Joe Walsh with Stephen Stills - VetsAid 2023, North Island Credit Union Amphitheater, Chula Vista, CA, 11-12-2023

The other day, this concert appeared on my YouTube feed. I was intrigued by the fact that it wasn't a typical Joe Walsh concert, because Stephen Stills joined him for three songs, singing lead vocals on two of them. It was originally from a webcast, meaning the sound quality is excellent, so I decided to post it.

It turns out this set was from a larger benefit concert called VetsAid. It's been held annually since 2017. Joe Walsh has been a prime mover behind the concerts, along with his wife Marjorie. Both of them had parents who were military veterans. The money raised by the concerts goes to fund non-profits that help veterans. Unusually, the concert is held in different towns each year, towns that typically don't have concerts like this. For instance, this one was held in Chula Vista, near San Diego. The 2025 one was in Witchita, Kansas, and the 2022 one was in Columbus, Ohio.

Each year, there's a different line-up of prominent music acts. For this concert, the other acts were the War on Drugs, Lucius, the Flaming Lips, and Electric Light Orchestra. Stills didn't perform a set of his own.

All the songs here came from a YouTube video of the webcast, except for one song, so the sound quality was excellent. As I often do, I converted the video to audio, then chopped it into mp3s. However, the vocals were low in the mix, so I fixed that with help of the MVSEP program. 

 

The one song not from that webcast was "Rocky Mountain Way," which was removed due to some copyright issue. I found a different version of that song on YouTube, probably recorded by someone in the audience with their cell phone. Not surprisingly, the sound quality isn't as good on this one. I did some extra edits on that to try to improve the sound quality. It sounds somewhat better, but it's still rougher than the other songs.

Walsh and Stills were no longer spring chickens at the time of this concert, but they certainly could still play guitar. There's a lot of excellent lead guitar work here. For instance, "Turn to Stone" is 11 minutes long, with most of that soloing. And the songs with Stills are a highlight, due to the guitar dueling between Walsh and Stills.

 

I found an article about this concert in a San Diego newspaper, if you want to know more: 

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2023/11/13/joe-walsh-and-fellow-rock-roll-hall-of-famers-made-san-diego-vetsaid-a-benefit-concert-to-remember/

By the way, if anyone has any of the other webcasts of the VetsAid concert, including the other acts from this one, please let me know. I got the impression that there have been webcasts of these concerts every year, but they're surprisingly hard to find. 

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 talk (Joe Walsh)
02 In the City (Joe Walsh)
03 Life's Been Good (Joe Walsh)
04 talk (Joe Walsh)
05 Turn to Stone (Joe Walsh)
06 Funk No. 49 (Joe Walsh)
07 talk (Joe Walsh)
08 talk (Joe Walsh & Stephen Stills)
09 For What It's Worth (Joe Walsh & Stephen Stills)
10 Love the One You're With (Joe Walsh & Stephen Stills)
11 talk (Joe Walsh & Stephen Stills)
12 Rocky Mountain Way (Joe Walsh & Stephen Stills)
13 talk (Joe Walsh)
14 All Night Long (Joe Walsh)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/geYXyByG

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/L1ue4d2PVQgQoAr/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. Stephen Stills is on the left, with glasses, and Joe Walsh is on the right.