Photo Story: Dispatch Finishes Their Summer 2018 Tour Back Home in Boston

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Dispatch ends their Summer 2018 tour back home in Boston with two sold out shows at the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion on Sept. 20, 2018.

There’s always something extra special about bands that decide to go become active again after over a decades long hiatus. Dispatch is not an exception.

The legendary folk band is a staple of the indie roots music scene. Before they released their 2017 America, Location 12 record that broke their silence, the last original record they released was their 2012 Circles Around the Sun. And only months after America, Location 12, Dispatch announced the would do a Summer 2018 tour and release songs every couple of weeks throughout the summer. This became Location 13, which opens with Cross the World.

“Once teenage friends now struggling with the place where the sidewalk ends. So we said goodbye in Boston with that dirty water rolling on,” sings Chadwick Stokes Urmston in the song.

Chadwick Stokes Urmston of Dispatch at the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion in Boston, MA on Sept. 20, 2018.

The band now has had their feet planted in Boston since its conception. Starting out first as New England legends, Dispatch is now a household name across the nation and considered one of the most famous independent bands in history.

“We’ve been called the biggest band nobody’s ever heard of, ” said Urmston in an interview with Independent.

In 2004, the band famously drew an estimated crowd of 110,000 to the Hatch Memorial Shell on Boston’s Charles River Esplanade. The farewell (or so we thought) show caused the Boston Police to shut down Storrow Drive. The shame came after the release of The Last Dispatch, a documentary about the final days of the band.

Brad Corrigan of Dispatch at the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion in Boston, MA on Sept. 20, 2018.

In my opinion, however, the most defining feature of the band is their activism. The Elias Fund, a nonprofit dedicating its efforts to help to community development, education and AIDS education in Zimbabwe, was founded by a two men inspired by Dispatch’s Elias. Urmston penned after the song after he befriended the real Elias when Urmston lived in Zimbabwe. The song is also unbelievably epic live.

Boston – as a city – has a kind of dedication to their beloved that I’ve never seen in another city. Most people think it’s only with sports teams. The Sox. The Bruins. The….PATS. What many fail to mention, however, is Boston’s dedication to their natives. Marky Mark is a prime example. Dispatch is another.

Take a Boston-grown Sox crowd and move them to Blue Hills Bank Pavilion. That is exactly how I felt being in Dispatch’s crowd. This city damn well loves the band, and it’s no surprise why.

Chadwick Stokes Urmston of Dispatch at the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion in Boston, MA on Sept. 20, 2018.Brad Corrigan and Chadwick Stokes Urmston of Dispatch at the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion in Boston, MA on Sept. 20, 2018.Brad Corrigan and Chadwick Stokes Urmston of Dispatch at the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion in Boston, MA on Sept. 20, 2018.Chadwick Stokes Urmston of Dispatch at the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion in Boston, MA on Sept. 20, 2018.Chadwick Stokes Urmston of Dispatch at the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion in Boston, MA on Sept. 20, 2018.Touring member Matt Embree of Dispatch at the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion in Boston, MA on Sept. 20, 2018.

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