E-Mail This Article to a Friend THE LAST DISPATCH

So who, you ask, are Dispatch? Helmut Schleppi tries to answer that question in this rockumentary, which chronicles the days leading up to last year’s July 31 farewell concert at the Hatch Shell — a show that drew more than 100,000 fans from around the country and the world but mostly from New England. The problem is, there aren’t a lot of bands like Dispatch, a trio of friends who harmonize like Crosby, Stills and Nash and have the chops to handle a Phish-like jam-band fusion of rock, funk, and pop, and who through touring, on-line file sharing (i.e., Napster), and releasing their own CDs found a huge audience with little or no support from radio, the press, or any of the other normal promotional channels. Hard-to-prove claims are made here: Dispatch "redefined" independent music; their final show was the "largest" independent music event ever. Dispatch did appear just in time to take advantage of Napster before Congress ruined the party. And, yes, their fans were passionate. But if at the end of this film you find yourself still wondering what made this outfit special, that’s because Schleppi’s too close to his subject. Much of what he focuses on — internal struggles to come to terms with success, battles of will and ego — amounts to the same banal turmoil most bands experience. The Last Dispatch is a well-made look inside a scene that perhaps hasn’t gotten enough attention. Then again, maybe there’s a reason for that.