Huge news of the “Hey, we’re getting the band back together” varietyannounced this week:
Neil Young will reunite with Stephen Stills
and Richie Furay for a pair of performances as Buffalo Springfield for
Young’s annual Bridge School benefit concerts in Northern California,
with lineups that also include Pearl Jam, Elton John and Leon Russell,
Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams and several other acts.The reunion of the influential country-rock band born in 1966 in Los
Angeles will feature Young, Stills and Furay as an acoustic trio, given
the Bridge School’s history of unplugged performances by all
participants. The group’s other two original members, bassist Bruce
Palmer and drummer Dewey Martin, died in 2004 and 2009, respectively.Springfield will top the bill both days of the Oct. 23 and 24 shows,
which generates funds and awareness for the school’s programs aiding
severely physically handicapped students.“We make Pearl Jam look like a young band,” Young said with a chuckle over the weekend. “It’s all a matter of perspective.” Buffalo
Springfield, in turn, won’t hold the most seniority thanks to the
presence elsewhere on the shows of 83-year-old mountain music patriarch
Ralph Stanley and a pairing of two of country music’s most esteemed
singers and songwriters: 74-year-old Kris Kristofferson and 73-year-old
Merle Haggard.The Oct. 23 show features Springfield, Pearl Jam, Williams, Costello,
Haggard and Kristofferson, Jackson Browne with David Lindley, Billy
Idol, Modest Mouse and Grizzly Bear.
Wait…one of these things is different than the rest…Billy Idol? Really?
Performing on the second day of the benefit will beThe Speaking Clock Revue, a “multi-artist concert extravaganza” put together by T Bone Burnett to raise money and awareness for arts education. In addition to Burnett, the Bridge School concert lineup of the revue features, I shit you not, Elton John, Leon Russell, Ralph Stanley, Elvis Costello, Neko Case, and Jeff Bridges.
So for today’s special Buffalo Springfield edition of WWTFUS, I give you what is quite possibly, even after many years, evenwithbecause of the excessive sideburns and fringe-itude, one of the high holiest two minutes and forty-four seconds of my personal pop culture catechism. Some serious air guitar was performed in front of the TV machine at my house the evening this aired. It helped that my proto-babydyke haircut at the time was nearly identical to Neil’s, minus sideburns of course. I was still only in single digits, but any girl in the world could have easily known me better, that’s how much of a badass hippie tomboy this made me feel.
Extra WWTFUS bonus trivia points to Adrastos or one of other resident musical completists who can ‘splain the presence in this clip of the shadowy bass player with his back to the camera.