Benefit show raises money for Tower of Power

As two members of the Oakland-based R&B band Tower of Power continue to recover at a hospital, a benefit concert was held Tuesday at the same Oakland jazz venue where they were scheduled to play just before being hit by a train while crossing the street last week.

The Tommy Igoe Groove Conspiracy played a benefit show for drummer David Garibaldi and bassist Marc van Wageningen at Yoshi’s Oakland on Tuesday night, performing to a sold-out crowd, Igoe said in a post on Facebook.

“Get better Dave and Marc, we love you,” the crowd at Yoshi’s roared in a short video from the event Igoe posted on Facebook.

Garibaldi and van Wageningen were crossing Embarcadero just outside of Yoshi’s on Thursday when they were struck by a southbound Amtrak train at 7:39 p.m. Tower of Power had a show scheduled there for 8 p.m.

As of early this week, van Wageningen, who was filling in for the band’s regular bassist, remained in intensive care. Garibaldi is in stable condition and according to percussionist Peter Escovedo was able to go to van Wageningen’s room to visit with him.

Two GoFundMe fundraisers have so far raised more than $100,000 to help the two musicians in their recovery.

According to Union Pacific Railroad officials, it appears that Garibaldi and van Wageningen were waiting for a northbound Union Pacific train to pass and then moved around the gate arms and started crossing the tracks, not noticing the Amtrak train coming from the other direction.

Fundraisers for the two recovering band members are available at https://www.gofundme.com/Garibaldi-MarcVW-medicalfund and https://www.gofundme.com/tower-of-power-members.

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