Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Farm Aid Preview

Farm Aid is this coming Sunday. My brother and I are taking our father for his birthday, which is cool. The final line up for the concert has been announced, and a lot of people are disappointed in it. Initially, the headliners announced were Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews. That's a good show in and of itself. Soon added were Wilco, Jason Mraz and Jamey Johnson. Then...nothing. For like two months absolutely no-one. Finally, last week the remainder was announced. People had been waiting, spreading rumours and chomping at the bit to hear the rest of the line-up. What other top acts would be added? We just couldn't wait to find out.

Well, about as close to major acts as we get are Gretchen Wilson and Billy Joe Shaver. Everyone else are more or less unknowns, at least to the mainstream fan. At first I was one of the disappointed people but then I got to thinking about it. The reason most people are upset is because Farm Aid has such a reputation for bringing on top artists, and I think maybe people built it up too much in their minds. The extra long wait didn't help either. However, if one looks at the different shows over the last 10 years or so, lots of smaller acts have appeared who have gone on to be something. For example, the Drive-By Truckers, Tegan and Sara, The Supersuckers, Los Lonely Boys, moe., and Guster were all bands with a big question mark attached to their names for most people and now they've all gone on to decent sized followings. So in that sense it's kind of interesting to think that I might be seeing some acts that are going to get big soon, and maybe a few who have been around for quite a while who I should have been listening to all along.

The other interesting part of the booking is that it seems to be a bit short. Most Farm Aid shows have about 20 performers or so. I count 15. So does that mean that maybe there might be a special guest or two coming in that we don't know about yet? Knowing the nature of benefit shows (and the nature of Willie Nelson) it's certainly possible. It is also possible that with fewer performers we might get slightly longer sets by the headliners. Or maybe both scenarios are wishful thinking.

Anyway, the whole music discussion misses the point of what's really going on here. The bottom line is that we're all gathered together to help the small family farmer to continue providing good food to our local communities. Our ticket money is also being used to help further the organic food movement that's taking over your local grocers as we speak. Er, type. Whatever. Anyone with kids these days knows the importance of Organic milk. And the eggs are good too.

Farm Aid and its artists are also on the front lines in the battle to get Bio diesel fuel into more cars on our roadways. While I'm not 100% sold on the idea (and I still want a muscle car Mustang), I'm all for cleaner fuel. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going all hippie and environmentalist here but I do think we all have a little responsibility towards our planet and our fellow man. Now I may only be dipping a toe into all of this stuff, but it's a start and I'm more than happy to give a few bucks towards the cause.

So there are my thoughts five days out. I'm sure I'll do a wrap up on the concert next week, and I'll try to post something else in between so those of you who aren't interested in this stuff can have something else to read. Maybe Tessa will say another dirty word or something.

'Bye.

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