The crowd screams and yells as guitarist Dave Shul steps out onto the stage and begins the opening song to the set. Any minute now, the rest of the band will be rushing out to join Michael Franti, lead vocalist, activist, and poet on stage. The crowd’s energy is a rush of anticipation as we wait impatiently for the show to begin.


Guitarist Dave Shul
Photo By Cassese

Franti and his band are well known for being activists in the music scene and their music tries to push boundaries as well as incite opening some up. “Why are we closing the borders?” he asks the crowd. “Who wants to open them back up, to all people!?” He asks an excited crowd who yells back in approval. He is known for taking time in between songs to talk about what's going on in the current world including the heated immigration debate.

It’s a warm sunny day in Las Vegas, Nevada and the crowds near the front of the stage started gathering an hour ago at the Vegoose music festival to see their favorite band, Michael Franti and Spearhead perform. The group is well know for making a large crowd of 300,000 feel like a close knit family. They talk and play into the audience creating a surprisingly home-like atmosphere for such an energy packed show.

The first key to a Michael Franti and Spearhead appearance is making music that makes people feel good. Second is getting intimate with the audience. Then, once the audience is familiar with the band, the group uses the music as a tool for their messages of peace and co-existence.

"Sometimes it's appropriate to say one or two sentences between songs to say whats happening in the world, and I always try to have the songs speak for themselves. All of my songs have to do about what's happening and create the best party that I can," Franti told Tim Donnelly in a Vegoose interview.


Ganesh Banner behind stage
Photo by Cassese

Behind the instruments and Bijar carpet adorning the stage (Franti always performs barefoot when possible), is a large Ganesh poster unlike any other you will ever see. Ganesh is the most widely known deity of the Hindu religion, the elephant image is always easy to find familiar, and he is known as the “remover of obstacles”.

In Franti’s background, Ganesh dons a gas-mask with arms raised like a marionette surrounded by American consumer-friendly images. At Ganesh’s feet is American currency, skulls and the naked butts of people bent over in prayer.


Michael Franti on stage
Photo by Cassese

While many musicians these days are in the industry for the money, Michael frantic and his band say they are in it for the quality of their music, and to help spread their words of wisdom. The groups front man, Franti, is a poet and activist, whose goal is to “first make people feel good through music” and then use that as a tool for their peaceful mission: promoting peace, speaking out against discrimination, sharing their distaste of President Bush and their desire to open up borders to all immigrants who want to enter this nation.

A few songs into the hour-and-a-half-long set, Franti begins to sing:

“I don’t need a passport to walk on this earth. Anywhere I go because I was made of this earth. I’m born of this earth. I breath of this earth. And even with the pain I believe in this earth. So I wake up every morning and I’m steppin' on the floor. I wake up every morning and I’m stepping out the door. I got faith in the sky. Faith in the one. Faith in the people rockin' underneath the sun. Cause every bit of land is a holy land and every drop of water is a holy water and every single child is a son or a daughter of the one Earth mama and the one Earth papa. So don’t tell a man that he can't come here 'cause he got brown eyes and a wavy kind of hair. And don’t tell a woman that she can't go there because she prays a little different to a God up there. You say you're a Christian 'cause God made you. You say you’re a Muslim cause god made you. You say you’re a Hindu and the next man a Jew. Then we all kill each other 'cause God told us to? NAH!” (Franti, "Hello Bonjour" Lyrics).



The crowd is led in chants and dancing as Franti hops off the stage and climbs over the rail into the pits with the audience to play his guitar and sing.

Franti believes that people are more aware than ever about the war, the lies, and the hypocrisy he sees in this country. He feels that by pushing awareness and togetherness in his music, the world can be a better place.