Live from Bloomington weighs in on 25th anniversary benefit

Twenty-five years ago, John Plenge was a student with a dream.

While studying within the Jacobs School of Music’s newly established sound engineering program, Plenge was heavily involved with Bloomington’s campus and local music scenes.

Because the engineering program was in its inaugural year, he wanted to find a way to both integrate and showcase the engineering school’s talents and those so melodically heard around Bloomington.

One evening during a late-night brainstorm at The Bluebird, Plenge developed the idea of cutting an eclectic album featuring a number of artists from genres across the board — all of which would be paired with their own individual sound engineer to produce and mix the tracks. After incorporating a live concert at Assembly Hall and centralizing the whole production around Hoosier Hills Food Bank, Live From Bloomington was born.

“It was truly an all-hands-on-deck, around-the-clock project,” Plenge said. “For months my friends and I were running on pure adrenaline, sleep, love and Mountain Dew.”

The success of the first Live From Bloomington event shocked everyone, including Plenge.

“I think we had two tables set up for food in Assembly Hall, and by the end of the night we had raised over a thousand pounds of food,” Plenge said. “A majority of the canned goods were boxed up and sent home with those who needed it that night.”

Four years later, in 1989, Live From Bloomington was thriving as an incorporated subset of the Union Board. Larry Jacobson, a then-graduate student within the Jacobs School, was the director overseeing production of the fifth LFB album.

“I knew this was going to be a pivotal year for Live From Bloomington,” Jacobson said. “The time had come for the album to switch from vinyl to CD, and as an even bigger undertaking, I wanted MTV to nationally recognize us.”

Just as Plenge had made his dream for LFB a reality a short time before, Jacobson set out to take on MTV and triumphed. That year, the MTV logo was featured on freshly pressed CDs alongside the signature Live From Bloomington wheat staff artwork.

Both Plenge and Jacobson graduated from IU shortly after their time working on Live From Bloomington, and continued on to have careers within the music industry. However, this week they are both returning to Bloomington to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of their brainchild.

Plenge solemnly admitted that after graduation, he left Bloomington and didn’t look back.

“I was completely floored when I found out that Live From Bloomington has lasted 25 years,” he said. “I am so humbled and proud to see how the Union Board has had the foresight to carry this project through the decades.”

Now in 2011, Caroline Shurig is the director of LFB and is busier than ever.
“We have been in development for the 25th Anniversary project since last June,” Shurig said. “That is when the concept for this album started to unfold, and Larry got involved shortly after.”

The album release concert, featuring the Brio Pop Society and Murder by Death, will be held at 8 p.m. tomorrow at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.

Shurig is anticipating anywhere between 12 and 25 thousand pounds of food to be collected at this year’s event, which is just a testament to how far LFB has come in 25 years.

“It is truly amazing to know that Live has raised over 300,000 pounds of food for Hoosier Hills in the past 25 years,” Plenge said. “I will surely be around for the 50th Anniversary, but I wish we could find a solution for hunger before then.”