OAKLAND, CA — On April 1 in his hometown of Oakland, hundreds gathered from all over the country for the Celebration of Life event for Benny Collins, a product/tour manager live event professional who died Jan. 27. The celebration took place at the Fox Theater, courtesy of Another Planet Entertainment who generously hosted the event in the lobby of the theater they helped restore and now manage.
The sheer amount of live event talent in the room — many believing it was the largest such gathering of esteemed road warriors — was a testimonial to how inspiring, influential, and loved Benny was. “If you can make it here, you better [fricking] be here,” said Mark “Springo” Spring. Jake Berry: “I had every excuse for not coming tonight, but I had to be here. We were pioneers, we were inventers — but he was a great inventor who helped everybody.”
Production live event professionals Steve MacFadyen, Charlie Hernandez, and Steve Thomas were among the organizers. The event had “no program, no schedule, no band — this is about us getting to visit with each other and honor Benny,” MacFadyen said. There were some videos shown of those who couldn’t make it, plus video of the funny, warm acceptance speech Benny gave when he received the 2014 Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Award.
Collins was born to a single mother, and raised by his grandmother and an aunt who later adopted him as her own son. His work ethic and ability to tell the truth whether you wanted to hear it or not took him far in the live event concert touring business, a career that started with him hauling a Hammond B-3 in a truck as a teen to circling the world running Michael Jackson’s most audacious tours.
Along the way, Collins also worked with the likes of Journey, David Bowie, Rolling Stones, Janet Jackson, Madonna, Lionel Richie, and U2, among others. In 1985, he took WHAM! to communist China — it was the first western pop to play a stadium-type concert after the thawing of its brutal cultural revolution. His timing of doing site advance for the Rolling Stones in Berlin was historic too, as he arrived in 1989 just as the Berlin wall was coming down, and took a piece of it home with him. (For more on his remarkable career, go to parnelliawards.com/media and watch the documentary the Parnelli Awards made for his 2014 Lifetime Achievement Honor.)
But to those who gathered on that balmy Saturday night in Oakland, his professionalism and talent was such a given that it didn’t need to be brought up. Collins as human being, a man who did so much for so many, was the Collins being honored.
There were funny stories recalled along with the touching ones. There were plenty of tears as well. What was clear to those in the room that didn’t have the opportunity to know Benny for as long or as well as others was that he was so much more than a respected professional. John Featherstone from Lightswitch told the story of how he arrived on his first big live event production managed by Collins and “I was clearly in way over my head.” A person in Collins’ position should have not spent a New York Minute suffering with this inexperienced kid. But Featherstone told how at every step Collins helped him along, gave him advice, support, and treated him with respect. Wide smiles and many nodding heads in the room seemed to show Featherstone was hardly a lone beneficiary of Collins big-heartedness. Featherstone then implored the room full of live event professionals to follow Collins’ lead, and help “the young and the stupid,” getting one of the louder rounds of applause.
“I never heard him say anything bad about anybody,” Hernandez told the crowd. “If someone [commented negatively on the artist] he’d say, ‘He was smart enough to hire you.’ There is such a thing as small act of kindness, and Benny personified that.” In the spirit of Collins’ generosity, the family decided to make the celebration an opportunity to give back, and working with Hernandez and his “Just a Bunch of Roadies” charity, they chose to take the opportunity to raise funds in Collins’ name for the Fred Finch Youth Center. CEO Tom Alexander took to the mic at one point and thanked those gathered for their support. He noted that while he never got the chance to know Collins, he had learned that he had grown up with disadvantages and so it was appropriate to help those Oakland kids who face the same adversities today. (To donate in Collins name go to fredfinch.org.)
“There’s a big man looking down on us right now [smiling],” said an emotional Thomas, a close friend and coworker for four decades. “He was a wonderful man — you just don’t ever want to make him mad. [Laughter] Benny’s spirit is not going to leave us, and we must carry that through in all we do. He was a good man … he was a good man.”
“I couldn’t be happier at the tremendous turnout and the actual people that came to honor our friend Benny,” MacFadyen said after the event. “The family was overwhelmed and I am grateful to be a part of this amazing extended touring family.”
More photos taken at the event by Suzi Spangenberg:
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