by Chuck Ross

The still-living members of the legendary band Buffalo Springfield–Neil Young, Stephen Stills and Richie Furay–will unite and play again in public for the first time in 42 years, Rolling Stone reports.

The occasion will be Neil Young’s annual charity benefit concert in Northern California for the Bridge School on Oct. 23 and Oct. 24. (According to the L.A.Times account, "The Bridge School shows will again be held at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, near Concord, Calif. Tickets go on sale Sunday [Sept. 19, 2010] on Ticketmaster." In addition to Buffalo Springfield, other performers included in this year’s benefit include Pearl Jam, Elton John and Leon Russell, Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams and several other acts, the Times says.)

The two other musicians who made up Buffalo Springfield, Dewey Martin and Bruce Palmer, are dead.

According to the Rolling Stone article, "Furay says that Neil Young’s longtime bassist Rick Rosas will sit in for the late Bruce Palmer, while Crosby, Stills and Nash drummer Joe Vitale will substitute for the late Dewey Martin."

Furay added, “We’re going to play for 35-40 minutes.The setlist will probably be composed of the three albums, though probably more of the first album with a few of the second album and maybe ‘On The Way Home’ from the last one. I really have no idea, though. I’m just going to show up and have a good time.” He says it will be bittersweet, however, to be up there without Martin and Palmer. ‘Those guys made the sound.’ ”

And now a personal note about the band.

I have exactly one great high school memory (pathetic, but true). When I was a freshman at Alexander Hamilton High School here in Los Angeles, Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Richie Furay, Bruce Palmer and Dewey Martin came to our school and played a concert on Friday night, November 10th, 1967. 

How someone at Hamilton got Buffalo Springfield to play at our high school I don’t recall. I guess it wasn’t that difficult–they were basically a local band and it wasn’t as if they were the Byrds or some famous group like that.

I remember I had heard the first Buffalo Springfield  LP and thought it was OK. Young’s voice was pretty unique, I remember thinking, but I preferred the songs Stills primarily sang. Their second, most famous LP, came out at just about the same time they played at Hami.

My recollection is that the concert did not sell out, and that most of the kids there thought they were just OK.

Six months later the band played its final gig…The entire life-span of Buffalo Springfield was about two years.