.png)
Farm Aid Festival: Information, Inspiration and So Much Music
- Bob Benenson
- Sep 23
- 5 min read
Stadium Celebration of 40th Anniversary Was 13 Hours of Photo Opps
The annual festival presented by the vital Farm Aid non-profit last weekend in Minneapolis was the fourth such event I've attended since 2015, the most recent year in which it was held in my hometown of Chicago. While the others all drew big crowds, this one — held at University of Minnesota's Huntington Bank Stadium to celebrate the organization's 40th anniversary — was different. Hugely different.
The announced attendance for Saturday's was 37,000, filling almost all the seats on the field level and around the arena's two tiers. The above photo shows the almost surreal view from the photographer's pit. The concert lasted for almost 13 hours, and most people stayed through the well-past-midnight finale, as Willie Nelson — Farm Aid co-founder and 92-year-old living legend — welcomed the day's other performers onstage for a short set.
There was plenty of informative and inspiring content available during the two-day Festival. As publisher/writer of a very niche publication focused on local food ecosystems and the movement for a better food system, I immersed myself, spending Friday at the Farmer Forum in St. Paul, connecting with local and national non-profit organizations at Saturday's Homegrown Village, even missing a few acts to attend panel discussions at the FarmStage.
But I love music, too, and for the second consecutive year, I had the honor of taking pictures from the pit. With my medium-level Sony a6600 camera, I'm a bit of an outlier among the pros with telephoto lenses the size of missile launchers, but I do the best I can and no one makes me feel unwelcome.
A couple of notes about the photos: The temporary stage used for the show was quite a bit higher than usual, which made sightlines and angles a bit challenging. Also, two artists — Kenny Chesney and Bob Dylan — required that the pit be cleared for all but the official event photographers.
I hope you enjoy the following photo sampler. It is in chronological order by the sets that I captured (plus a few shared by a new photographer friend), to show respect for all the amazing talent. Keep scrolling if your main interest is in the headliners.
WISDOM INDIAN DANCERS
The founder of Wisdom Indian Dancers became a friend of Willie Nelson in the 1980s. Since the early 1990s, the troupe, based in Orlando, Florida, has opened Farm Aid concerts with traditional dance and song.
JESSE WELLES
Arkansas native Jesse Welles made his first splash on the country music scene. He has gained a broader audience with a series of protest songs, many of them playing off current news events, that have spurred comparisons to the genre of young Bob Dylan.
WYNONNA JUDD
Wynonna Judd has been one of the most popular country artists since the early 1980s.
STEVE EARLE
Steve Earle is a famed singer, songwriter and social activist. I wasn't able to catch his performance, but I'm an admirer as is my wife. So a new friend who goes by Shane the Photographer and has one of those big-boy lenses helped me out with these pix.
LUKAS NELSON
Lukas Nelson — Willie Nelson's second youngest son — has been a longtime fixture at the Farm Aid concerts, performing with his father and with his own band, Promise of the Real. This year he was billed as a solo act, but shared the stage with other artists, including charismatic rising star Sierra Ferrell.
BILLY STRINGS
Billy Strings is an ultra-talented bluegrass guitarist and singer.
KENNY CHESNEY
As noted earlier, the photo pit was cleared for Kenny Chesney's set. Here's how the scene looked from the stadium press box.
MARGO PRICE
Margo Price was a toddler when her family lost their farm in 1985, the same year that Farm Aid was started. The impact of the loss on her family inspired her to connect with Farm Aid during her rise as a country singer, and she became the newest member of the musician board of directors in 2021.
DAVE MATTHEWS WITH TIM REYNOLDS
Dave Matthews joined the Farm Aid co-founders on the organization's board in 2001 and is a headliner at each festival concert performing with longtime sideman Tim Reynolds. Alas, the stage setup made it difficult to get a clean photo angle, so I retreated for long-distance and video screen shots.
JOHN MELLENCAMP
Mellencamp is a native of Seymour in rural southern Indiana (the inspiration for his hit song Small Town), and he came naturally to his concern for the plight of small farmers who were struggling during the economic crisis of the 1980s. His song Rain on the Scarecrow came out in 1985 — the same year he co-founded Farm Aid — and established him as a major force demanding help for farmers. His long string of hit songs turns each of his Farm Aid sets into a crowd sing-along.
BOB DYLAN
The addition of Bob Dylan to the Farm Aid 40 lineup just a few days before the festival was greeted with fanfare. A comment by Dylan in 1985 spurred Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp to produce the first Farm Aid concert that year. Dylan performed at Farm Aid 1 and 2, but not again until an unannounced short set two years ago. So this was his first announced gig in 39 years.
But few could have expected the unusual atmospherics of his performance.
The stage was barely lighted, Dylan sang seated at a piano, and he was wearing a hoodie that further obscured him from view. According to an article published in early September by Rolling Stone magazine, Dylan has long loathed having attendees taking smartphone photos while he is playing, and his mysterious stage show is a response to that.
Dylan also had most photographers barred from the photo pit.
NEIL YOUNG
As Local Food Forum reported Monday (September 22), Farm Aid co-founder Neil Young has been a fearless activist for political and social causes. He used his talk at the pre-concert press event to call on big agricultural companies and billionaires to pay a "conscience tax" to provide assistance to farmers who have suffered from the rise of corporate control of farmland.
His late evening set with his Chrome Hearts band — which includes Micah Nelson, Willie Nelson's youngest son — was no less political and fierce.
WILLIE NELSON
The beloved Farm Aid co-founder played his set flanked by his youngest sons, Lukas and Micah.
The grand old man of country and popular music, idolized by farm and Good Food advocates, always ends the Farm Aid concert with a grand finale in which he is joined by the day's other performers. As he made his way offstage at about 12:45 a.m. local time, it was pretty obvious — as he sang in On the Road Again — that the life he loves is making music with his friends.
CROWD SCENES
