Farm Aid at 30 not in a good mood

CHICAGO — Neil Young looked even more grim and purposeful than usual when he took the stage Sept. 19 at Northerly Island in Chicago. Farm Aid was wrapping up its 30th year, but Young wasn’t exactly celebrating.

The executive board member in the black hat came out fuming as he went after the corporate farm system, naming names and waving his guitar as if he were wading into hand-to-hand combat with his band huddled in front of the drum riser. Young sang from the perspective of a Monsanto executive, recast as the bogey man: “You’re gonna need big money to stand your ground/Or we’re gonna bury you, how does that sound?”

The song, “Workin’ Man,” evoked the rumble of Bob Dylan’s “Maggie’s Farm,” another song about greed and power. Young’s band included Micah and Lukas Nelson, sons of Farm Aid founder Willie Nelson, who followed Young on stage. The young guys jousted and jostled with Young, who was in finger-pointing mode on a handful of songs from his bluntly accusatory recent album, “The Monsanto Years.”

Lines like “Too big to fail, too rich for jail” get the blood boiling but likely didn’t persuade those already skeptical about music’s ability to change the world — let alone shift the momentum away from the big companies that are relentlessly making family farms obsolete. But it was Young’s demeanor, the way he threw himself into the music and tore into his guitar solos that spoke loudest. He has a long, rich history as an environmental and agricultural activist, and Young wasn’t coasting on his past. If anything, he mirrored the words of Farm Aid executives who said the organization “originated in crisis and is facing another crisis today.”

Farm Aid has raised $48 million to support programs for family farmers since its inception at a 1985 concert in Champaign, Ill. On Saturday, board members Young, Nelson, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews once again headlined, and were joined by 11 acts in a 10-hour day of music attended by more than 26,000 fans.

That the event still exists is somewhat improbable. It’s one of the longest-running large-scale charity events in music history — something that Nelson has said he didn’t envision when he spearheaded the first Farm Aid three decades ago. It’s had some stellar lineups, but the performers aren’t in lock step on what messages to present, or how. If they were, they probably wouldn’t be artists. Most politely nod to Nelson’s persistence, but rarely address politics in their songs. A minority, personified by Young, are a good deal more direct, using the stage as bully pulpit.

The festival is also designed to fill seats, and artists such as Imagine Dragons were booked because they’re sitting atop the pop charts, not advocating for family farms. The Las Vegas quartet’s bombastic set basked in arena-rock cliches. In contrast, the relaxed stoner ballads of Jack Johnson sounded like they were transplanted from one of those yacht cruises in Lake Michigan a few hundred yards away from the stage.

Country artists Kacey Musgraves and Jamey Johnson were more on point. Johnson played a stolid solo set, his baritone voice amping up the gravitas during his deliberate version of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land.” Musgraves brought a whimsical flair, with her band dressed in pink nudie suits to complement her cowgirl-goes-to-the-prom outfit, but her plainspoken songs boasted steely themes of self-determination and individuality. She finished with a playful but defiant, tambourine-inflected version of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots are Made for Walkin’.”

Matthews paired with Tim Reynolds on seven fast, furious acoustic duets. Unlike the sometimes flabby arrangements of the Dave Matthews Band concerts, this was blazing counter-punching from two locked-in collaborators.

Mellencamp’s 1985 “Scarecrow” album was in many ways the soundtrack for the family-farm movement that gave birth to Farm Aid, and his songs from that era remained the centerpiece of his brisk set. His melodies packed bumper-sticker slogans — “Ain’t that America?” — inside sharply drawn images of vanishing small-town lives.

So what’s the takeaway from 30 years of singing for family farmers? Issues that play out in courts and legislatures can provide grist for protest songs, but a larger theme of inclusiveness trumped all. In the words of Mavis Staples, “You are not alone.” The Chicago gospel great made the Staples Family civil-rights classic “Freedom Highway” roar, locking into the word “made” as she repeated the line, “made up my mind that I won’t turn around.” Her fist shook at the sky. She wasn’t going away. Neither was Farm Aid.