41
Holding Our Breath with Our Eyes Closed
On September 23, 2010, one of the most anticipated reunions in rock-’n’-roll history took place at the 24th annual Bridge School concert, held at Mountain View, California’s Shoreline Amphitheatre.
Rock ’n’ roll’s most famous split ever, of course, remains that of the Beatles. The music history books have long since rewritten that story many times over, recasting it with as many villains—it seems that everyone from Yoko Ono to Allen Klein owns a piece of the blame there—as there are conspiracy theories as to what actually happened way back in 1970.
But from the moment the Beatles’ breakup actually happened, the release of Paul McCartney’s solo album has been most often identified as the singular event that really signaled the end of the greatest musical phenomenon of the twentieth century. As a result—rightly or otherwise—McCartney is also historically looked back upon as the Beatle with the black hat who actually broke up the band.
In the case of Buffalo Springfield, there were certainly just as many factors—and villains—that contributed to that group’s premature demise in 1968. But in the same way that McCartney has become—perhaps somewhat unfairly—regarded as the man who broke up the Beatles, Neil Young has just as often been singled out as the key, combustible element in the ultimate implosion of the Buffalo Springfield.
In Young’s case, unlike that of McCartney, much of the blame is probably justified. Before leaving Buffalo Springfield for good and releasing his own first solo album, Young had already walked out on the group more times than one could possibly count—most famously on the eve of the band’s potentially star-making appearance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival (where his spot was hastily filled by the Byrds’ David Crosby).
Many of Young’s most notable contributions to Buffalo Springfield—“Expecting to Fly,” “Broken Arrow,” and “I Am a Child” among them—are also essentially solo recordings.
But where any hopes for a Beatles reunion were forever dashed by the deaths of John Lennon and George Harrison, Neil Young, Stephen Stills, and Richie Furay have all survived long enough—and quite inexplicably in many ways—to escape the trick of disaster and fulfill the dreams of Buffalo Springfield fans with a reunion. Those dreams became reality at 2010’s Bridge School show.
Richie Furay and Neil Young onstage at Bonnaroo 2011 during the short-lived Buffalo Springfield reunion tour.
Photo by Mary Andrews
Amazingly, it’s been even longer since original Buffalo Springfield members Young, Stills and Furay have shared a public stage or recording studio together than the Beatles—forty-two years to be exact. To put this in perspective, Lyndon Baines Johnson was President when Buffalo Springfield released their final album.
Not that there haven’t been rumors along the way.
When Young recorded the song “Buffalo Springfield Again” on his 2000 album Silver and Gold, for example, speculation about a Springfield tour ran high (Young reunited with Crosby, Stills, and Nash instead, although rumors of a private Buffalo Springfield jam also taking place persist to this day).
When Buffalo Springfield were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, there was talk about a surprise reunion jam for the ceremony. This was put to rest when Young famously no-showed the ceremony (prompting Stills’s equally famous onstage comment “he quit again”).
On the Way Home
Buffalo Springfield nostalgia had already been running quite high when surviving members Young, Stills, and Furay (joined by bassist Rick Rosas and drummer Joe Vitale, filling in for departed band members Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin respectively) reunited for the 2010 Bridge benefit show. Earlier that year, at the MusiCares ceremony honoring Neil Young as its Person of the Year, the musical highlight of the evening was Wilco’s dead-on version of “Broken Arrow,” the early solo Young recording that made its debut appearance on a Buffalo Springfield album.
For their historic reunion, Buffalo Springfield took to the Shoreline Amphitheatre stage with a letter-perfect “On the Way Home.” The early Neil Young original was beautifully sung by Richie Furay, just as it had been on Buffalo Springfield’s groundbreaking original single.
From there, time seemed to come to a standstill as the set continued on with letter-perfect renderings of original Springfield hits “Mr. Soul,” “Burned,” “For What It’s Worth,” and a stunning version of Young’s “Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing.”
Fortunately for fans, the good vibes of the Bridge School reunion did not end there.
2011 found Neil Young continuing to promote the Le Noise album by extending the solo Twisted Road shows from the prior year, and preparing for the release of the lost International Harvesters album A Treasure.
Meanwhile, plans for more Buffalo Springfield concerts were soon announced, including an appearance at the annual Tennessee Bonnaroo festival, with a more extended run of American dates in the fall of 2011 expected to follow. Assuming the loose threads holding together the reunion many never expected to see remain in place, fans who missed them the first time around should be seeing “Buffalo Springfield Again” in 2011 after all.
Footnote: Plans for a more extended run of Buffalo Springfield tour dates were, as of this writing, put on hold as Neil Young announced plans to write his autobiography, which is expected to be published in the fall of 2012.
Stephen Stills, Richie Furay, Neil Young, and Rick “the Bass Player” Rosas locked into a groove with Buffalo Springfield at Bonnaroo 2011.
Photo by Mary Andrews