On May 1, 2017, Col. Bruce Hampton celebrated his 70th birthday at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia. Bruce’s enormously talented musical family–including John Bell, Dave Schools, Jon Fishman, Warren Haynes, Karl Denson, Jimmy Herring, Chuck Leavell, John Popper, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Brandon “TAZ” Niederauer and so many more–came out to pay their respects to a the jam scene elder statesman. The event quickly sold out, thousands packed the theatre, then the unthinkable happened.
From the almost overwhelming musical star power featured throughout the night, to the stranger-than-fiction manner in which the evening ended, Hampton 70 instantly became one of the most meaningful, beautiful, tragic, stupefying rock concerts that has ever occurred. Until the end of time, people will talk about the night that Colonel Bruce Hampton gathered the best and the brightest for one final, incredible performance, and left it all on the stage. An iconic occurrence on the timeline of music history. A truly legendary send-off.
Stranger Than Fiction: The Cosmic Curtain Call Of Col. Bruce Hampton
The Hampton 70 event was meaningful in more ways than just life and music; it also marked the season launch of the 2017-2018 Fox Theatre Institute (FTI), in which a portion of the tickets sold at the event benefited the organization. According to Executive Producer Matthew Wilson, the event raised $85,127.97 to go toward funding efforts to support historic Georgia theaters, and $21,281.99 to MusiCares, a GRAMMY/National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences organization that provides support and community services to musicians in need of medical, personal & financial assistance.
Since the launch of FTI in 2008, the Fox Theatre has committed more than $1 million to the overall program, with $85,000 awarded this year to four immediate need projects under the organization’s new Urgent/Emergency Need Grant. The FTI also supports Historic Structures Studies or Planning, Technical Assistance and Services, and Preservation Grant programs, all of which allows up to $500,000 statewide grant subsidy. To learn more about the Fox Theatre Institute and the various projects they’ve supported this year, read on here.
[photo by Dave Vann]