ONLINE: VetsAid

media release: Joe Walsh, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductee and multi-GRAMMY Award winning musician invites you into his home for his 5th annual VetsAid music festival, an offering of his national 501(c)3 non-profit veterans organization. The Basement Show will be streamed live from his basement studio on December 18 and will feature performances by Walsh with special guests including Ringo Starr, a tour of his studio and some of his home guitar collection and a fan submitted Q&A as moderated by his wife Marjorie Walsh and stepson Christian Quilici, who are both VetsAid co-founders.

The stream will also include never before seen footage from the first four VetsAid offerings and from a recent visit Joe made to the US Vets Long Beach facility. As VetsAid festivals are typically planned near military bases and last year's pandemic prohibited any in-person meetings, it was important and gratifying for Joe to be able to meet safely with vets of varying generations at US Vets Long Beach Social Hall where participants were able to share their stories of transition out of homelessness, thoughts on the present homelessness crisis across the country and messages of hope. The visit was topped off with a performance and storytelling session about “Life’s Been Good.”

“I’m always so inspired by the incredible service and sacrifice of our veterans and their families - and this year I had the honor of visiting with some of them in Long Beach and I look forward to sharing some of that visit in the stream on December 18th. Supporting and being of service to them is the sole aim of VetsAid,” Walsh said. “and while we couldn’t be together in Columbus as originally planned, I thought I’d do something special and invite everybody over to my house instead! So c’mon and join us for some great music and a glimpse of how I live, work, play and make music with my friends! That’s a lotta Joe!”

It is fitting that this year’s concert comes from Walsh’s home as Veterans and their wellbeing have always been a family affair for Joe as a Gold Star son himself. His father was a flight instructor for the first US operational jet powered aircraft, the Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star, and died while stationed and on active duty on Okinawa when Walsh was 20 months old. 

VetsAid 2021: The Basement Show will be streamed live on December 18, 2021 at 8:00pm EST (with restream available through December 25, 2021) and is a ticketed event with livestream passes and merch bundles available now from $15 via vetsaid.veeps.com.

Joe Walsh launched VetsAid on September 20, 2017 with an inaugural concert at the EagleBank Arena in Fairfax, VA. The second festival event was in Tacoma, WA and the third in Houston, TX.  VetsAid typically seeks to host the events in cities across the country with large veteran populations.The shows have included performances by musicians including James Taylor, Chris Stapleton, Don Henley, ZZ Top, Sheryl Crow, The Doobie Brothers, Zac Brown Band, Jason Isbell, Keith Urban, Haim, Gary Clark Jr. and Joe’s brother-in-law Ringo. VetsAid 2020 saw the festival move online during the COVID pandemic with more than 40 participating artists that included Willie Nelson, Eddie Vedder, Gwen Stefani, James Hetfield and Jon Bon Jovi.

To date, VetsAid has disbursed $1.8 million dollars to organizations that support veterans and their families. All net proceeds from the 2021 streaming festival will go directly to the veterans’ services charities selected through a vetting process coordinated in tandem with the Combined Arms Institute. Criteria for this year’s selection process will focus exclusively on our homeless veterans and the resettlement efforts of our Afghan allies.

For more information, please visit www.vetsaid.org.