Memory Lane: Farm Aid at 40
Since 1985, the annual Farm Aid concert has been held in more than 20 states and raised over $85 million for family farmers. Above, Jon Bon Jovi at the first concert. (Image by Art Meripol)
It sounds like a familiar scene: Memorial Stadium, jam-packed on a cold, rainy autumn afternoon, a mass of people united by chattering teeth and their excitement about the product on the field.
Only this wasn’t a Homecoming football game. It was a concert—an all-day, musical extravaganza attended by 80,000 fans, with thousands of spectators standing on the gridiron, soaked by rain and wallowing in mud, and tens of thousands more in the stands.
It was Sept. 22, 1985, and the event was Farm Aid, the benefit concert organized by Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Neil Young to support America’s struggling family farmers.
More 80,000 fans attended the Farm Aid concert in Memorial Stadium. Arlo Guthrie joins organizer Willie Nelson on stage. (Image courtesy U. of I. Archives)
In the end, Farm Aid raised more than $7 million and, in the process, provided a stadium’s worth of music fans—many of them U. of I. alumni and students—with the chance to see some of their favorite artists, including Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Carole King, Randy Newman and more than 50 other acts.
“We were big Van Halen fans,” says Anne Rago Hackett, ’88 MEDIA, MS ’89 MEDIA. “My husband remembers people holding up ‘Van Hagar’ signs—it was the first time Sammy Hagar played with the band!”
“I went to see B.B. King because I was afraid if I didn’t see him then, I would never get another chance,” says Mark Brent, ’88 LAS, JD ’91. “I mistakenly thought he was ancient and on his last legs. (I was 18; he was turning 60.) Of course, Mr. King was worth the ticket, but it was far from his last performance!”
BB King (Image courtesy U. of I. Archives)
Other attendees recall specific, special moments.
“I remember Loretta Lynn flubbing the words to ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’ and just laughing about it and continuing,” says Dawn Bradley, JD ’88. “It was such a great event!”
“I was in the southeast stairwell when Roy Orbison sang ‘Oh, Pretty Woman,’” recalls Michael Smeltzer, ’72 LAS, MS ’83 MEDIA. “The stairwell affected his voice like a giant echo chamber, and it reverberated with amazing purity. It was a religious experience.”
For some attendees, Farm Aid was powerful in other, more life-changing, ways. “I was 15,” says Jeff Grubich, ’91 ENG, “and it motivated me to go to Illinois.”
And that captures the event’s appeal as well as anything: It was inspiring, both in its performances and in the cause it supported. Despite the cruelty of the weather and the stamina required for an all-day concert, for most of those 80,000 who’d braved the elements—some of them wearing garbage-bag raincoats—it was worth it.
“I camped out all night and was one of the first in line,” recalls Betsy Bard Yager, ’89 ED. “We stood for over 30 hours, but it was the best time!”
“It was a long time to sit on bleachers, but we stayed,” says Kara Garner Silge, ’82 BUS, ’87 ED. “We didn’t want to miss any of the acts!”
What’s more, after the hours of waiting, the rain and the exhaustion of an all-day event, “the fireworks display at the end was the best I’ve ever seen,” recalls Jeff Beyer, ’87 ENG.
Forty years later, says Kevin Galley, ’76 LAS, it is “one of my great memories—returning to my Alma Mater for the best assembly of musicians ever!”
Legions of his fellow Illinois alumni feel exactly the same way.
More 80,000 fans attended the Farm Aid concert in Memorial Stadium. (Image courtesy of UIAA Archives)
