Dispatch goes out on top at giant farewell show
No one knew what to expect at Saturday's wild-card farewell gig by local indie-rock heroes Dispatch. The band had printed 12,000 T-shirts -- a number some friends thought was way too high -- but they all sold within two hours, snapped up by a ravenous young crowd that had arrived at the crack of dawn to stake out turf for this free concert billed as "The Last Dispatch."
Fans came to the Hatch Shell from as far away as Australia, Portugal, Italy, and Mexico, prompting Dispatch member Chad Urmston to exclaim onstage, "We don't know what to say except, `How the [heck] did you get here?' " The band members dedicated a song ("Bats in the Belfry") to fans who climbed into trees for a better view, and they constantly thanked the crowd for coming.
Dispatch told the fans they were "100,000 strong." Sponsoring radio station WBOS said 75,000, and a State Police rep said "at least 60,000." However many, it was a staggering turnout. Dispatch, which has enjoyed a word-of-mouth popularity and Internet presence that exploded before the mainstream noticed ("The Establishment never knew what to do with us," Urmston said), had never played to a crowd of more than 9,000 before. But the band went out on top with a 3 1/2-hour show that rivaled Bruce Springsteen in terms of length. The group took no breaks, staying out in the hot afternoon sun playing song after song as guests from guitarist Phil Keggy (a master musician) to keyboardist Paul Tillotson sat in.
It was all taped for a DVD to come out in October. And the filmmakers at this so-called Nectarfest (Nantucket Nectars helped coordinate it) caught an eyeful of action: There was more crowd-surfing than expected, and a few times the fans let fly with hundreds of empty water bottles across the grounds. The scene was reminiscent of a mini-Woodstock, though the crowd, which became so big that Storrow Drive was closed down, dispersed quietly.
Dispatch provided them with an engaging range of music, from Phish-flavored rock ("Bulletholes") and reggae-tinged tracks (notably the new song "Ride a Tear" by Pete Heimbold, also known as Pete Francis) to the percussive Afropop of "Elias," the mellow "Carry You," the space-rock of "Lightning," and late-set peaks of "Mission" and "Outloud," which had a touch of Bob Marley's "Stir It Up" woven in. The songs were carried by a lyrical honesty that was as true as Dispatch's steady mission of doing all this for the pure joy of it, never for commercial gain.
Several times the crowd broke into heartfelt chants of "Don't break up! Don't break up!" The three Dispatch members -- Urmston, Heimbold, and underrated singer Brad Corrigan -- are now pursuing other projects, but you can bet they heard the crowd's chant. "I got the chills," Corrigan said later backstage. "I felt like I was at a World Cup soccer game. It's just unbelievable to have a crowd love you that much."
