This is the 25th anniversary of The Bridge School Benefit, an annual star-studded charity concert held each fall at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, CA. Neil Young and his wife, Pegi, organize the event, whose proceeds benefit the Bridge School, in Hillsborough, CA, which helps children with severe speech and physical impairments.
The first benefit was in 1986, with performances by CSNY, Nils Lofgren, Don Henley, Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen. Except for 1987, it has been held every year since. It's known for great performances by a high-profile lineup, due to Young's extensive industry connections with the help of Lookout Management. Young performs every year, and last year's highlight was the first Buffalo Springfield reunion with Stephen Stills and Richie Furay since 1968. Performers usually play acoustically, partly because children from the school are seated upstage.
The system was once again supplied by Sound On Stage (SOS) of Hayward, CA and based around L-Acoustics V-DOSC enclosures, with ten-box main arrays plus four under-hung dV-DOSC, and six SB218 subs flown next to them. Three more SB218s were ground-stacked below and four ARCs per side used as outfill, flown in a two-by-two array to cover the extreme sides.
The main system was entirely powered with Crown MA5000VZ amps and employed XTA's AudioCore, using an XTA DP448 in four-way mode for the V-DOSC and flown subs, a DP226 for the dV-DOSC down-fills, another DP226 used three-way for the ARCS and deck subs, and a third DP226 for the stereo frontfill, which is a proprietary SOS dual-ten enclosure, plus extra sends to the lawn delay system, the backstage VIP areas, and the feed to the Bridge School children seated upstage behind the bands.
On stage, the monitor system consisted of 16 L-Acoustics XT-115 wedges, a pair of flown ARCS per side for sidefills, with each side supported by a dV-SUB on deck.
At Shoreline's Front of House mix position, there was both an Avid Venue D-Show and a Profile, as well as an SC48 used as the production console for the MC's wireless mics, announcements, playback and video audio. Tom Young used a Yamaha PM5D for Tony Bennett, and all four consoles were summed through a Midas XL-88 to feed the XTA processors. System engineer Dennis Deem has been with SOS for 18 years, having last toured mixing Pegi Young and as a system tech for Van Morrison. This was his tenth Bridge School Benefit concert.
Dave Lohr not only mixes Young, having spent many years touring with him and the last year out with Buffalo Springfield, but he has also been audio production coordinator for BSB for the last decade. He notes the generosity of everyone involved, but especially Neil and Pegi Young, who invite all the artists over for dinner at their home the Friday night before.
Lohr has made recordings for several years and the 25th Anniversary DVD/CD Collection is available at bridgeschool.org/concert/dvd.php and from iTunes. A one-time donation of $10 can be made by texting "BRIDGE" to 80888. It's for the kids.
For more photos of the event from photographer Steve Jennings, download the PDF.
