Farm Aid 2011 - Kansas City, KS - Livestrong Park

Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp organized the first Farm Aid concert in 1985 to raise awareness about the loss of family farms and to raise funds to keep farm families on their land. Dave Matthews joined the Farm Aid Board of Directors in 2001. Farm Aid has raised more than $39 million to promote a strong and resilient family farm system of agriculture. Farm Aid is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to keep family farmers on their land. Every year, many artists get together and volunteer to perform at zero cost to promote this organization.  All the bands involved forked out their own dough to travel to Kansas City, KS to come together for a great LIVE experience.  In 25 years, Kansas City has never hosted this benefit concert until now! Livestrong Park is a brand new open stadium that was built for the KC soccer team.  Farm Aid was the first concert Livestrong has hosted. Livestrong Park was a GREAT venue for this event. They covered the turf with flooring and set up chairs on the ground for the shows. There was not a GA seating/standing section, all people had a designated seat - which is nice.  The vendors were mostly local farmers who brought in their baked goods to sell. Brownies, cookies, red meat, peanuts, corn on the cob,etc. were available for purchase. Only complaint about the food/beverage situation was the cost of beer - $8.75 a bottle. I hope mass profit on these beers went to help aid local farmers too. That would make me feel better about my personal contribution to the Budweiser man.

Doors opened at noon and bands were scheduled to play back to back until 11:45pm.  Crowds were slow to arrive. The venue did not seem to start filling up until the headliners began.  The time between artists was minimal. Not much down time between performances.  Show began around 1pm and Willie Nelson came out in his typical braided pigtails to welcome everyone to Farm Aid! Here was the lineup in order:

Blackwood Quartet

John Trudell

Hearts of Darkness

Rebecca Pidgeon

Ray Price 

Robert Francis

Billy Joe Shaver

Will Dailey & the Rivals

Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real

Jakob Dylan 

Jamey Johnson

Jason Mraz 

Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds

John Mellencamp

Neil Young

Willie Nelson  

I am not really familiar with many of the early acts but a few stuck out as artists I needed to research more after the concert.  Will Dailey & the Rivals had a great coffee-shop rock sound with rich vocals.  Definitely would recommend checking him out.  Lukas Nelson (Willie's son!) played with his band, with Jamey Johnson and with his dad at the end of the night.  Many people in the crowd kept commenting how much he sounds like a "new age" Willie! Unique sound for sure but very enjoyable.  Jakob Dylan played a quick 6 song acoustic set and broke out four Wallflower songs and one Elvis Costello cover. He opened with "6'th Avenue Heartache" that reminded the crowd that this "mini me" version of his pops has some true talent. He has a deep, raspy, sultry voice that soothes his acoustic guitar.  He followed with "Sleepwalker," "Nothing but the Whole Wide World," "God Don't Make Lonley Girls," "One Headlight" which was the Wallflowers top single in the late 90s and then he wrapped up the set with Elvis Costello's "What's so Funny bout Peace, Love and Understanding."  He had the crowd focused for the first time of the day, including me.  Would love to have seen some solo work that he has done since the Wallflowers, but I guess this gives me an excuse to see him again! Streaming video of his performance soon to come...

Jason Mraz came out and started with a new song of his. Here was his setlist:

The World As I See It
Won’t You Be My Neighbor (Mister Rogers, hah!)
Traveler
Frank D. Fixer
They Shaped My Life
Rescue
I’m Yours

It was a quick set. Hoped to see some more jazzy stuff he does but he is wonderful and it was a joy. He had the first big roar from the crowd of the day.  Once Mraz came on, it was all up hill from there! 

Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds graced the stage with a quick 45 minute set and played:

Where Are You Going

Save Me

Funny the Way It Is

Crush (Best song of the night!)

Betrayal

Oh

You and Me

Dancing Nancies

Wish they would have played longer! Best artists of the night in my opinion. Wonderful acoustic set! Crush was amazing. Video to come...

Next John Mellencamp came on. This soon-to-be 60 year old still knows how to get a crowd excited. He brought an entourage of band members with him which was nice to get a break from the acoustic stuff for a bit.  The person (other than Dave) who stuck out among the whole day, was Mellencamp's violinist! She was AMAZING and stole his show in my opinion.  Her name is Mirian Strum.  He opened with “The Authority Song,” His voice over the years has evolved into something different:  a bluesy, smokey growl, which serves him well on songs like “Death Letter Blues,” but takes some getting used to on songs like “Small Town” and “Little Pink Houses.” 

Setlist: 

The Authority Song

Death Letter Blues

Walk Tall

Check It Out

Jackie Brown (solo) 

Small Town

Rain on the Scarecrow 

If I Die Sudden

Little Pink Houses

Mellencamp seemed to have the longest set of the night.

Next up was Neil Young.  This was the highly anticipated set of the night. Everyone was awaiting Neil.  We met a man who traveled by himself from Switzerland only to see Neil Young play his short six song set which included:

Comes a Time 

Sugar Mountain 

Long May You Run 

Peaceful Valley Boulevard 

Love and War 

Heart of Gold

Must admit pretty disappointed we didn't get an encore of "Keep on Rocking in the Free World"...would've been fitting for the event. Heart of Gold was my favorite of his set.

Next up, Willie Nelson...this was around 11pm and with 11 hours of sun, frosty beverages and music... I was worn out and this girl had to go home! Bedtime was calling my name...

I watched the streaming video on the Farm Aid website today and realized we only really missed one great moment; Willie playing with his son!

Overall, Farm Aid was a success. At the peak of  the crowds, the venue was only 3/4 full.  I hope Farm Aid comes back to Kansas again! If you would like to find more information on Farm Aid, check out www.farmaid.org.  Hope to be there next year to help a great cause and spend time with great people while enjoying some LIVE hits. 

More pics and vids to come!