Featuring 10,000 Maniacs, Billy Bragg, Indigo Girls, Ziggy Marley, Crack The Sky, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Jungle Brothers, Bruce Hornsby and The Range, Michelle Shocked, April 1990, Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, Md.
I was listening to a podcast the other day about the boxes used in the packaging of CDs in the late 1980s, early 1990s and how one album — R.E.M.’s Out of Time — helped bring an end to the wasteful boxes. Artists on the whole abhorred the boxes and demanded they not be used anymore, and R.E.M.’s stance and subsequent use of the boxes for the Voter-Motor bill helped to bring about several political changes leading to the boxes’ demise.
In April 1990 I got a press pass to attend the Earth Day concert at Merriweather Post Pavilion, a concert featuring several artists I admired and the rumored promise of band members from a certain Athens, Georgia band. As a sometime music writer for my college paper at the University of Maryland, I took the opportunity to get passes when they were offered. I wasn’t missing this one.
An all-day affair at the Columbia amphitheater, it featured a news conference in the morning with several artists talking about the importance of environmentalism on the 20th anniversary of Earth Day. Billy Bragg, one of my favorite solo artists, went on a hilarious and furious rant about the box. Pulling out one of his CDs in the box, he used a small knife to rip apart the packaging, took the CD out of the jewel box, and asked why any of it was needed. With the CD surrounded by the booklet cover, he asked “Isn’t this all you need?”
Ziggy Marley came about, and in his perfect Jamaican accent, said “The Earth is our mother, shouldn’t we protect our mother?” Amy Ray, whose band Indigo Girls was finding more and more success, joined the voices in making a change in how we approach the environment. Nearly 25 years later we’re still talking about the same thing, the world should have been listening and paying attention just as intently then.
Musically, here is what I remember most:
- Michael Stipe was everywhere, singing “A Campfire Song” with Natalie Merchant, “Kid Fears” with Indigo Girls, “Hello in There” (a John Prine song) with Billy Bragg and joining all of them (with Peter Buck) for “Fall on Me”. Stipe would also sing “Disturbance at the Heron House” and “Hairshirt”. He was as much part of the show as anyone.
- The amazing Billy Bragg — a man who I have sadly seen live just this one time — playing “Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards” before deciding to play, armed with just a guitar, proletariat songs from the early 20th century. Only he can pull this off and have the crowd wanting more.
- Ziggy Marley, riding on the popularity of his albums Conscious Party and One Bright Day, looking and sounding like his father, for a rendition of “Get Up, Stand Up”.
- Natalie Merchant’s voice. “What’s The Matter, Here?” is such a sad song, made more heartbreaking by the way she vocally handles the lyrics. R.E.M. toured with 10,000 Maniacs — I saw them open for R.E.M. in 1987 for the Work tour — but this show had the Maniacs as a full-on headliner.
The highlight of my day was having a backstage conversation with Peter Buck about the environment, and trying not to fall apart. I’m not too good at talking to musicians I admire, and Peter Buck — whose guitar playing made me learn the instrument — is the musician I admire the most. All I wanted to do was ask him about his favorite records.
As festivals go, this was different than any I’ve ever seen, with more moments to remember than I can recall.
