MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesota had to wait 40 years to finally land a Farm Aid concert, but it wound up getting an extraordinary one.

It got a very Minnesotan one, too.

There was a strong twofer of homegrown talent on the lineup for Saturday’s 12-hour marathon at Huntington Bank Stadium. Homeboy Bob Dylan — who first inspired Farm Aid by shouting out American farmers at 1985’s Live Aid mega concert — delivered a short but meaningful performance on only three days’ notice. And Duluth pickers Trampled by Turtles earned a warm reception earlier in the day.

Minnesota politicians played a sizable role. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., introduced Farm Aid’s youngest musician board member, Margo Price, with a timely and well-received nod to her recent “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” TV appearance. Then Gov. Tim Walz welcomed the day’s great-grandpa-aged grand poobah, Willie Nelson, to the stage by praising him for being “a man who truly embodies the American spirit.

“Fiercely independent, generous, kind, irreverent, decent and a bit of a hell-raiser,” Walz said of the 92-year-old Texas countryman, who has been Farm Aid’s hands-on ringleader since its inception.

A lot else about the concert embodied the Minnesota spirit. The weather was autumnally pleasant, with just sporadic rain and none of the sweat that flows profusely at Nelson’s Fourth of July picnics in Texas. The stage production was efficient and well-managed.

Minnesota nice flowed through the event. Maybe because it was a charity concert for a relatively apolitical cause, folks onstage and out in the crowd were as congenial and communal as at any big concert of recent memory.

Even one of the event’s biggest stars — who has a smiley hippie jam-band following — was impressed by the good vibes from the 37,000 attendees.

“Don’t believe it when they tell you we ain’t in it together,” Dave Matthews observed from the stage.

Here are some of our own observations after taking in all 12 hours of music and more on Saturday.

Biggest discoveries

You wouldn’t have seen them on the CNN telecast (which started after they went on), but Madeline Edwards and Eric Burton each stood out beyond the fact they were the day’s only two Black singers. Torchy twanger Edwards was a legit unknown but showed deep vocal and lyrical power. Lesser-known as a solo act, Burton stepped out from his Texas soul-rock band Black Pumas to impressively show off his rawer, passionate street-busker roots.

Then again, any Farm Aid attendees that hadn’t already heard of well-established relative-newcomers Billy Strings, Sierra Ferrell or Waxahatchee likely went away impressed by the nicely representative mini-performances they offered, too.

Neil’s new band

While most of the day’s performers stuck to their usual guise, Farm Aid’s resident Canadian American co-founder Neil Young used the concert as a showcase for his new band, the Chrome Hearts. Lucky us. Featuring famed Muscle Shoals session man Spooner Oldham on organ and Willie’s son, Micah Nelson, on guitar, the four-man unit evoked both the rolling-thunder sound of Young’s legendary old band Crazy Horse along with some of the moody elegance of his celebrated 1989 album “Freedom.” Both sides were needed based on the song choices.

Most topical tunes

OK, so not all the performers went the Minnesota Nice route. Young was downright vitriolic in the show’s penultimate set, which started with his new anti-Trump blaster “Big Crime” and kept up the political noise through “Rockin’ in the Free World,” “Be the Rain” and “Southern Man.”

Arkansas folk troubadour Jesse Welles also filled his whole early-afternoon set with songs addressing the times, including “Cancer” and “Philanthropist,” the latter of which he dedicated to Bill Gates; and no, it wasn’t a compliment.

Alt-twang hero Price also opened her set with the song “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down” that symbolically became the last one performed on Kimmel’s late-night TV show before it was taken off the air last week.

Deciphering Dylan

That wasn’t so difficult this time, was it? Four Bob Dylan classics — “All Along the Watchtower,” “To Ramona,” “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” and “Highway 61 Revisited” — were easy to recognize by their relatively clearly enunciated lyrics, though the melodies were new and predictably free-wheeling. The hard part was spotting Dylan, who had a black hoodie covering his head as he sat at a piano in light too dim to read a book.

Best catchphrase

We listened intently all night to what was being said and sung onstage. However, the best comment at Farm Aid came long before the music started. Even before concertgoers entered the Gopher football stadium. In a huge press conference attended by about 1,000 media, farmers and invited advocates, Farm Aid co-founder Young – of course, it was the outspoken one – uttered a new catchphrase saying corporations should pay “conscience tax” to family farmers. A few minutes later, fellow board member Matthews picked up on the phrase in his spontaneous remarks at the presser. Young said Minnesota-based Cargill and other corporations “need to pay a conscience tax to the farmers of America.” We see a “conscience tax” T-shirt in the future.

Biggest disappointment

Are the folks who run the Gophers football field just not used to a lot of people showing up to events? The stadium seemed under-staffed at the concession stands (which faced extra-long lines) and under-equipped at the restrooms and auxiliary porta potties (which saw a lot of long faces from the odors).

In the stadium’s defense, Farm Aid’s own planners seemed to be taken off guard by the big turnout at the merch stands, where many T-shirts, hats and posters were sold out by midafternoon. (Those can still be bought to benefit the cause at the farmaid.com online store).

Nashville sounds

Two big names added country cachet to the Farm Aid lineup. Wynonna Judd may be identified with ’80 and ‘90s Nashville but she totally rocked with her robust voice and R&B sass. Kenny Chesney, country’s king of stadiums, is a live-wire in concert but a half hour didn’t seem enough time for him to find his footing. He seemed rushed and not in the best voice.

Biggest surprise

When you’ve got 18 or so different acts on a bill, you can’t expect uniformly satisfying results. But these Farm Aid artists were consistent in their commitment and quality, save for the aforementioned Chesney, who tried to transform his quick set into a star turn, blowing kisses and all.

Jam bands recalibrate

Jam bands are notorious for stretching out in concert, with long solo passages that hopefully transport listeners to other realms. Respected jam-band stars Strings, a hotshot bluegrassy newcomer, and Matthews (with Tim Reynolds) proved that they don’t need three hours to captivate a crowd. They each did it in a mesmerizing half hour with fierce picking and striking chemistry, with Matthews and Reynolds supplemented by agile fiddler Jake Simpson from Lukas Nelson’s band.

Best collaborations

A lot to choose from here. Price, Strings and Welles sounded fiery together in Price’s set covering Dylan’s “Maggie’s Farm.” Ferrell’s unannounced four-song appearance as part of Lukas Nelson’s set almost felt as cohesive and simpatico as his dad and late aunt, Willie and Bobbie Nelson, used to sound playing together, particularly in their remake of Young’s “Unknown Legend.” And let’s not overlook Lukas’ duet with his 92-year-old father near show’s end singing the Pearl Jam ballad “Just Breathe,” a song about immortality. Yeah, uff da.

Stay a little longer

The 12-hour concert was a marathon, but at the end the 37,000 fans — or however many were still left — seemed to want Willie to stay a little longer. He is a universally revered national treasure, a selfless campaigner for the common good, a good guy with good tunes, good intentions and, we hear, good weed. When he crooned the line “I’ll be here for eternity” during the profound “Last Leaf on the Tree,” the crowd erupted into cheers.

©2025 The Minnesota Star Tribune. Visit startribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC