Michael Franti and Spearhead to appear at 911 Power to the Peaceful Festival

On Saturday September 8th, renowned and outspoken musician and filmmaker Michael Franti and his group Spearhead – along with Guerrilla Management – present the 9th Annual “911 Power to the Peaceful Festival” at Speedway Meadow in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The free music and arts festival is dedicated to social justice, non violence, coexistence and environmental sustainability and aimed to educate, enrage, enlighten and inspire. It drew over 60,000 attendees in 2006.
Artists confirmed to appear alongside Anti- recording artists and headliners Michael Franti and Spearhead at the event include Indigo Girls, K’NAAN, and Hot Buttered Rum, Bassnectar and DJ Spooky. Special guests and speakers will count journalist, author and Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and more to come!
In addition to the mains stage of International Musical Artists and award-winning speakers, the PTTP Festival will also feature morning yoga, an open-air art gallery, a healing arts tent, vendors and food booths, eco village, bicycle coalition and social, environmental & political organizations tabling and forums. This years DJ Tent will be headlined by DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid and Bassnectar. Complete information can be found at www.powertothepeaceful.org.
A family-friendly kid’s zone will boast arts and crafts with an amazing peace flag-making workshop with Daily Acts, live theater with the Big Tadoo Puppet Crew, games, story-telling, face-painting, organic “snack time,” and exhibit from the Museum of Children’s Art and a mid-afternoon Kids Parade. A favorite in the kid’s zone is the sing-a-long with Michael Franti, where the festival founder visits and sings with the youth. An exciting addition to this year’s festival will focus on Franti’s new children’s book, What I Be.
Since 1998, the free, outdoor “911 Power to the Peaceful Festival” has been a fun, educational, hip and diverse annual experience. The first event was held in a neighborhood park and drew 6,000 people. In recent years, it has grown to draw over 60,000 people to the spacious Speedway Meadow in Golden Gate Park. Past artists and speakers have included String Cheese Incident, John Butler Trio, KRS-One, Digital Underground, Woody Harrelson, Angela Davis, Dennis Kuciich, Ram Das, Blackalicious, Alice Walker, Talib Kweli, The Coup, Saul Williams, Keller Williams, Lyrics Born and many others.
In a year that is shaping up to be his most active year yet in support of the peace movement, Michael Franti visited and performed for injured soliders at Washington’s Walter Reed Army Medical Center this past April, before participating in a fundraiser for Iraq Veterans Against the War. In May 2007, he performed an extremely rare San Quentin Prison concert, extolling the virtues of peace in a performance before some 2,000 inmates.
The award winning filmmaker Franti, who is responsible for I Know I’m Not Alone, the heralded 2005 documentary about the Iraq War, and the subsequent 2006 Anti- debut Yell Fire!, which was inspired by his travels to the war-torn area, has been praised for his commitments to peace, tolerance and co-existence from journalists and formal and informal leaders throughout the globe.
Franti and Spearhead will celebrate the success of their breakthrough 2006 Anti- debut Yell Fire! by releasing a live, digital-only version of the acclaimed disc this October. In advance of its extensive U.S. autumn tour, the group is currently at work with producer Matt Wallace (The Replacements, Faith No More, John Hiatt) on its next album, due via Anti- in 2008.