Music DVD Review: Dispatch - Dispatch Zimbabwe - Live At Madison Square Garden

Four years ago when the independent rock and roll band Dispatch performed its final concert in 2004 it was only fitting that the 100,000 plus that showed up in Boston from all over the world represented the largest audience to ever attend an unsigned group's performance. This was the band after all that sold 600,000 copies of its CDs without ever signing a record contract with a major label, hiring an agent, or doing any of the other things supposedly necessary to be a success in the music industry.

What the members did do was rely on the internet and people willing to download their songs and "share" them through sites like Napstar. While record companies were looking to shut these operations down, Dispatch was using them as a means of getting the band's music known all across the United States and creating a huge following. Without even having released an album the members would show up for gigs to discover that audiences already knew the lyrics to their songs.

Still I think even they must have been overwhelmed when all the tickets for a benefit concert for Zimbabwe at New York City's Madison Square Gardens (MSG) sold out in less then an hour; the hurriedly scheduled second did the same, and a third sold out in less than half an hour. After all it had been three years since the band members had last performed together and even longer then that since they had released any new material; that didn't stop them from selling 60,000 tickets in less then three hours.

Braddigan (the name drummer Brad Corrigan now uses) Chad Urmstom, and Pete Francis formed Dispatch in 1995 when they were all students at Middlebury College in Vermont. One of the first songs that Chad played for them was a piece called "Elias" named for a gardener he had met during a period spent living in Zimbabwe prior to attending the university. It was Chad's connection to the country that appears to have been the inspiration for them to do the benefit concerts.

To be honest I'd never heard of Dispatch before reading the press release that announced they planned to release a DVD culled from footage shot over the three days of concerts as part of their fund-raising efforts. What interested me was they were raising money for Zimbabwe, and I wanted to find out more about the band and their efforts. Dispatch Zimbabwe - Live At Madison Square Garden looked to be the way to accomplish both tasks at once.

As befits their independent status, the DVD was released on January 29, 2008 through the band's own Bomber Records in partnership with AEG Network Live and VDI Entertainment. The director — Danny Clinch and his Three On The Tree production company -- has previous experience with music videos and shooting live concerts including a docu-concert of Pearl Jam's recent Italian tour. The 19 songs (plus four bonus tracks in the special features section) presented on this disc are more than enough for anybody to understand what made Dispatch so popular. They're bloody amazing.

Okay, that's not the most in depth critical analysis but it's the truth. I'm always slightly nervous about rock trios because the first thing the ensemble suggests to me is power chords and noise to compensate for the lack of instruments. That's definitely not the case with this trio. Sure they can play loud and fast when it's called for, but the members' preferred method of approach is to use intricate rhythms and great vocal harmonies to fill out the sound.

Article Author: Richard Marcus

Richard Marcus is the author of the forthcoming book What Will Happen In Eragon IV? and has had his work published in print and on line all over the world. The not so long-haired Canadian iconoclast writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees …

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