Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - Bridge School Benefit, Oakland Coliseum, Oakland, CA, 12-4-1988

In 1985, David Crosby kicked a very serious drug habit after serving nine months in prison. Young promised to reunite CSNY if Crosby ever got his act together, and he kept that promise. This resulted in the 1988 studio album "American Dream." To be honest, it wasn't that good, and certainly didn't live up to the hopes of their long-delayed reunion. But I would argue that most of the songs actually were pretty good, but the album was ruined by typical 1980s overproduction, which didn't suit the band at all.

Unfortunately, Young wasn't willing to go on tour to support the album. But CSNY did play the occasional benefit concert around that time, usually in acoustic format. I think their songs hold up much better in these concerts. Thanks to the acoustic format, the bad production issues are avoided, and CSNY shined in acoustic mode anyway.

Out of these several late 1980s CSNY benefit concerts, the one bootleg recording with the best sound quality has to be the 1988 Bridge Benefit concert. So that makes up the bulk of this album. But CSNY also played at the very first Bridge Benefit concert, in 1986. (It would become an annual event after skipping 1987.) That was a historically significant concert for CSNY, because it was only the second time they reunited since the 1970s, with the first taking place at the Live Aid concert in 1985. 

CSNY only played four songs in the 1986 Bridge Benefit show. Luckily, all four of them are different from the songs they played in the 1988 show. So I start this album out with the short 1986 concert, and then all of the 1988 concert. The only sang is that the sound quality for the 1986 concert isn't as good. It's fairly good, but it's an audience bootleg. Whereas the 1988 concert is a pristine soundboard bootleg. If the sound quality for the 1986 songs aren't good enough for you, just skip those, and you still have a decent length concert with the 1988 stuff.

For the 1988 Bridge Benefit, Young began the concert with a few solo numbers, which I haven't included here since it's just him. But for the last song in that set, "American Dream," CSN surprised the crowd by showing up shortly after the song began. This version is nearly acappella, and in my opinion it's way better than the studio version, again due to those overproduction problems. Too bad the crowd roars due to CSN showing up.

After that one brief appearance, CSNY left the stage. Then they didn't return until nearly the end of the show, after all the other acts. Most of this album is made up of their second and much longer time on stage together. By the way, Bruce Springsteen was the other big headline act for the concert, and CSNY joined Springsteen to sing backing vocals for his hit "Hungry Heart." I didn't include that here though since I decided a Springsteen song is a very different thing and wouldn't fit in with the rest. Plus, the CSNY vocals don't sound that distinctive on that song.

For both concerts here, I broke all the talking between songs into their own tracks. I generally boosted the volume a lot for that banter. In some cases, they were talking off mike to each other but by increasing the volume a lot I made it possible to clearly hear what they were saying. 

The 1986 concert is 17 minutes long. The 1988 concert is 47 minutes long. Added together, the album totals an hour and four minutes.

01 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
02 Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
03 Change Partners (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
04 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
05 Daylight Again - Find the Cost of Freedom (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
06 Ohio (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
07 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
08 American Dream (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
09 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
10 Helplessly Hoping (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
11 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
12 Love The One You're With (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
13 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
14 This Old House (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
15 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
16 Southern Man (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
17 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
18 Don't Say Goodbye (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
19 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
20 Compass (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
21 Long Time Gone (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
22 Southern Cross (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
23 Teach Your Children (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15281880/CrosbSNY_1988_BrdgeSchoolBenefitOklandCliseumOklandCA__12-4-1988_atse.zip.html

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any good photos of CSNY from either the 1986 or 1988 Bridge Benefit shows. If you have one, please let me know. So instead I used a photo of CSNY at a Farm Aid concert in 1989. I also squeezed in the logo for the concert in the bottom left corner.