Dispatch to play Forest Hills July 6

Grace McQuade

Forest Hills Stadium will be hosting the band Dispatch as part of their “America, Location 12” 2017 concert tour, with special guest Guster, on Thursday, July 6 at 6 p.m.

“We’ve been called the biggest band nobody’s ever heard of,” says Brad Corrigan, one of Dispatch’s three singers and multi-instrumentalists. “People either know everything about us or they know nothing. There never seems to be any middle ground.”

Founded by Middlebury College friends turned band of brothers Chad Stokes, Pete Francis, and Corrigan, Dispatch released four rapid-fire albums over four years and grew a tremendous reputation as a live act.

In 1996, they released their debut album, an acoustic-driven, folk-pop affair called Silent Steeples, on their own Bomber Records label, followed by 1998’s reggae-flavored Bang Bang.

“From Bang Bang on we started hearing that the music was being handed off to people’s friends and siblings,” Corrigan says. “We thought it was so cool that there was a family of fans developing.”

The 1999 release of Dispatch’s third album, Four-Day Trials, coincided with the launch of then-illegal, file-sharing service Napster, which enabled the band’s young, tech-savvy audience to freely share MP3’s of Dispatch songs like “The General” and “Bang Bang,” growing their audience in the process.

“We played a show at a college in Pomona, California — a state we’d never visited — and a thousand kids turned up and sang along to every word,” Francis says.

And yet at the height of their popularity, the members of Dispatch walked away.

“We were just incredibly burned out,” Corrigan says. “We had no real friendships outside of each other and we wanted to have lives outside of the band and be part of our communities again.”

Before going on an extended hiatus, Dispatch came together for one final farewell concert in their adoptive hometown of Boston.

That performance at Hatch Shell would provide a testament to the band’s live prowess, drawing over 110,000 people from around the country and world.

In the years that followed, the three members always found their way back to one another — perhaps most notably for a string of three, back-to-back, sold-out benefit shows at Madison Square Garden dubbed “Dispatch: Zimbabwe” in 2007, and a performance at the Kennedy Center in 2009 at the invitation of Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister.

In March 2012, Dispatch embarked on its first-ever European tour, performing at theatres in London, Paris, Berlin, and Zurich, before appearing at the Bonnaroo Festival in June, followed by the August release of the band’s first, full-length studio album in 12 years, Circles Around the Sun.

The album is an eclectic, all-American rock and roll record that delivers the gutsy storytelling, radiant harmonies, and good-time grooves that Dispatch are loved for.

Kicking things off is Stokes’ rootsy “Circles Around the Sun,” followed by the swaggering “Not Messin’” (composed by all three members), the jangly “Get Ready Boy,” and the bluesy “Josaphine,” before the album closes out with two, down-tempo tracks, Corrigan’s “We Hold A Gun” and Francis’ “Feels So Good.”

“We all bring different influences to the table, whether it be Led Zeppelin, Traffic, Radiohead, or Cat Stevens, and just kind of throw it all together,” Stokes says. “The harmonies are definitely a focal point. I personally like to tell stories within my songs. All three of us appreciate meaningful lyrics, whether they’re more direct, like in Brad’s songs, or more poetic, like in Pete’s songs.”

Dispatch went on to sell out another two-night benefit at Madison Square Garden in 2015 — this time aimed at raising funds and awareness for hunger within America’s borders.

As evidenced by their long track record of benefit concerts and service projects around the world, giving back to communities in need remains a priority for Stokes, Francis, and Corrigan, who run and support several charities and social causes in their spare time.

A portion of ticket sales will benefit these local charities.

At the Dispatch’s Forest Hills concert, they will perform “Only The Wild Ones,” their first new song in five years.

Forest Hills Stadium is located at 1 Tennis Place in Forest Hills.

For tickets and more information, go to www.foresthillsstadium.com.

For more information about the band and their tour schedule, visit www.dispatchmusic.com.

Share this Article