Backstage snapshots from Band Together Bay Area

A view from behind the stage at Band Together Bay Area, the mega concert organized by major local leaders to assist victims of last month’s North Bay fires: Emcee Renel Brooks-Moon, sitting with her husband, Tommie, poring over the script and rundown for the Thursday, Nov. 9 event at AT&T Park. “I’ve been so sad since Charlottesville,” she said. “It’s been one tragedy after another. But this is the best part of what I do.” Onstage between every act, she was self-assured, enthusiastic ... and she never looked at a piece of paper. That’s not an accident. Offstage, she studied hard, breaking concentration only to exchange warm greetings with Barry Bonds. Mickey Hart, old pro, being interviewed in one of the backstage trailers, draped, hung with a cutout wood chandelier. Days away from starting a big tour — “I’m a work in progress, still having a blast” — Dead & Company had changed plans to be able to perform, and Hart was hyped on the occasion and on his new solo album, “RAMU.” A savvy pro, he’d brought along a CD to show to rock journalists interviewing him before the show.

Jodi Goodman, president of Live Nation Northern California, which planned the event with Another Planet Entertainment, acknowledged that the two companies are rivals, “but we’re also friends, very respectful. And we knew we needed to pool our resources.” Although the video tributes included Bonnie Raitt and Chelsea Handler, “it really is kind of a bummer that we didn’t land a female artist,” admitted Goodman. She’d at first envisioned comedian and San Francisco native Ali Wong as emcee, but Wong was too pregnant;

Pink, and others, had scheduling conflicts. 1 Daniel Lurie, whose Tipping Point Emergency Relief Fund will distribute the funds raised during the roughly five-hour outdoor concert, said that when the Badaracco family story was told on stage (Forest Badaracco went door-to-door alerting neighbors) he’d come across two cops wiping away tears. Lurie said he himself was crying. Backstage, the Badaraccos were cheerful and friendly, looking down at the passes around their necks and marveling that Giants catcher Buster Posey had autographed them.

At the end of the show, Chronicle colleague Peter Hartlaub rightly described Metallica taking the stage “like a shot of adrenaline.” We listened for a while, then made our way up the aisle, right behind a couple that looked as though they could have been our college classmates. “All the Deadheads are leaving,” said the woman. It didn’t matter; the show rocked on.

Atop the steps of Stanford’s Memorial Church on Wednesday, Nov. 8, students were handing out flyers for guided meditation events the next morning. This was all a part of Contemplation by Design 2017, a weeklong summit that included that night’s keynote talk by novelist/poet/essayist Alice Walker. Her subject: “Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart: Noticing where you are, and who or what is there with you.”

Dean for Religious Life Jane Shaw introduced Walker, who is now whitehaired and looked serious, dramatic in flowing black with squash blossom necklace — chosen, Walker said, in homage to the suffering of Dennis Banks — and, at the same time, at peace, confident of her wisdom. Barefoot, Walker seemed to glide to the podium, abandoning that post to move around on the altar as she spoke. “Is there anyone in the house who is not suffering?” she asked.

The writer spoke with the reverence of a minister, beginning with the sufferings of the children of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Che Guevara, then Malcolm X’s widow. “Did any of us ever expect this to be such a sad place?” It’s possible, said Walker, that we are experiencing “one last turn around the cosmic wheel . ... We may have come this time to say good-bye.”

Then she turned to the suffering of the “ancestors” — Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, Prince, all of whom had “arrows in their hearts.” How to remove the arrows? Meditation, she said, forming a spiritual community, creating councils of like-minded friends, taking comfort from nature.

When it was time for questions, one student asked how to sustain this for the next 50 years. “I thought that’s what I was talking about,” said Walker. “That wasn’t clear to you?” Another student asked another question. “I don’t get it,” said Walker.

Those were honest responses — I guess a good thing in an honest conversation, and what more could you want from a speaker? But I couldn’t help thinking the questioner’s hearts had gotten nicked, too.