Dispatch Member To Perform at Pub

In addition to being serenaded by the Wu Tang Clan and Gavin DeGraw at Yardfest tomorrow, Harvard students will get the chance to see former Dispatch band member Brad Corrigan perform at the Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub next Thursday.

Brad Corrigan will be playing with his band Braddigan, which he formed in 2003 after Dispatch disbanded. Braddigan members, who are performing for Harvard Concert Committee’s (HCC) “Rock for a Reason,” are set to take the stage at 9pm on Thursday, April 24. The night’s repertoire will feature both Braddigan songs and Dispatch favorites.

In addition to performing, the band members will talk to students about their experiences in the music industry.

The event’s main focus is raising awareness about spinal cord injuries by promoting a student-created Web site, SPINALpedia, which is designed to create a support resource for people with spinal cord injuries.

Brittany J. Martin ’08, who developed the idea of SPINALpedia, approached the Harvard Concert Committee about inviting the band. Her father, who is a quadriplegic, met Braddigan last year when they performed at Saint Joseph’s University in Pennsylvania. Martin said that her father was speaking at the event and that the members of Braddigan were “very touched by his story.” According to Martin, the band members expressed interest in performing at Harvard when they learned that his daughter was a student there.

The project will be launched by Martin and three other students, including Elizabeth A. Kolbe ’08 and Madeleine E. Ballard ’11.

According to HCC director Elizabeth F. Weiss ’09, students have been requesting more intimate performances in addition to larger events such as Yardfest. The Pub’s programming manager, Melissa M. Trahan ’07, said that this event could alert more students to the many performances held at the Pub on a weekly basis.

“The entire management staff is excited because this should prominently showcase the Pub as a music venue,” she said.

Martin said that she was excited about the performance for other reasons.

“The funny thing is,” she said, “I didn’t know any of their music before my dad did the event. But since then, I’ve been catching up. I’m a newborn Dispatch and Braddigan fan.”

—Staff writer Sue Lin can be reached at suelin@fas.harvard.edu. –Staff writer Arianna Markel can be reached at amarkel@fas.harvard.edu.