Buffalo Heart Project Benefit | 02.05 | CO
By Team JamBase Feb 15, 2010 • 2:12 pm PST
Buffalo Heart Project Benefit :: 02.05.10 :: Boulder Theater :: Boulder, CO
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Elephant Revival was the featured band at the Buffalo Heart Project (B.H.P.) Benefit at the Boulder Theater, which raised thousands of dollars for emergency heating assistance for people living on the Pine Ridge and Rose Bud Reservations of the Lakota people during this particularly cold and trying winter. The concert was in all ways a major, defining event for Elephant Revival, which is on the cusp of a major breakout into the greater national music scene. It also defined the band’s unique social activism.
All proceeds from the evening directly benefited non-profit organization Conscious Alliance‘s “Art that Feeds” program in partnership with The Buffalo Heart Project to provide fuel and firewood for emergency heating assistance on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Marquee Magazine, ElephantJournal.com and Lyons Compassionate Care, as well as major Colorado Front Range musicians, contributed to the evening’s musical celebration and awareness raising about the continued plight of the Lakota.
Elephant Revival is a leader in the emerging, influential musical genre being called “Transcendental Folk.” All the musical artists who joined Elephant Revival for the benefit concert contribute in some way to the defining of this new genre.
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With attendees gathered around the mother drum, the intention of the evening pulsed forth and gained cadence as the drum, the living heartbeat of the American landscape, inaugurated and invoked the evening’s magical unfolding.
The Plenty Wolf Singers were joined by surprise special guest Silent Bear, a fellow resident and musician from the Rose Bud Reservation. Silent Bear received permission from Pete Seeger to alter the words to Seeger’s famous Vietnam protest song, “Bring Them Home.” Silent Bear’s adaptation, entitled “Bring Him Home,” is reference and homage to Leonard Peltier who has spent 34 years wrongly imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. The song became a shared, heartfelt prayer for justice to come to those in need.
The Plenty Wolf Singers were a persistent presence during the concert, providing a focus to the show as the bands were setting up, as well as ending the concert with ceremony and prayer.
Jim Page was another major presence during the show, acting as master of ceremony and providing historical context and demonstrating why he is one of the most notable, worthy American songwriters plying his craft today. Page played his haunting, signature song, “The Wind Did Blow” (accompanied by Elephant Revival), about the wind that blew and froze the corpses of the men, women, children and old folks murdered by the U.S. 7th Cavalry at Wounded Knee, South Dakota on December 29, 1890.
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As the late great folk legend Utah Phillips stated, “Jim Page is one of the great songwriters of our times. He is a master of the songwriting craft. Jim Page’s songs get right to the point. He looks at the world clearly and reports what he sees with compassion, humor and a biting sense of irony.”
The Buffalo Heart Project Benefit was a night which invited all participants to breakout their best protest songs, and The Boulder Acoustic Society accepted the invitation. They took the posture of rabble-rousers and ended their set by going into the audience. They sang the timeless protest song “Lift Every Voice” and Steve Earle’s “Oxycontin Blues.”
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Laura Goldhamer & The Silver Nail also sang songs of isolation and alienation, and the hope of transcending and rising above one’s woes. The band’s songs were illustrated by an onstage slide show projected on a bed sheet.
Many sad songs were sung. Many angry songs of protest were sung. However, in the end, Elephant Revival’s songs of hope and grace transcended all the anger and sadness.
A magic moment occurred when ER took the stage, stood silently posed in the moment and then charged into the savage blood rhythm of their Celtic battle song, with the unlikely title “Single Beds Were Made for One.” The quintet’s fusion of Scottish/Celtic fiddle tunes, original folk pieces, traditional ballads, psychedelic country, indie rock and powerful reggae grooves has such a beautiful animal/creature vitality that it made the dancers move in new archaic ways.
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Elephant Revival hails from Nederland, Colorado – a place whose precious minerals have been mined out, yet Nederland is amazingly rich in its abundance of musical talent. Bands and talents such as Stephen Stills, Dan Fogelberg, Joe Walsh, Leftover Salmon, The String Cheese Incident, and Yonder Mountain String Band have emerged from this part of the Colorado Front Range to take their place in the greater national musical scene. The unanimous, local folk wisdom is that Elephant Revival is next.
The kind of social activism that was showcased at the Buffalo Heart Project Benefit comes natural to Elephant Revival band members. Bonnie May Paine (vocals, washboard, djembe, musical saw) is tribal Cherokee from the capital of the Oklahoma Cherokee – Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Most of the rest of the band members have some connection to the Indian Territories of Oklahoma. From there springs forth their song of hope, comfort and transcendence.
Continue reading for more pics of the Buffalo Heart Project Benefit…
 Plenty Wolf Singers | |
 Silent Bear | |
 Jim Page | |
 Reed Foehl | |
 Boulder Acoustic Society | |
 Bridget Law – Elephant Revival |
Elephant Revival tour dates available here.
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