subject: Dispatch Tickets : All Three Of The Band's Members Are Currently Still In The Music Industry [print this page] Dispatch is an American indie/roots folk jam band formed at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vermont.
It was active from 1996 to 2002, and has come together three times for reunion concerts, first in 2004, and again in 2007 and 2009; additionally, on January 1, 2011, the band announced that it will undertake a reunion tour in June of the same year.
Dispatch experimented with a variety of genres, and as such, it is known as a very difficult band to categorize. The band was also instrumental in the creation of the non-profit organization The Elias Fund. Dispatch consisted of Brad Corrigan (vocals, drums, guitar, percussion, and harmonica), Pete Francis Heimbold (vocals, bass and guitar), and Chad Urmston (vocals, guitar, bass, and percussion).
Different styles and genres employed by the band include reggae (examples are "Mission", "Out Loud", "Open Up", "Passerby", and "Ride a Tear"), ska ("Bats in the Belfry" and "Railway"), folk ("Craze" and "The General"), funk ("Just Like Larry"), rock ("Even" and "Time Served"), Flamenco ("Steeples"), and hip hop ("Cut It Ya Match It").
All three of the band's members are currently still in the music industry. Urmston is now the front man of State Radio, while Corrigan (now credited as Braddigan, a nickname by which he was known since his time with Dispatch) and Heimbold (now credited as Pete Francis, Francis being his middle name) are pursuing solo efforts.
On January 5, 2007, the band announced a benefit concert entitled "Dispatch: Zimbabwe" which reunited the band on July 14, 2007, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York. All of the money raised from ticket sales went directly to charities that are fighting disease, famine and social injustice; the vast majority of the funds went to charities in Zimbabwe, though a portion was allocated to local charities that the band supports in the U.S.
On January 10, during the first half hour of the exclusive presale, available to their MySpace friends only, the band announced that the show was "officially sold out."
Dispatch quickly scheduled another show for Friday, July 13, 2007. This show sold out within 24 hours, resulting in the addition of yet another night: July 15, 2007. Tickets for this show went on sale January 20 at 9:00 AM on Ticketmaster, which also sold out. The band held multiple charity-ticket auctions for the show through Ticketmaster that raised an additional $20,000+ for The Elias Fund.
Shortly after the announcement of the three Madison Square Garden shows, the band also announced a show at New York City nightclub Webster Hall July 11, 2007. Tickets to the show were available on Ticketmaster through online auction only between June 20 and July 2. The minimum bid for a pair of tickets was $100.
Dispatch played an acoustic show at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. on June 12, 2009 at the request of Morgan Tsvangirai, Prime Minister of Zimbabwe. This was another benefit show for Zimbabwe, and the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe was in attendance. The show sold out within ten minutes of going on sale.
On November 15, 2010, the Dispatch website was updated with a countdown to the year 2011, with the words "Dispatch 2011" clearly visible in the top right, leading to speculation that one or more reunion concerts would be announced in the coming months.
Further adding to speculations of a reunion, on November 22, 2010, Dispatch tweeted an image of a QR code which pointed to a pin on Morrison, Colorado, the home of Red Rocks Amphitheater, on Google Maps, suggesting that a reunion concert might be played there. Speculation turned to the idea of a possible tour when more QR codes were released on each of the five subsequent Mondays, pointing to pins on Chicago, Illinois; Berkeley, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Atlanta, Georgia; and Harrison, New Jersey.
At midnight on January 1, 2011, Dispatch officially announced that they would mount a reunion tour the following June, with stops in each of the locations referenced. Additionally, the band announced that "a portion of all ticket proceeds will go towards education programs in local communities."
