PHOTO GALLERY: Dispatch delivers stellar set at Fox Theater in Oakland

Dispacth performing at the Fox Theather in Oakland CA

The infectious indie rockers Dispatch made an impressive stop in Oakland at the Fox Theater. They are currently out on their summer tour with Nahko and Medicine For the People. Check out photos from Sean Liming:

Dispacth performing at the Fox Theather in Oakland CA

Dispatch is truly one of the country’s most successful independent bands. Last year they released the highly praised album, America, Location 12 and they are set to release Location 13 this fall. Have you checked out their latest track Came For the Fire off Location 13? A note from Chad on the song’s origin and the history behind Stinson Beach where America, Location 12 and Location 13 were recorded:

“The song is a story of my own relationship with my wife with the different paths and rocks along the way, combined with the extrapolated story of the man and woman who built the studio in Stinson Beach where we’ve been recording the past two years.

Built in the 60s, the house was not originally a studio; but a dream house built painstakingly by an English teacher and his family out of salvaged materials from San Francisco (most of the house is built of old cobble stones). He would load his VW Bus full of whatever he could find (port holes, 40ft iron girders) and cross the Golden Gate and go up over the mountain to Stinson.

With towers and turrets, spiral stairs and tunnels (a tunnel that is now a reverb chamber was created to go to a never finished fallout shelter), it sits like a tall ship made of stone that rode a giant wave half way up the mountain to where it sits now. I can’t help but wonder what happened to them. Did their relationship survive the years as he layed each cobble stone by hand? Some of the old gear he used is still there. A little hand cement mixer sits sinking into the ground not 20ft from the house. A rusty old tractor sits right in front.

The house is so magnificent. It’s easy to believe he was obsessed by this work of art he was building – to the detriment of all else. I know in the end they couldn’t afford to stay there and it was bought 15 years ago by the studio owner. There’s a little framed picture of this English teacher/guerrilla architect/carpenter/stone mason in the main room. When we were sitting there recording from up high, watching the weather to the west and the sets of waves rolling in on the Pacific Ocean, we thought of him and his family often.”