DISPATCH’s Summer Rock Show Uplifts Mothers, Daughters, and Millennial-Dad Fanbase

Admittedly, I hadn’t paid much attention to DISPATCH until 2020, when, amid pandemic lockdowns, I couldn’t see my band.

Fortunately, my husband has a Pearl drum kit in our basement, so that summer, I made a deal that if I learned to play a song by one of his favorite bands, he’d jam with me. That song was DISPATCH’s “Open Up.” What I didn’t realize then, as I painstakingly worked through the song’s deceptively challenging guitar parts, is that learning to play the song would spark a deep love for this Massachusetts band.

So it was such a full-circle moment when I finally got to see DISPATCH play live five years later, on Sunday, June 29, 2025, at Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

While I missed openers G Love and Special Sauce by accident, I was delighted to watch the next act, singer-songwriter John Butler, play pretty much any stringed instrument I’ve ever coveted — from banjo and slide guitar to a 12-string acoustic guitar, alternating between sitting and standing as he belted out a 9-song set list. Crowd favorites included the upbeat “Trippin’ on You” and “Zebra.”

But it was only a taste of what DISPATCH, which hit the stage at 8:45 for a 90-minute set, gave to us. Kicking off with “Circles Around the Sun” from its 2012 album with the same name, DISPATCH launched into a set that balanced classics like “Bang Bang” with newer releases from the band’s 2025 album Yellow Jacket and other post-2020 recordings.

Having never seen DISPATCH live, I didn’t know what to expect at a DISPATCH show.

Would DISPATCH bring a coterie of millennial, Dave Matthews-crazy dads chugging seltzers, nostalgically reliving their frat-house college days? Or would the crowd lean into Phish/Grateful Dead fan territory, with aging stoners and jam-band enthusiasts blowing smoke into the humid air as they danced the night away?  

In short, the set – which I spent entirely on my feet, dancing – exceeded my expectations in a big way.

Backed by a banner that proudly displayed a rainbow flag and a “NO KINGS” label taped to the drum riser, DISPATCH played so many songs that spoke to the band’s catalogue of human rights anthems, all the while keeping the audience engaged and uplifted.  

The band is gifted, musically, of course — with its mix of spoken word musings, gorgeous harmonies, and catchy hooks — but their music catalogue’s revolution-inspiring tracks truly set them apart from thousands of other bands with a similar vibe.

As expected, audience gravitated toward the big hits, like “The General” from the band’s 1997 album Bang Bang — which incited a stadium-wide singalong — and a catchy medley of the song “Bang Bang” with Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.” Another poignant highlight came mid-set, when lead vocalist Chadwick Stokes expressed sympathy for the women in the audience, and his daughter, having to witness their healthcare rights being revoked and the failure of the U.S. to elect a female president.

The band saved the best for last: an encore of “Elias” (inspired by a man Stokes met in Zimbabwe in 1994), and the Bob Dylan song, “Like a Rolling Stone.”

While I wished the band could have played longer and squeezed in “Open Up” (which is still my favorite), the night gave me so much more than I had hoped for — and I can’t wait to see them when they come around again.  

Marisa Torrieri Bloom is the editor and founder of Rockmommy.