More than 150 ticket holders turned out at The Drake nonprofit performance and music venue for the Donnie Gallagher and Friends Benefit Show for the Amherst Survival Center on the evening of Friday, June 5. Additional support came from donations to the center from those who couldn’t attend the event. Numerous videos from the show have been posted on YouTube, Facebook and other social media.

Lights, cameras,  action. In this their premiere performance at the Drake, the mature rock sounds of “Grace and Power” opened the show. These talented musicians treated the audience with a moving performance that transported all back to their youth with music from the 60s and 70s. Opening  with Kansas’ “Dust in the Wind,” 16-year-old gold-medal guitarist Raymond Sheffer IV blended his strings with 14-year-old Grace Romano’s voice before 16-year-old Isabella Pohorylo broke into a soaring violin solo. As the audience’s rousing applause subsided, Isabella’s 12-year-old brother Adrian saddled in behind the Drake’s drum kit next to Wilson Kibbe on bass and his brother Ryan on keyboards.

Seeming to be in touch with the reason for the concert, they showcased their talent and growth since winning the ATAM New England Battle of the Band’s  award at Berklee in Boston a month ago. Lil Ray played sophisticated and challenging guitar riffs from George Harrison’s “Beware of Darkness” to the Beatles’ famous Abbey Road finale “Golden Slumber.”

After the group rocked Billy Joel’s “You May Be Right,” lead singer Grace Romano bridged the generations that filled the seats of the Drake with Leonard Cohen’s “Allelulia.”

But wait… didn’t rock star Peter J. Newland from the legendary band FAT just bring the house down  closing his rich set of songs with Allelulia?

When Grace and Power finished their set Donnie Gallagher and Friends took to the stage.

Singer songwriter Kate O’Connor, who won the Valley Advocate’s Female Singer of Year award and Gallagher, led the band a few sets of meaningful original songs from their albums and cover material. The band also included Lenox multi-instrumentalist Andy Gordon, Denver guitarist Curtis Dagostino, bassist Rico Spence, and Lee drummer Bob Jones. Gallagher’s opening set included “Poison, Poseidon and Promises,” penned for commercial fishermen in recovery from substance use disorder often caused by that profession. Gallagher introduced the song by sharing that “We don’t often think about life-threatening and even deadly injuries sustained in the work of farming and fishing as food comes to the table.” Gallagher went on to say that, “The cure can be worse than the physical curse of working the fields and plying the waters.”

The group then performed O’Connor’s song “Water” dedicating the song to leaders from our neighboring Berkshire towns fighting for clean waters. Drummer Bob Jones chairs the town of Lee Selectboard that is engaged in lawsuits against General Electric, Monsanto, Bayer and other corporate giants to clean up the Housatonic River.  PCBs and other cancer-causing chemicals have been proven to have taken tens of thousands of lives the world over.

The evening’s performance ended with Gallagher’s “Pirates of Pleasure “ and a rousing rendition of his rockin’ blues tune “Keep Him From the Throne.”

But the real focus of the night was to bring attention to the work of the staff and volunteers of the Amherst Survival Center who face the immense and growing challenges of food insecurity and healthcare inequity for low-income families and elderly neighbors.

We see examples everywhere of our system neglecting domestic needs while we poison our fields and streams and engage in conflicts around the world  that produce trillions of dollars in profit to those investors of big Agra, big Pharma and the military industrial complex. It’s increasingly important to pay attention to those in need around us… to think global but act local.

Donnie Gallagher lives in Hadley.