Looks like the philanthropic bug bit Michael Stipe hard this year.
Having already launched a six-song EP to benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the R.E.M. frontman will join Bright Eyes, Fischerspooner, Rufus Wainwright, Devendra Banhart, and Public Enemy’s Chuck D for “Bring ‘Em Home Now,” a concert at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom on March 20, the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Activist Cindy Sheehan will give a speech during the event, which will raise funds for Iraq Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace. Janeane Garafolo’s radio show, The Majority Report, will broadcast the event live on Air America.
“It is impossible not to react to the current state of affairs through personal action and artistic production,” Fischerspooner’s Casey Spooner told Billboard.com. “We have been at war for three years. One desperately feels the need for someone to speak some sort of truth, either poetic or factual.”
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R.E.M. official site
Bright Eyes official site
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