This weekend, I enjoyed a Sunday afternoon/evening relaxing at a wonderful fundraising concert at the Shoreline Amphitheater. The 19th Annual Bridge School Benefit Concert is an impressive musical fundraiser for the Bridge School, a school for children with "severe speech and physical impairments."
Hosting the concert was Neil Young's wife, Peggy Young. The concert had many highlights, but my personal favorites (in no particular order) were: (1) an inspired set by the band Bright Eyes, a Clem Snide/Bob Dylan amalgam (2) Norah Jones' fine cover of the late Gram Parsons' classic "She" (even though Jones spared Parsons' musical partner Emmylou Harris the burden of another curtain call) and (3) David Crosby's and Graham Nash's somewhat rare performance of Crosby's "Guinnevere" (thems some tricky harmonies!).
I should add that, as the first concert that I have seen at Shoreline, I was very impressed with the acoustics. My wife and I sat on the top of the lawn, near the "portable washrooms" and a growing collection of increasingly loud drunks (at one point, during CSN&Y's closing set, a woman whom sounded drunk inexplicably yelled out "Where are the women?," to which a quick-thinking misogynistic man who sounded less drunk responded, "In the kitchen") but they did not drown out the impressive sound system, which was crisp and non-deafening throughout.
Overall, an excellent day. All of the performers were clearly excited to be there, and should be commended for performing at such a worthy event.