It was during the 1985 Live Aid benefit that Bob Dylan made an offhand comment that some of the money from the worldwide rock concert to help famine-stricken Africans would also be used “to pay the mortgages on some of the farms and that the farmers here owe to the banks.” Before that summer was over, Farm Aid was inaugurated and has been going ever since.
Farm Aid will return to the Washington, D.C., area Saturday for the first time in 16 years, playing the Jiffy Lube Live amphitheater in Bristow, Virginia, and boasting the same board of directors that started the event: Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp.
Here are some more numbers we’ve harvested on the event:
31: Number of years that Farm Aid has been going. It’s one of America’s longest-running benefit concerts.
6: Number of weeks that passed after Bob Dylan’s vague suggestion at Live Aid that something be done for farmers that the first Farm Aid was held.
53: Acts at the first Farm Aid concert, including Joni Mitchell, Billy Joel, Randy Newman, and Sammy Hagar, who announced he’d be the new lead singer for Van Halen.
10: Number of artists from the first Farm Aid who have since died: Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash, John Denver, Waylon Jennings, George Jones, B.B. King, Roger Miller, Roy Orbison, Lou Reed and Hoyt Axton.
4: Number of goals for the organization as listed on its website: promoting food from family farms, growing the good food movement, helping farmers thrive and taking action to change the system.
2: Number of times the event has been in Bristow, Virginia.: Farm Aid ’99 and Farm Aid 2000, the 15th anniversary event.
4: Number of Farm Aid board members who routinely perform at every show: Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews.
2001: Year that Dave Matthews was added as a board member.
6: Number of songs Neil Young performed the last time Farm Aid was in Virginia.
2: Number of Mellencamps on the current tour. Ian Mellencamp, nephew of Farm Aid co-founder John Mellencamp, is a model-turned-musician.
12: Number of acts for Farm Aid 2016. In addition to the board members: Alabama Shakes, Sturgill Simpson, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, Jamey Johnson, Margo Price, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, Insects vs. Robots and Ian Mellencamp.
1st: Annual Farm Aid Awards that will be presented at a preshow event. Farm Aid Eve, at the Hylton Performing Arts Center in Manassas, Virginia, on Friday, will have music from Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats.
94: Age of Pete Seeger when he performed at Farm Aid 2013 in Saratoga Springs, New York, in one of his final public performances. He died the following January.
53: The most acts on a single year’s Farm Aid lineup (its first).
4: Number of Dylan appearances at Farm Aid. Dylan performed in 1985 and, via satellite, in 1986. His son, Jakob Dylan, was part of the event in 2008 and 2011.
$50 million: Amount raised by Farm Aid since 1985, according to the organization.
