman in front of Tim turned around and asked him if Buffalo Springfield had originated that song. “YES!” he answered incredulously as I joyously sang along with the lyrics.

The set ended with “Bluebird,” another big Buffalo Springfield hit, before Neil, who had briefly played with many of the acts throughout the concert, invited all the performers back on-stage to join him in singing his anthem, “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World!” The audience sang gloriously in unison. It was the perfect ending to an unforgettably phenomenal day. I can’t wait to see who Neil Young plays with next year.