BY EVAN SERPICK

Boston jam band reunited for three-night stand benefitting Zimbabwe

You want tickets for upcoming Justin Timberlake, Rod Stewart and John Mayer shows at New York's Madison Square garden? No problem. But Boston jam band Dispatch's three July gigs at the 20,000-seat venue sold out in days, with proceeds from the one-off reunion aiding poverty-stricken Zimbabwe.

If you're surprised to learn that Dispatch, who never released a major-label album and broke up three years ago, could sell out the Garden, you're not alone. "We catch ourselves off guard as much as anybody else," says drummer Brad Corrigan, who released a solo CD in 2005 and is working on the soundtrack to a surf film. The band members, who met at Middlebury College in the mid-1990s, found fans for ther reggae-ish folk rock among kids into Dave Matthews and Jack Johnson. After six years of near-constant touring, and four independent albums that sold more than 600,000 copies, they called it quits in 2004 with a free show in Boston attended by more than 100,000 fans.

Dispatch offered tickets to its MySpace friends for the first MSG show, slated for July 14th. When that sold out in thirty minutes, they announced a second show, for the 13th, which sold out twelve hours later. Finally, they added a third night and made the $39.50 tickets available to the general public through Ticketmaster. Those sold out in twenty-three minutes.

Guitarist-bassist Chad Urmston, who briefly lived in Zimbabwe before college, wrote a song called "Elias" about a friend he met there. "Zimbabwe is becoming a really frightening place to live," says Corrigan, who adds that the band plans to visit the country after the concerts to help determine which organizations can best administer the million of dollars it's raising. "The standard of living has eroded to the point that it feels like if the world doesn't watch very closely, I wouldn't be surprised to see Zimbabwe as the next Rwanda."

BY STEVE KANDELL

Dispatch never signed to a major label, broke up in 2004 - and are playing three nights at Madison Square Garden in July. Here's why.

"I was in a taxi when my best friend called me to say the first [New York's Madison Square] Garden show sold out in 30 minutes," says Pete Francis, 31, singer and bassist for the heretofore little-known Boston-based jam band Dispatch. "I didn't know what to think." Neither, it seems, does the music industry - while bigger arena shows are steadily giving way to smaller venues, the idea of a never-signed band that's been broken up for three years selling 57,000 at the country's most hallowed arena is an anomaly, to put it mildly.

Though the reunion shows were conceived to raise awareness of atrocities in Zimbabwe - all profits go toward humanitarian aid for the country - they've actually done much more to raise awareness of Dispatch, originally from Middlebury, Vermont, and previously for sitting behind their No. 1 fan, Shawn Fanning, when he testified before Congress in 2000 to defend Napster. Becoming early adapters of file-sharing has obviously served the trio well - thier 2004 farewell show in Boston drew a crowd of 110,000, all without label promotion or radio airplay. Even folks who track this sort of data for a living aren't quite sure what to make of the demand for Dispatch "It defies explanation," says Gary Bongiovanni of Pollstar. "But it's a great thing for the music business, seening an act like this developw ithout big-name backers. Usually, poeple in this industry are trying to figure out why something didn't sell."

So, what do these guys have to say to bands that have been living in stinky vans, traversing the country just to play to a fraction of Dispatch's Garden audience? "We were that band for eight years," says Francis. "I don't think we have to apologize."

Boston band you've never heard of sells out The Garden, plays for charity

BY MARY HUHN

Question: Which rock trio sold out its three Madison Square garden reunion concerts instantly? Hint: It's not The Police.

Answer: Dispatch.

Never heard of them? Neither have most of us.

The Boston band, which formed in 1995 and broke up in 2004, have a huge grass-roots following that helped make them the first indie band to headline - and sell out - MSG, where it performs this coming Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

The group - with drummer Brad Corrigan, 32, bassist Pete Francis, 31 and guitarist Chad Urmston, 31 - has never had much radio play or presence on MTV, and it doesn't have a gold record.

"It's been pretty crazy," bassist Francis tells The Post on a rehearsal break in Connecticut. "A lot of strange things have happened to the band."

The frenzy began when tickets for the first scheduled show, offered to Dispatch's 71,000 MySpace friends, sold out. Another show was added and sold out the same way. A third, sold out through Ticketmaster in 22 minutes.

For comparison's sake, the hyped Police shows sold out in 14 minutes and the White Stripes show on July 24 hasn't sold out yet.

And they're not even taking a cent of the profits: The members are reuniting to raise money and awareness for Zimbabwean charities and expect to earn nearly $800,000 for the new Dispatch Foundation.

The group, who met at Middlebury College in Vermont, built its strong following the old-fashioned way by constantly touring, and also the modern way by encouraging fans to share music files on peer-to-peer sites such as Napster and Limewire. (In fact, the three men became pals with Napster founder Shawn Fanning and headlined a Napster Goes to Washington concert on the eve of the Senate hearings in 2001.)

They've been surprised by a massive turnout before, but not on the level of The Garden.

When the band first played college shows and didn't know too much about publicity or advance press, a thousand people would show up and sing along.

In fact, their final show at the Hatch Shell, held on the banks of the Boston's Charles River, is legendary in fan circles (and now available on DVD).

"Honestly, we thought 10,000 or 20,000 would come," recalls Francis. "At 11 in the morning, there were 70,000 people. By 5 p.m., the time we started, there wre over 100,000."

After that show, the fiercely independent act was signed to Universal for a distribution deal of ther back catalog.

In terms of do-it-yourselfers, they could have been the models for bands such as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

"We were always happy with the way we played and recorded our music," says Francis. "Record companies like to re-record a band's music. We didn't want that."

And sure, the folky band, which mixes up rock, reggae and rap, played the eco-aware and defunct rock club Wetlands a zillion times and built an audience by living out of van, just as The Dave Matthews Band did, but they don't like their jam-band label.

"We're more eclectic than that. There is more song structure to our music," says Francis, who resists describing the music at all.

They broke up because it was time to move on, but the bandmates continue to be friends, as they proceed wih their musical careers.

Right now, they're working on tackling their MSG shows, and to get used to playing in front of people again, they'll do a warm-up show - also for charity, ticket bidding information is available on Ticketmaster - at Webster Hall on Wednesday.

'It's funny. On the first day of rehearsal, it's like we're a garage band. The next day it's a little bit better, and then the songs start coming," he says. "We don't try to put on a great show, and if it's not always perfect, it's not always perfect."

BY STEVE MORSE

NEW YORK -- When Dispatch played its farewell show before 100,000 people at the Hatch Shell three years ago, you could have marked it with an asterisk because it was a free gig. Of course many people would turn out for a free concert on a pristine summer day, though the numbers were indeed overwhelming and many fans came from around the world to say goodbye to this famously unsigned, grass-roots-popular Boston band.

Friday night's Dispatch reunion was another story. Fans plunked down hard-earned cash to see "Dispatch: Zimbabwe," a benefit concert that felt almost like Live Aid in its sincere message to eradicate famine and injustice on the African continent.

What's more, the band sold out all three Madison Square Garden shows over the weekend (an unprecedented feat for an unsigned act) and expected to clear $1 million for the cause.

"We can't believe this is happening. This is a dream come true," Dispatch singer Chad Urmston said Friday from a massive, full production stage that included overhead video screens beaming footage of the dire situation in Zimbabwe.

Although part of the audience was too drunk and stoned to notice, many still respectfully watched and were moved by images of drought victims, HIV sufferers (Zimbabwe has the second-highest infection rate in the world, according to one video segment), and orphaned children.

The concert also appropriately featured the African Children's Choir, which was euphorically received.

The wrenching Zimbabwe footage was a challenging contrast to the mostly uptempo, excellently played music, which the crowd sang along to as though Dispatch were the second coming of the Dave Matthews Band or Phish. Dispatch merged many rhythmic styles , from reggae ("Ride a Tear") and jazzy rock ( co-singer Pete Francis Heimbold sang "Lightning") to Latin ( Brad Corrigan jumped out from behind his drums to sing "Fallin' ").

The unquestioned highlight, though, was when these three Middlebury College graduates (all in their early 30s now) sat on chairs for an acoustic set on the roof of their longtime touring van nicknamed Wimpy. Urmston, Heimbold, and Corrigan then stood on the chairs for a song. It was crazy to see them act like such daredevils, but with three sold-out nights at Madison Square Garden, who could blame them?

BY KELEFA SANNEH

If you’re looking for an act to sell out Madison Square Garden three nights in a row, don’t look to the pop charts. Rihanna probably can’t do it. And the same goes for Plain White T’s, Fergie, Shop Boyz and T-Pain, all of whom sit atop Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.

But a beloved post-jam band called Dispatch did it, and did it without anything like a hit single. The band spent years building a fan base not known for its aversion to beer or marijuana. And three years ago, after the members decided they needed a break, they found a spectacular way to say goodbye: with a free show in Boston at the Hatch Shell, which drew more than 100,000 people. Friday’s Madison Square Garden concert, the first of the three, wasn’t just a Dispatch reunion. It was a reunion of Dispatch fans, none of whom seemed to have forgotten the words to their favorite songs.

This young crowd — largely drawn, or so it seemed, from the great white Metro-North — didn’t seem to mind a few rough edges. The three musicians looked and sounded a bit stiff, especially at first, but who wouldn’t? “We can’t believe this is happening,” said Chad Urmston, a singer and (uh-oh) sometime rapper. Pete Francis Heimbold, whose songs veer closer (double uh-oh) to earnest rock, said, “This is hard to believe.”

All right, let’s get it over with: This music is quite unpleasant. Profoundly unpleasant, sometimes. “Here We Go,” the funk-rap crowd-pleaser that opened the show, was one lowlight. “Lightning,” a bluesy ballad — and, relatively speaking, a crowd-displeaser — was another. At least “Open Up,” a reggae-rock narrative that ranks among the band’s best-known songs, has a playful and infectious chorus. But you can enjoy it only if you don’t mind the unmistakable scent of dorm-room reggae. Apparently millions (there must be millions, right?) of Dispatch fans don’t.

Still, the band’s achievement is impressive, and it’s a welcome reminder that the music industry isn’t reducible to the rather sad spectacle of multinational corporations trying to exchange CDs for cash. Although Dispatch’s albums are now distributed by Universal Records, the band’s rise is a do-it-yourself success story. The members don’t do a lot of jamming, but they benefited from the jam-band network that once nurtured less straightforward groups. They also benefited from Napster, and they spoke out for it back when major labels were just starting to realize how much trouble they were in.

This wasn’t merely a concert for old time’s sake. The official title was “Dispatch: Zimbabwe,” and the band announced that money from tickets would go to help the people of Zimbabwe, who are struggling with food shortages and high HIV rates among many other problems. Mr. Urmston spent six months living there, and wrote a popular song, “Elias,” about his experience. And so Zimbabwe was the night’s theme: There was the African Children's Choir, there were Zimbabwean percussionists, and every so often the stage went dark for video interludes.

Since so many concert fund-raisers seem vague or half-baked, it was gratifying to see that the band members really knew and cared about the cause. But the videos were too long and too many for a show like this. (The murmured, accented English of the Zimbabwean subjects, accompanied by subtitles, stretched boozy attention spans to the limit and beyond.) And while the decision to avoid politics was probably strategic, that omission couldn’t help but distort the story. Facts and figures filled the screens, but the never-ending presidency of Robert Mugabe was mentioned only once, with little context. Some fans probably came away with the impression that Zimbabwe’s main problem is a lack of rain, but the truth is it’s hard to imagine a disaster less natural than the one unfolding in Zimbabwe.

And yet, without a cause as deeply felt as this one, these concerts might not have happened at all. On Dispatch’s last studio album, “Who Are We Living For?,” you could hear the members tugging in different directions, and these days Mr. Urmston leads a new band, State Radio, while Mr. Heimbold and Brad Corrigan, the singing drummer, are both solo acts. These three seemed happy enough to be onstage again, but you could tell they were doing it for the fans, for the people of Zimbabwe — not, primarily, for themselves.

No doubt they’re all proud of what Dispatch has accomplished. But if none of them are really motivated by a burning desire to roll out the old tour van, park it in the middle of the Garden’s floor, climb up on top and deliver goofy raps over acoustic guitars — as they did, halfway through the show — well, can you really blame them?

Correction: July 20, 2007

A music review on Monday about the band Dispatch, at Madison Square Garden, referred incorrectly to a group that also performed. The group, the African Children’s Choir, included children from Zimbabwe and other African countries; it was not a “Zimbabwean children’s choir.”

BY SARAH RODMAN

When Dispatch sold out venerable New York rock haunt the Roseland Ballroom in 2001, they received a plaque commemorating the fact that they were the first unsigned band in history to pack the 3,200-capacity club. When the former Boston-based trio kicks off "Dispatch: Zimbabwe" -- three sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden beginning Friday -- it will be another first for an unsigned band. Sherborn-born multi-instrumentalist Chad Urmston jokes, "Maybe we can get some trophies or something."

It's quite a turnout for an indie act that was an underground success, early beneficiaries of Napster, and online social networking. Urmston and then Middlebury College buddies Brad Corrigan and Pete Francis Heimbold formed the band in 1995, playing a rock-reggae-folk-pop-world-jazz hybrid and putting out six albums. They broke up without fanfare in 2002, then played one more gig: a record-shattering free show at the Hatch Shell in 2004 that, according to some reports, drew upward of 110,000 fans. (That show was chronicled on the now erroneously titled 2005 DVD "The Last Dispatch.")

Since breaking up, Urmston, Corrigan and Heimbold have gone on to the individual solo projects State Radio, Braddigan, and Pete Francis, respectively, but each has continued the grass-roots social activism that was always a component of the group. There are two reasons for this week's temporary reunion: band manager Steve Bursky and Zimbabwe. Bursky asked band members if they'd be interested in regrouping, and the trio agreed on the contingency that the shows would benefit the country Urmston fell in love with on a 1994 trip. One hundred percent of the net proceeds will go to agricultural, educational, and medical organizations in the African nation; the concerts will also double as canned food and used book and CD drives. The shows sold out within hours.

We caught up with Urmston by telephone from New York.

Q. Even though the Hatch Shell show was such a huge success, three lightning-quick sell-outs of Madison Square Garden had to be a surprise.

A. It was like, "Oh [expletive], now we've got to get working." [Laughs] We were so surprised in Boston when that many people came out [to the Hatch Shell], and you don't know if that was just a lucky thing, a convergence of a lot of good factors. So when this happened, it was like wow, this is for real, people do still sort of care about Dispatch. We felt really honored.

Q. Previously you've all talked about the dynamic of the band as a sort of hard-won democracy. It's notable that you were all selfless with your time, energy, and money when it came to using the band to spotlight worthy causes, but when it came to the band itself your egos got in the way a lot. Has that changed?

A. Any creative process with friends is tricky. Now that we're older, we're better about letting things just flow underneath the bridge if they don't really need to be stopped. When you're in a trio, you're very used to the idea of two guys going at it with their own vision and the other one comes in and takes a side. I think we used to be more defensive about that than we are now. Now it's pretty straightforward: If two people want it and one doesn't, then it's two vs. one and let's keep moving. We're better at that now.

Q. Why Zimbabwe?

A. The song "Elias" [written about a Zimbabwean farm hand Urmston met on his 1994 trip to the African nation] had become a big part of our live shows and our identity, so when the idea to do a benefit came up, it was a cause that the three of us could get behind because we have a history with this. And in the press now in the States, there's no sign of the tragedy that's befallen Zimbabwe, so it was something we felt like we could bring a voice to and that we needed to do right at this moment because the country is just spiraling down so quickly. For women, it has the lowest life expectancy rate in the world.

Q. How will money be distributed?

A. We're looking into five to six NGOs that are either education-based, agriculturally based, or HIV-focused. We're really in the process now of educating ourselves about the right NGOs to work with. There are some great organizations that are nonpolitical and are doing good things in Zimbabwe.

Q. Since you're identified as a Boston band, why not do this at our Garden?

A. With this band everything is very even, so it's like [the Hatch Shell] was my thing, Pete's from the New York City area, so it was sort of like it was his turn.

Q. Where's Brad from?

A. Colorado.

Q. Hmm. So is this truly the last Dispatch? Have you even claimed that it is?

A. No, this time we have not.

Q. You've learned your lesson?

A. Yeah, we don't want to be that band. [Laughs] "We're back!"

Q. So you guys might play again?

A. You may see us in four or five years in Colorado.

DISPATCH. When a cult band sells out three shows at the world's most famous arena it may be time to rethink the term "cult band." Seen friday at Madison Square Garden.

BY MAC RANDALL

The New England rock trio Dispatch was being true to life when it named one of it's albums "Under the Radar." From its formation in 1996 to its breakup in 2004, the band never signed to a record label and drew barely a trace of media attention.

And yet somehow Dispatch made a major name for itself outside the music biz's regular channels - first through word of mouth and then thanks to Napster and other Internet file-sharing services. Within five years, the group had gone from northeastern cult favorite to worldwide phenomenon, selling hundreds of thousands of CDs.

The band members' decision to reunite for three concerts was noble and cocky. The noble part was the cause: to benefit charities assisting the poverty-stricken country of Zimbabwe. The cocky part was the venue: Madison Square Garden. But when all three nights sold out in an hour, the cockiness seemed justified.

Clearly, somebody out there like Dispatch. But who? And why?

The answers to these questions weren't hard to find at Friday's opening show of the three-night stand. The Garden's seats (and aisles) were filled with enthusiastic college-age party animals, so many of whom were wearing Red Sox apparel that one began to suspect a mass emigration had been arranged from Dispatch's Boston HQ.

What drew them was obvious from the band's first note. Dispatch specializes in the kind of good-timey, groove-oriented rock that easy to smoke, drink, dance, and sing along to.

Funk and hip-hop made regular appearances in the group's stylistic mix, but reggae, ska and other Caribbean syles provided the most prominent flavors. When they weren't indulging their Bob Marley fixation, the three Dispatchers sounded like a friendly cross between the Dave Matthews Band, Guster, Barenaked Ladies, and the Red Hot Chili peppers.

There's no doubt that drummer-guitarist-singer Brad Corrigan, bassist-guitarist-singer Pete Francis and guitarist-bassist-singer Chad Urmston are musically simpatico. They play with the kind of intuitive tightness that only comes from years of live experience.

Their instrument-swapping versatility impressed, as did their ambitious, sucessful, attempts to incorporate a Zimbabwean children's choir and percussion ensemble on several numbers.

If only their songs were more consistently interesting. A few tapped into potent hooks: the busy funk riff that underpinned "Time Served," the uplifting chorus of "The General." But more often than not, the music was relentlessly average.

Still, the Dispatchers deserve credit for pulling off a significant coup. Midway through the show, they clambored atop their ancient touring van parked in the middle of the Garden - a clever acknowledgement of the years they've spent on the road - and played an engaging acoustic miniset. Unleashing their inner Crosby, Stills and Nash on "Prince of Spades," they managed to make the cavernous confines of a sports arena seem intimate. And that's no easy trick.

BY ELI GOLDEN

New York -- Dispatch: Zimbabwe was a celebration.

Not only was it a celebration of a three-member Boston band back together after its breakup three years ago. Nor was it merely a celebration of the band's ability to sell out three shows at New York's Madison Square Garden, becoming the first independent group to headline the venue.

It was a celebration of music and its unique power to change the world.

On Friday night, the first of a three-concert series, the band ripped through classic songs as if it never broke up.

Opening with the rocked-out singalong, "Here We Go," Dispatch launched into its set with the type of energy one has come to expect from the Boston natives. However, there were no stereotypical cries of, "we're back." Instead, Dispatch took to the background, allowing its message to take center stage: Zimbabwe.

After playing its last show to an overwhelming Hatch Shell crowd of neary 110,000 in 2004, the members of Dispatch realized that in order to raise awareness of the perils in Zimbabwe, where guitarist Chad Urmston lived for six months when he was 18, they had to reunite for a series of benefits.

Friday night, by the power of a big-screen documentary, concertgoers were reminded of the turmoil in Zimbabwe. A victim of economic downfall, HIV epidemics and drought, the country is on the brink of destruction.

"If Zimbabwe was a business, today they'd be closing their doors," Dispatch drummer Brad Corrigan told the crowd.

With first-hand stories of peril, the documentaries continuously faded in and out, actng as transitions betweens Dispatch's sets.

Dispatch also welcomed several Zimbabwean guests, including a tribal dance group, a children's choir and a band called Bongo Love. The acts offered interesting takes on such Dispatch clasics as "Flying Horses," "Outloud" and the Zimbabwe-themed "Elias."

All profits ffrom the shows are going to aid the people of Zimbabwe, including donations from such businesses as Crocs, which is donating 10,000 of its sandals to Zimbabwean children.

Three Boston guys are proving that by uniting people though music, they can change the world -- and that's what music is all about.

BY GENE SANTORO

They don't have a major label deal. They haven't toured in three years. And most of you have probably never even heard of them.

But none of this has stopped the 1990s do-it-yourself band Dispatch from selling out a reuinion show at Madison Square Garden tonight - in 23 minutes, no less.

Then they added two more shows. Those sold out in half an hour.

Credit the years of touring and, back in the day, Napster. Exposure there, says vocalist Pete Francis, meant that the band "suddenly went from playing mostly New York and Boston to touring California. And everyone alread knew the words to our songs."

Consider it a prime example of how Internet distribution can make an end run around narrow-band radio playlists. Dispatch even wound up attending Napster's congressional hearings with heavyweights like Don Henley, Alanis Morissette and Chuck D.

"Now," Francis declares, "the music landscape has changed drmatically. In 1996, it was focused on record companies. What was happening with Napster was almost invisible. The big labels weren't ready for it. They wanted to control distribution, instead of letting people find their own music. And now, I think, they're sorry they blew it."

After building its audience, Dispatch took a long layoff following a 2004 farewell concert outside Boston. That show drew 110,000 fans from 27 countries.

This weekend's reunion shows have a second goal - to help the embattled people of Zimbabwe.

"One of our songs, 'Elias,' is about a Zimbabwean friend," Francis explains. "It's a prayer. We sing in Shona about love and hope. So we coulndn't ignore how starvation, inflation, government oppression and AIDS were mounting up there to terrifying levels."

Since forming in 1996, the three-man Dispatch has mixed reggae, funk, Afropop, folk, and rock into a cunning, catchy, jam-band mix. They first found an audience at small clubs in New York and Boston, selling CDs from the stage to high school and college fans.

Then came Napster and the Internet downloading revolution.

"This era has given bands a certain freedom," Francis says. "But the danger now is in too much freedom and exposure. There are literally millions of bands on www.myspace.com. People have to remember the way we did it was to tour constantly and hang with fans after the shows. It's not enough to just put up a blog."

That sense of community helps explain why Dispatch can fill the Garden. Yet even they remain surprised by their sucess. "It's a mystery: We get bigger after we stop touring," Francis quips. "We'll never go back to doing 200 dates a year. But I think we all like the idea of doing big shows like this, something that's got real meaning and impact."

Dispatch: Zimbabwe: Revered band reunites to send out a SOS about African nation

BY CHRISTOPHER BLAGG

The semidefunct jam-rock group Dispach has made a habit of exceeding expectations. Ten thousand people were expected for its 2004 "farewell" show at the Hatch Shell. Instead, 110,000 came.

Dispatch has returned, surprising the music industry yet again, selling out this weekend's three-night benefit concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City to raise money and awareness for Zimbabwe - a country suffering from economic collapse, drought, and the HIV/AIDS crisis. Dispatch is bigger than ever.

At their rehearsal space in Sherborn a few months ago, the trio seemed just as surprised as everyone else. "I was nervous about playing even one show at the Garden," said bassist/guitarist Pete Heimbold, "I mean, it's one thing to play at the Hatch Shell for a free concert..." Added drummer Brad Corrigan, "Our last show (at the Hatch Shell) was such a good one, such a wild one, that we were just wondering is there was any more pixie dust left."

The magic is indeed back, considering the band managed to sell out Madison Square Garden without the help of radio singles, MTV or other mainstream media outlets. Three years out of the spotlight didn't lessen the band's momentum from that Esplanade concert.

"After the Hatch Shell, everyone, including people from the music industry were saying, 'You have to get back together. Look at your fan base now!' For me it was more like, 'What a great way to go!'" said guitarist Chad Urmston.

Their reunion comes not out of boredom or desperation (all three enjoy solo careers, Urmston fronts the popular State Radio), but out of conscience. "If we were getting together just to play music and eke out a paycheck I don't think it would have worked. So to have an opportunity to get everyone together and then to not just be entertainers, but to gve a voice to a story, that's a huge deal," said Corrigan.

So why Zimbabwe? Urmston lived in Zimbabwe for six months when he was 18, and the troubled nation and its people have held a grip on him since. One of Dispatch's most popular songs, "Elias," came out of his experiences there.

"In the past 15 years, Zimbabwe's become a story of tragic proportions," said Urmston. "We wanted to do somethng that had a connection to the three of us, that wasn't necessarily all over the press, and something that we could bring some awareness to."

BOSTON (AP) - Their 2004 farewell concert brought some 110,000 people to the banks of the city's Charles River - even though the band never signed a record deal, filmed a music video or even hired a booking agent.

Now, three years after the members of Dispatch - an underground band formed in a dorm room at college - went their separate ways to pursue careers in Boston, New York and Denver, word of reunion concerts to raise money for charity spread so quickly, they sold out New York's Madison Square Garden for three straight nights, in just 30 minutes per concert.

''It is an unbelievable thing when you realize your gift as an entertainer in one culture is the difference between life and death in another culture,'' said Braddigan, Dispatch's vocalist, drummer, guitarist and percussionist formerly known as Brad Corrigan.

Braddigan will reunite with Chad Urmston and Pete Francis on Friday through Sunday for concerts to raise awareness and money for people hit by worsening political and economic conditions in the southern African nation of Zimbabwe. Madison Square Garden officials say Dispatch is the first independent band to headline and sell out for three straight nights.

Their remarkable evolution follows humble beginnings 1995 in a dorm room at Middlebury in Vermont.

''We were these three guys who were coming to terms with finishing up college and finishing up with sports - all three of us were athletes,'' Braddigan, 32, said by telephone from his home in Denver, where he was recording his latest album. ''We had guitars, we loved to sing and we started playing music as that transition out of school.''

The band was initially sustained only by the artists' joy in playing under their own label, Bomber Records.

They had neither mainstream radio play, a publicity operation nor a deal with a major record label. Fans, however, tapped into the Internet to spread their music as the indie band performed at prep schools, colleges and local music joints.

The band first saw the reach of underground music when they traveled to a college in Pomona, Calif., for their first show on the West coast. They had low expectations: a couple of hundreds of fans and maybe selling 20 CDs.

''There were 1,200 kids there that were waiting for us and when we played our first song, on the opening chord, they all started cheering as if they knew the music,'' Braddigan said. ''By the end of the gig, at least two-thirds of the kids were singing along to all the songs.''

''As soon as we jumped offstage we were, like, 'What's going on here? How do you guys know our music?''' he said. ''And this kid just said 'Oh, so you haven't heard of Napster yet?'''

Dispatch's varied sound became popular on college radios. As their popularity grew, the musicians say they rejected contracts with several major record labels because they feared commercialization would compromise their sound - a combination of reggae, ska, folk, rap and rock.

Dispatch's unique sound and independence was appealing to fans, said Evan Souliere, 21, an engineering student at Northeastern University: ''They're like the underdogs of the music industry that have proven that you don't need big labels to get your music heard.''

So, when news of the farewell concert got out, more than 100,000 people jammed the banks of Boston's Charles River - with some watching the free concert from boats and others climbing nearby trees to see the July 2004 performance.

''We had played for a long time together and really been on the road quite a bit - putting in a lot of hours touring, in the studio, living with each other. And I think sometimes, just like in a lot of relationships in life, you just have to kind of move on,'' said Francis, formerly known as Pete Heimbold, who is pursuing a solo career and co-owns a recording studio in New York.

Urmston was first to develop ties with Zimbabwe, where he went to live and teach there at age 18.

The vocalist, bassist, guitarist and percussionist said his experiences pushed him to help set up and raise money for the Elias Fund, a nonprofit organization that provides scholarships and food to the needy in Zimbabwe's southwestern Chiredzi region.

The situation worsened drastically in recent years after disastrous land reforms. Shortages of food, hard currency, gasoline, medicines and other essential goods are acute. Power and water outages occur daily. Health and social services have crumbled in a nation with one of the world's highest rates of HIV/AIDS infection. An estimated 3,000 people die each week from AIDS-related illnesses.

The musicians are setting up the Dispatch Foundation to support charity causes in Zimbabwe and elsewhere, and are using occasional reunion concerts to raise funding. They hope to raise $1 million from the Madison Square Garden concerts.

Braddigan discovered his charity cause in La Chureca, a dusty trash dump in Nicaragua. The devout Christian was shocked to see about 200 families living in squalid conditions - with a child prostitution ring and drug dealers flourishing at the squatter camp in the capital, Managua.

He has since visited the trash dump more than 20 times in the last 2 1/2 years, performed a live concert there and helped set up a charity called Love, Light and Melody. The group is raising funds for a school and training programs to help residents learn new skills that would open the path out of the camp.

At home, Francis has raised money for Waterside School, a K-5 private school that offers underprivileged children access to high-quality education in Stamford, Conn.

Michael Lantow, 17, of Deerfield, Ill., says a commitment to charity adds an appealing dimension to Dispatch, and he plans to travel to New York for their upcoming concerts.

''I'm not just going for the great music - I'm going for the cause as well,'' Lantow said. ''I really admire the fact that they are playing together again, not in hopes to be a band again, but to raise money and awareness to Zimbabwe.''

Trio reunite to raise money the rock 'n' roll way

BY LANE JOHNSON

amNew York staff writer

Dispatch is the biggest band you've never heard of.

Disbanded in 2004, the trio announced in January on MySpace that they would be holding a one-off benefit concert at Madison Square Garden to raise funds and awareness for an imperiled Zimbabwe. Tickets sold out in 30 minutes. So they added a second dae. Same story. They added a third date. Same story.

Rising to underground fame in the late '90s as a poster child for the revolutionary file-sharing program Napster, Dispatch never even signed to a major label, and it's now to be the first independent band to ever sell out the Garden - to say nothing of three nights.

But this won't be the first for the trio of Brad Corrigan, Pete Francis, and Chad Urmston. Having disolved the band in 2004 - because, Corrigan told amNew York, they had long ago agreed to never sell out, and after eight years of playing to progressively larger crowds, the members' fun and friendships waned as their fame grew - the group held a free farewell concert in Boston. By their count, 110,000 fans showed. The Garden seats 20,000.

The band proudly proclaims "Last Dispatch" to be the largest indie music event in history, and now after three years apart, the group is following up that show with "Dispatch: Zimbabwe," the three-day Garden run that vocalist, drummer, and guitarist Corrigan said should raise around $1 million for aid to the southern African country.

"Any musician that receives a platform and an opportunity to play should be involved in social commentary and pursuing social justice," Corrigan said.

In 1994, Vocalist/guitarist Urston lived in Zimbabwe, and the band has been concerned since.

"That country is falling to pieces right now," Corrigan said, pointing to its rampant poverty and unemployment, out-of-control inflation, and HIV/AIDS pandemic.

The money raised from "Dispatch:Zimbabwe" will go to The Dispatch Foundation, which will fund projects in Zimbabwe "one drop a time," Corrigan said. "If you hvae a plan to fundraise, you better be doubly committed to watching every dollar - every dollar - or you're instantly becoming part of the problem," he said.

But first, Dispatch still has to deliver on its promise of three nights of roots and reggae-flecked rock. And to do that, they must rehearse - which in glittery NYC has its own peculiar perks.

"We got to eat J-Lo's leftover fruit plates," Corrigan said of rehearsal last week.

Dispatch

Reuniting for the greater good

BY JASON BOYETT

Brad Corrigan is crouching on stage, surrounded by amps, speakers and microphone cables. A crowd of rowdy college students dances below him while his Puerto Rican percussionist, Reinaldo de Jesus, and Brazilian bassist, Tiago Machado, settle into a Latin/reggae beat. Smoke drifts over them.

Only the smoke isn’t fake machine-pumped concert smoke. It’s the real thing, streaming from a 40-foot-high ridge behind Corrigan, where piles of trash have been burning all afternoon. The stage is a flatbed trailer. The rowdy, dancing students all have Nicaraguan kids perched on their shoulders, laughing and grinning and swatting at each other in the dust and haze. And Corrigan is squatting so a little cross-eyed boy—who looks about two years old, has a belly distended from malnutrition and isn’t wearing any shoes—can strum his guitar while Corrigan fingers the chords. They laugh at each other. A few seconds later, Corrigan pops back to the mic and continues the song, in Spanish.

He’s putting on a full-fledged rock concert in Managua, Nicaragua, literally in the middle of a trash dump. The North Americans in the audience are Corrigan’s friends and family, plus a few busloads of college students on a spring-break service project. The Nicaraguans enjoying the show are residents of La Chureca, a shantytown community located in the dump itself.

It’s a far cry from Madison Square Garden, where Corrigan will soon take the stage with Pete Heimbold and Chad Urmston, his old bandmates from eclectic cult-favorite indie trio Dispatch. The group is briefly reuniting for Dispatch: Zimbabwe, a three-night benefit concert, with all proceeds going to organizations fighting disease, famine and social injustice in the embattled African nation. Though these shows aren’t until mid-July, they’ve already made history. Dispatch is the first indie band to headline and sell out the Garden. Originally conceived as a one-night set, tickets for the concert were gone within the first 30 minutes of sales. So two more nights were added. They, too, sold out immediately. The band was offered additional dates but turned them down.

Which leads us to the nagging question: Who are these guys? Dispatch began in 1995, when Corrigan, Heimbold and Urmston met as students at Middlebury College in Vermont. They quickly earned a dedicated regional fan base, playing show after show in Boston and New York, and releasing several studio and live albums on their own label. They became known for their difficult-to-categorize, rock-roots-reggae fusion, intricate harmonies and instrument swapping (all three shared singing and songwriting duties, including Corrigan, who’s generally identified as Dispatch’s drummer). The trio hit its stride during the Napster file-sharing heyday, and within a few years—after the sale of a few hundred thousand independently released CDs—had become a word-of-mouth sensation on the East and West Coasts.

Then they more or less broke up in 2002, officially closing shop in 2004 with The Last Dispatch, a free outdoor performance at the Hatch Shell in Boston. An estimated crowd of 110,000 people—far more than the attendance for Phish’s farewell concert at Coventry just a few weeks later—showed up from as far away as South Africa and Australia. It’s generally considered to have been the largest independent concert in music history. The guys were stunned. “We went out on top,” Corrigan says.

Then it was over. All three embarked on solo projects. Urmston now heads up State Radio. Heimbold records as Pete Francis. Corrigan tours as Braddigan.

Which leads to yet another question: What’s with the trash-dump rock show?

“Music has always been the most powerful conveyor of social justice,” says Corrigan, who’s spent the last three years dividing his time between music and a humanitarianism fueled by his Christian faith. His platform as a musician, he says, allows him to tell the stories of suffering people and overlooked communities.

The dump village, La Chureca, is one of them. Its families typically subsist on less than a dollar a day, earning money by picking out recyclable aluminum and plastic from the garbage. Many of their kids are addicted to sniffing glue; the cheap high masks their hunger. Young girls are forced into prostitution to provide extra income for their families. And it all takes place among this heartbreakingly apocalyptic landscape of garbage, smoke and ashes.

The concert there is the culmination of “Día de Luz” (Day of Light), during which Corrigan and his volunteers spent an afternoon working and playing alongside the people of La Chureca. He organized this event to bring attention to the devastated community, hoping to do for it what Dispatch will do this month for the crisis in Zimbabwe. And while a trash dump is no one’s idea of a passable concert venue, it does have a certain Dispatch-y feel to it—a grassroots-style, root-for-the-underdog idealism.

While neither Urmston nor Heimbold were able to attend Corrigan’s event, both have long identified with the activism behind it. “The three of us always talked about how music can be an avenue for awareness of suffering in the world,” Heimbold says. “It’s the best art form for that.”

Urmston echoes that sentiment. “For the little man trying to make his voice heard, music can give a voice to the voiceless,” he says. Part of the Dispatch legacy is the establishment of The Elias Fund, a nonprofit educational and community-development organization for Zimbabwean youth. The organization grew out of the popularity of the band’s song “Elias,” which Urmston wrote about a gardener he met while living in Zimbabwe in 1994. Among other things, the fund is providing scholarships to educate the real-life Elias’s sons.

“We started it, but the fans took hold of it,” Heimbold says of The Elias Fund. “Music brings people together. It’s healing.”

And yet music’s healing power wasn’t strong enough to keep Dispatch from calling it quits at the height of its popularity. What was it that prohibited these three guys—all humanitarians, all dedicated to making the world a better place—from getting along with each other? Why couldn’t they make it work? Their answer is simple: the same idealism that connected them also led to their demise.

“We always said we’d stop playing when the band, as a business, got in the way of our friendships,” Urmston says. “We maintained it on the power of genuineness with each other. We wanted to stay honest. But when we stopped in 2002, that honesty and sincerity were around the corner from walking out on us.” He attributes it to the vast transitions people undergo between those early college years and real-world adulthood. “We grew into different people from age 19 to 27. Different personalities, different ideologies, different career goals. We were an equal partnership, but we weren’t in the same boat. We didn’t have a captain. It was time to stop.”

Today the guys live in different cities—Corrigan in Denver, Heimbold in New York, Urmston in Boston—yet they remain close. They keep up with each other’s families. They’ve been known to sit in on each others’ gigs when their traveling and performance schedules match up. They briefly reunited on stage in late 2005, when Corrigan invited State Radio and Heimbold to contribute tracks to The Relief Project, a live benefit CD and concert he put together.

“All of us still love and support each other, but we appreciate our differences,” Corrigan says. “Zimbabwe is so off-the-charts in terms of the need there, we can set aside those differences for three days.”

While a Dispatch reincarnation or reunion tour has never been something the guys seriously considered (“I don’t want [the cast of] Seinfeld to get back together either,” Corrigan says), the success of their farewell concert made them aware that, as a band, they had a lot more power than as three individual artists. “The Boston show blew our minds. What kind of money could we raise if we got back together?” Urmston says. “Initially, I was up for it as long as it was for a good reason.”

They found that reason in Zimbabwe, through their connection to The Elias Fund. “The three of us have friends there,” Corrigan says. “They tell us what they’ve seen.”

“We’d all been keeping up with the atrocities happening in Zimbabwe, and the lack of humanity there,” Heimbold adds. “I read almost every day about the inflation, the starvation, the disease.” Separately, all three are able to list the sickening stats that have piled up during the last few years of Robert Mugabe’s rule. Skyrocketing inflation and unemployment rates have resulted in severe poverty and near-starvation for millions. Coupled with recent droughts and the spread of HIV, a once-prosperous country has become a desperately poor one. “After Rwanda, we said this kind of thing would never happen again,” Corrigan says, “but no one seems to be intervening. We totally have the ability to swing a spotlight over there.”

And it may not end with Zimbabwe. All three band members indicate that this may be the first in a series of Dispatch reunion concerts—one, perhaps, every couple of years—for a greater cause.

“Music is so universal,” Urmston says. “It’s a gateway. It lets us start a dialogue about issues that are important to us, that need to be discussed and brought to the surface.” Along with his good friends and former bandmates, he’s hoping Dispatch: Zimbabwe will have that effect. “But if people just like the music, you know, that’s cool, too.”

For more information, visit EliasFund.org.

Dispatch reunite for a good cause.

BY MATT ASHARE

Dispatch aren’t even supposed to be a band anymore. Indeed, they broke up three summers ago, with a farewell show at the Hatch Shell that drew more than 100,000 fans from around the world. “The Last Dispatch,” as it was dubbed, became the centerpiece of a documentary that detailed the trio’s rise over the course of eight years to become one of the dominant jam bands in the Northeast, if not in America. Like Phish, they did it without much help from press, radio, or even a label. They simply spread their particular jam-band gospel — a mix of light reggae and funk with long, dubby dance breakdowns — through word of mouth and self-released albums. And when they finally began to show up on the commercial radar by selling out venues like the Pavilion here in Boston, and a big major-label cash-in became a real prospect, Brad Corrigan, Pete Heimbold, and Chad Urmston realized that they’d grown too far apart as people to continue as a band.

It was a decision that baffled many, given the money that was at stake. But as artists they had never been an easy outfit to nail down. In fact, it’s three years later and Dispatch don’t sound broken up. I’m sitting with the three of them at the Willis family barn, a holy shrine in the tale of Dispatch. Situated about a half-hour outside of Boston in Sherborn, surrounded by grazing cows, this was Dispatch central for eight years. Urmston, who plays guitar and bass and sings and writes (so does Heimbold; Corrigan does drums and singing and writes), grew up down the road a bit. But his family have got just a horse and some chickens. No cows. And, it seems, no barn big enough to serve as a rehearsal space/clubhouse. The three have convened here to begin practicing for a reunion gig of sorts: “Dispatch: Zimbabwe,” on July 13, 14, and 15 at Madison Square Garden in New York. They had intended to do just one show to raise money for a foundation that’s being set up to alleviate suffering and spotlight the dire circumstances in the land of strongman Robert Mugabe. But that show sold out so quickly that a second and then a third were added. MSG offered them two more nights; being Dispatch, they had to say no.

“We didn’t think we could deliver what the crowd deserves for a fourth and fifth night,” explains Corrigan. Urmston goes on, “You know, we’re not the world’s best band, by any means. In some ways, the reason it’s important for Brad and me to have something behind what we’re doing — a cause of some kind — is because we’re not a band who are out touring or who are creating together on a regular basis. Most if not all of these tunes date back to 1995 or something. I feel like we sound like a high-school band. The songs are good, but some of them were written when we were 18. And we’re about to go into Madison Square Garden with songs that don’t feel that sophisticated to me. So I was getting a little insecure. I worry that someone’s going to come and see us and just think, ‘What’s the big deal.’ ”

“That’s just our own competitive psyches,” says Corrigan. “And that’s the cool thing: we come from that perspective, all three of us, where we’re always trying to be better. I feel like I’m not a conventional drummer. None of us knows who’s the lead singer. But when we come together, we’re a whole. I mean, three brothers want to be separate individuals. But they are still brothers. So in a way, we really haven’t broken up because, in a way, it goes on.”

Those are the words of a band who passed on signing a fat contract because it didn’t “feel right.” Corrigan continues, “I think what took precedence was that the success of the band couldn’t make us stay together just because we were successful. We wanted to stay together because it felt right. And it just didn’t for those last couple of years.”

“Looking back on it now,” Heimbold weighs in, “it was probably a healthier thing that we decided to stop playing together, because I don’t think events like ‘Dispatch: Zimbabwe’ would have happened. I think if we had gone to a major label, if we had gone that route, we would have broken up and maybe it could have been over — over for good.”

Not that there weren’t plenty of people advising them to cash in. “It was kind of a divided camp,” Corrigan recalls. “There were a lot of people on the outside who were telling us, ‘Maybe you should just fake it. Maybe you should sign the big record deal. You guys have earned it.’ If we had done that, I think all of us would have this weird bad feeling associated with the decision, there would be this tarnish on what was a beautiful thing and started in a really simple way.”

If Heimbold’s words don’t resonate with the same romanticism as Corrigan’s, that could be because, working solo under the name Pete Francis (his first and middle names), he actually did go the major-label route, releasing Untold in 2003 on Hollywood. The experience brought him more in line with Corrigan’s way of thinking, though for purely pragmatic reasons. “I found that my arms were a little too tied. And it took too long to make decisions. Although it took a long time to make decisions with the three of us in Dispatch, it wasn’t nearly as long as that.”

While Corrigan moved on from Dispatch to do his own indie thing under the name Braddigan, Urmston started the more overtly political band State Radio, first releasing an EP on the local Fenway label and then, in 2006, signing to Nettwerk for the full-length Us Against the Crown. And for a time, it appeared that Dispatch were indeed done. But the three friends kept in touch. And as conditions in Zimbabwe continued to worsen, even Heimbold was drawn to the idea of reuniting for “Dispatch: Zimbabwe.”

“I had to learn about it,” he says. “Things started to build over the past few months. You’d go to the front page of Google and there would be something about Mugabe and something about civilians protesting and then getting beaten up, the inflation, the problems with disease. So then I really knew that it was something important. But it took me a little time to really grasp what was going on and feel that we should get behind it as a group. I have to look at the facts, see what’s going on, hear what my bandmates have to say, before making a decision. It’s a balancing act. I think we have a core belief in the goodness of people and we want to help people. The other details have to be ironed out. Because Chad has these political things that he loves singing about and writing about. And that doesn’t interest me. But in this process you can learn. I can ask myself, ‘Why is Chad interested in this politically?’ And, I can ask myself, “What does religion and God and Jesus mean to Brad?’ There were a lot of times I felt like I didn’t really want to have anything to do with that stuff. But it’s now three years later, and we haven’t been a band, and I’ve been able more to look at it and say, ‘I respect what both of these guys are doing.’ ”

Corrigan steps in as peacemaker: “I think the three of us agree, in our solo work and with Dispatch, that we’re trying to leave a greater impression than just what we do on stage. There’s more to our art than just coming to a rock show.”

“Actually, I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that at all,” Heimbold says. “I do this because I love playing music with these two guys, just to please the people in the crowd and have a gig.”

“No fucking way,” Urmston says with a laugh.

“There it is,” Corrigan smiles. “There’s some tension for you.”

Little-Known Dispatch Sells Out The Garden

Mitchell Peters, L.A.

The last time Dispatch stood in front of thousands of concertgoers was three years ago at a free farewell concert in Boston. But the jam-friendly trio obviously hasn't lost its live following since throwing in the towel.

After announcing earlier this month that it would reunite to help raise money for humanitarian efforts in Zimbabwe, Dispatch quickly sold out two summer gigs at New York's Madison Square Garden through exclusive presales on its MySpace.com page. Because of overwhelming demand, the trio added a third night, which goes on sale to the public on Jan. 20. The "Dispatch: Zimbabwe" concerts are scheduled for July 13-15.

"It seemed like if we got Dispatch back together, we could raise some real money," group member Chad Urmston tells Billboard.com. "We agreed to do it only if it was going to be a 100% benefit."

Urmston, who briefly lived in Zimbabwe after high school, says the band will take the next six months to decide which specific organizations it will donate the proceeds to, which could include a visit to the African country.

"It's not a story you hear about every day on the news," he explains, "So we're excited to bring it into the limelight a little bit and hopefully raise enough money to help a country that's on the brink of mass starvation." In addition, a small portion of the concert earnings will be dispersed to various domestic causes that each band member has supported over the years.

Dispatch's history dates back to the mid-'90s, when college buddies Urmston, Brad Corrigan and Pete Francis self-released their first album, "Silent Steeples," on Bomber Records. According to Nielsen SoundScan, the band's hest-selling album is 2001's "Gut the Van," which has moved 128,000 units in the United States. But it wasn't until the 2004 live CD/DVD "All Points Bulletin" that Dispatch debuted on The Billboard 200.

During its eight-year existence, Dispatch released six albums and built a solid fanbase through crisscrossing the United States and selling out such venues as New York's Roseland Ballroom, San Francisco's Fillmore and Washington, D.C.'s 9:30 Club. The advent of Napster helped spread the word, which the band didn't mind one bit. "It was good for us," Urmston says. "Whatever we lost in CD sales, we gained way more in the listenership overall."

The trio officially broke up in 2001 after deciding to pursue different musical avenues, according to Urmston, who now fronts Boston-based State Radio. Asked if more shows will be scheduled or if any recording could transpire, he says, "No, this is all that's on the docket right now. Brad, Pete and I all have new projects and everyone is pretty busy ... I think this is good for now."

After rapidly selling out Madison Square Garden for two benefit shows, the band announces a third.

Dispatch haven't played together since July 31, 2004, but the alt-pop trio are reuniting for three consecutive nights beginning July 13 at New York City's Madison Square Garden, with all proceeds benefiting various charities in Zimbabwe. "The whole band has been moved by what's going on in that country, particularly with AIDS, famine problems, and oppression from the government," the band's Pete Francis told SPIN.com. "Dispatch don't really tour as a band, but our music lives on. It's nice to reunite like this for a great cause."

Dispatch cultivated an interest in fighting disease, hunger, and social injustice in the fraught African country early in their career. "The first part of one of our songs, 'Elias,' is a prayer in Zimbabwe's language Shona, and when I first met [bandmate] Chad [Urmston] when he was 18 years old, he sang that song to me," Francis revealed. "The song has this beautiful emotional strength, it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It's about Chad wondering if he'd see his friend Elias from Zimbabwe again."

Judging by history-making ticket sales, Dispatch's fans are eagerly awaiting seeing the band again. Francis and company were planning on playing only one benefit show, but after tickets for it sold out in 30 minutes, they added a second gig. In less than 24 hours, tickets to the additional "Dispatch: Zimbabwe" show also sold out. A third night has subsequently been added to the series, during which you can expect the band members to play their solo material alongside old Dispatch tunes. And Francis promises some surprises. "We'll have special guests, hopefully some singers from Zimbabwe," Francis divulged. "I may come shooting out of a rocket."

Dispatch are now the first independent band to sell out Madison Square Garden, an accomplishment Francis doesn't take lightly. "I think it's absolutely overwhelming," he said. "It's absolutely thrilling and exciting for all sorts of musicians. I hope other musicians say it can be done."

Tickets for the July 15 show will be made available to the public 9 A.M. EST Jan. 20 via Ticketmaster.

Dispatch

Where: Madison Square Garden. Seventh Avenue and 32nd St, New York.

When: 8 p.m. - Friday - Sunday

How much: Sold out. Call (212) 465-6741 or visit www.thegarden.com

BY JAY LUSTIG

From Friday through Sunday, thousands of people will visit Madison Square garden to attend three sold-out concerts by the band Dispatch. And maybe just as many people, walking by the 20,000-capacity venue and looking up at the marquee, will ask the same question: "Who the heck is that?"

There is a good chance that unless you are a fan of Dispatch, you have no idea who they are.

A jam band willing to try out just about any style (reggae, funk, rap, mellow balladry), Dispatch originally formed at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt., more than a decade ago. The band never had a hit single, or received much mainstream media attention. Still, it built a following, largely through the Internet, and sold more than a half million copies of its six albums (four studio, two live) before announcing its breakup in 2002.

All three Dispatchers - guitarist Chad Urmston, bassist Pete Francis, and drummer Brad Corrigan (everyone writes, sings, and plays other instruments) - continued making music. Urmston fronts the band State Radio, while Francis and Corrigan are solo rtists. This January, they announced that they would join forces again for a July show at Madison Square Garden - not a reunion-tour launch, but a one-shot benefit concert, with proceeds going to charities fighting disesae, famine, and social injustice in Zimbabwe.

The show sold out quickly, so a second night was added. Then a third.

"I was definately surprised," says Francis, 31. "But I was also surprised at the amount of people who came to out last Dispatch concert in Boston. I honestly didn't know. I thought it would be great if 10,000 people came. The fact that 100,000 people came blew our minds.

Francis says the cause was the driving force for the concert. Urmston is particularly active in Zimbabwe charity efforts, having set up his own foundation, the Elias Fund, to benefit Zimbabwean youth. "We've talked about trying to get together every three years, to play together for varous charities," Francis says. "So, in the next few years, I would imagine that something like this, for another cause, will happen."

Most of the matieral at the shows will be from the muicians' years together. But there will be some exceptions.

"I think we will each bring some of our solo songs, and they'll be reinterpreted by the band," Francis says. "That's kind of what happened at the last Dispatch concert. Each of us had a new tune, so we could introduce that.

A more long-term reunion is unlikely. Francis says he, Urmston, and Corrigan are content to be on their own after so much time together.

"We existed as a band for eight or nine years," he says. "Often, when a band comes together and they have a hit at the beginning, for them to stay together that long is quite impressive, We were really under the radar, so when we were known, we were in our last stretches, just because you grow as people and as musicians. We left like it was time to move on."

They don't see each other very often, as Francis lives in New York, while Urmston is in the Boston area and Corrigan resides in his original home state, Colorado. But Francis says the bonds are still strong.

"We'll always be good friends" he syas. "But it's like a good friend that you don't see that much."

New York, NY

Madison Square Garden

Dispatch: Zimbabwe, July 15

Coming together for the first time since a so-called "farewell" show that boasted an attendance of more than 100,000 fans in Boston in 2004, jam-pop trio Dispatch put all its efforts toward charity for its July 13-15 reunion shows. All three nights sold out in a matter of hours as proceeds for its "Zimbabwe" run totaled more than $1 million, benefitting to-be-determined aid organizations in the ravaged African country.

While the stand's quick sell-out was surprising, the concert's energy wasn't. For a band that has not toured heavily since 2001, the Garden was filled with a new generation of young fans, equipped with popped Lacoste collars and ecstatic for their first Dispatch concert experience.

On the final night, the reggae/funk/rock group played for more than three hours (27 songs), showcasing fan-favorites like "Bang Bang" and "Outloud" with the energetic African Children's Choir and "Bats in the Belfry" and "The General" with a four-piece horn section. Despite electric stage presence, an explosive lights show and loads of special guests, one of the night's major highlights was a short acoustic set in the middle of the arena. Sitting on top of their old touring van, Whimpy, Dispatch performed several rare tracks including "Steeples" and "Walk With You."

Five moving film segments separated the band's sets with an effort to illustrate the dire situation in Zimbabwe, such as the country's life expectancy of 39 and 11,000% inflation rate. Toward the end of the show, Dispatch played one of its old staples, a cober of Bob Marley's "War," poignantly bridging the excitement for the band's performance to the severity of he cause. They sang, "The dream of lasting peace, world citizenship, rule of international morality/Will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued, but never attatined/Now everywhere is war, war.

PAUL DRYDEN