Joe Walsh's fourth annual VetsAid festival will stream online on Saturday (December 12th). Joining the legendary Eagles guitarist online for the event will be over 50 artists, including Eddie Vedder, Jon Bon Jovi, Daryl Hall, James Hetfield, Jimmy Buffett, Alice Cooper, Vince Gill, Willie Nelson, Blake Shelton, Steven Van Zandt, Brandon Flowers, Gwen Stefani, Billy Bob Thorton, Earth, Wind, & Fire's Verdine White, Jason Isbell, Ben Harper, Melissa Etheridge, Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, Jewel, Rufus Wainwright, and Ben Harper, among others.
The online event features never before seen performances from the past three live VetsAid concerts including songs by Ringo Starr, the Doobie Brothers, Don Henley, James Taylor, Haim, Keith Urban, Sheryl Crow, ZZ Top, and more.
Joe Walsh, who grew up in a Gold Star family, said in the event's press release, “For the past three years we’ve held this glorious traveling circus in cities across the country with a day-long rock and roll festival and jobs fair to support our veterans and their families. Typically, we fill up an arena, play for five hours, and raise a bunch of money — nearly $1.5 million to date — to help our veterans get the care and support they deserve. But because of COVID this year, we’re going virtual as so many things are.”
He went on to say, “Our veterans community already suffers from increased poverty rates, mental health issues, re-entry difficulties and personal crises in the best of times. During this pandemic they are especially vulnerable. I’m proud of this nationwide tradition we have built and I can’t think of a better way to remember and honor the men and women who have served our country this holiday season than by helping us raise funds to support their essential and basic needs.”
We caught up with Joe Walsh last week during pre-production for the event — and he was floored by the content his friends were sending in: “We're assembling it now. The majority of the clips people sent in — a dedicated song for this event, with a message for the vets, which is good. And it's great to see artists just do a song by themselves. It's not over-produced, you don't have to watch the keyboard player's hands, y'know? It's great to see some people that you love just do an acoustic song. I was profoundly affected when I started watching some of that stuff.”
Walsh also explained that Saturday's event will also serve as a retrospective of the VetsAid shows from the past: “Besides that, we have footage from the three VetsAid concerts we did — but we never streamed it, so the only people that saw it were the people that were there”
The ticketed event will be streamed on December 12th starting at 6 p.m. ET via vetsaid.veeps.com and will also be available for restream through December 14th.
Tickets and merch bundles are available now at vetsaid.veeps.com and will be priced from $20 with discounts available for active duty military and veterans using the promo code “VALOR.”
Joe Walsh On VetsAid Live Footage :
Joe Walsh On VetsAid Artist Clips :
