“The RIAA may be against file sharing programs who illegally allow the distribution of music, but the country of Zimbabwe and band Dispatch have a different view. Dispatch, a band impossible to categorize as they have experimented with funk, ska, rock, reggae and folk, held a sold-out three night benefit concert for Zimbabwe during the summer of 2007 at Madison Square Garden in New York City.”
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The RIAA may be against file sharing programs who illegally allow the distribution of music, but the country of Zimbabwe and band Dispatch have a different view.

Dispatch, a band impossible to categorize as they have experimented with funk, ska, rock, reggae and folk, held a sold-out three night benefit concert for Zimbabwe during the summer of 2007 at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

Dispatch is one of the rare examples of a band who actually benefited from peer-to-peer music sharing programs.

Before the phenomenon of these programs in the ’90s, Dispatch was an unsigned independent band not very well known outside of New England.

Once these programs took off, Dispatch’s music was being heard by those who weren’t able to see them at the bars and clubs they were playing on the East Coast.

The band was still independent, but they were well-known and appealed to college students everywhere.

It grew into something that we’re still in disbelief of, said Chad Ulstrom in the opening of the bands concert DVD Dispatch: Zimbabwe.

After they released their last studio album Who Are We Living For?, Dispatch went on a nationwide tour.

Without the help of Napster, they wouldn’t have been able to do this because they had no help from a record label or a PR firm.

There weren’t armies of record label executives spreading the word about them or billboards across major cities in America with their faces plastered on them.

There were no booking agents calling venues to book the band.

But what they did have were pirates in dorm rooms across America being exposed to their music for the first time, and the pirates liked what they were hearing.

The band went on hiatus in 2002 and played a one-off concert in 2004 called The Final Dispatch that was intended to be their final performance.

They expected around 30,000 fans to attend the show.

More than 100,000 showed up.

Brad Corrigan, the band’s drummer who is often referred to as Braddigan, told the audience, Somebody said, downstairs, that we were shooting for, I don’t know, twenty thousand, thirty thousand people would be considered a huge success. We want to thank you guys for putting together one of the biggest audiences, I think, probably, in independent music history. One hundred thousand strong!

Fast forward to the summer of 2007.

It has been three years since the band has played live on stage together since July 31, 2004 in Boston.

They originally set one date to play Madison Square Garden, but after it sold out in half an hour, they added a second night.

After the second show sold out in 24 hours, they scheduled a third night.

They are the only independent band in history to sell out Madison Square Garden.

All the funds raised for the concert were donated to Zimbabwe and charities the band supports.

The money given to Zimbabwe went to aid those trapped in poverty and famine, lacking medical supplies and plagued with diseases.

Who would have thought that stealing music would have had such a profound effect on people’s lives?

Next time you are downloading a song from Limewire don’t feel guilty.

Maybe someday it will lead to helping someone in a third world country eat for a day.

Maybe someday it will lead to building a new house for a family who is struggling to survive.

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