Green Acres: Farm Aid in NYC
Separate ticket tables for "media," "VIPs," and "farmers" offered a clue as to the focus of the twenty-second Farm Aid concert, an all-day affair held yesterday on Randalls Island in the borough of Queens, New York. Sustainable local food and family farmers were the focus of the festival, with Neil Young their most eloquent spokesperson. "This song used to be about one thing and now it's about another, Young said by way of introducing "Homegrown," a former ode to marijuana cultivation now applied to organic produce. Accompanied by his wife, Pegi Young, and dobro player Ben Keith, Young stayed on message throughout an intimate acoustic set consisting of hits like "Heart of Gold," the seldom performed "Human Highway," and new material from his upcoming Chrome Dream II. Chatting between nearly every tune, Young endorsed conservative family values (moms wanting to feed their families pure, wholesome food) and railed against big agribusiness's chemically enhanced, energy-inefficient products.
Farm Aid's first few hours consisted of twenty-minute teaser sets by 40 Points, the Derek Trucks Band, the Ditty Bops, Montgomery Gentry, Supersuckers, Guster, Warren Haynes, and Billy Joe Shaver. With the exceptions of orthodox Jewish reggae star Matisyahu and Jimmy Sturr's polka group, the day's primary diversity often appeared to lie in performers' ages. Guitarists Haynes and Trucks reappeared with the Allman Brothers Band, who, along with Counting Crows, Dave Matthews, and Farm Aid founders Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, and Young, all played longer "festival-length" sets. Nelson joined Gregg Allman for extremely casual takes on "Midnight Riders" and "Sweet Melissa" prior to the Allmans' set. Mellencamp, who performed a couple of new songs and rearranged versions of older material, looked and sounded like a flashback to a vintage MTV era of manly hard rock. And if the exodus following his duet set with accompanies Tim Reynolds was any indication, it's a good bet that most of the (estimated) 20,000 in attendance were lured by Matthews's Southern preppie sincerity.
Willie Nelson closed the concert, as he traditionally does, with an unexpected, but not unlovable, old-fashioned family sing-along. This included daughter Paula's rendition of "Jackson," ripping guitar solos by son Lukas (who fronts the promising neopsychedelic band 40 Points with his drumming brother Micah), and "A Peaceful Solution," co-written by Willie and daughter Amy. The Youngs, Mellencamp, Matthews, and other performers joined the Nelson clan onstage for the song. So did a pair of Native Americans in colorful tribal garb and a pair of US soldiers, standing at strict attention in full dress uniforms, who sang nothing but conveyed volumes.