On Saturday, dozens of artists donated their music and time to Farm Aid (now in its 23rd year) for its first concert in New England, held at Great Woods Tweeter Center Comcast Center. Judging from historical data, over a million dollars were likely raised to provide support to America's family farmers and promote their survival on various fronts.

We arrived during the first act, after which Boston's Will Dailey was introduced by local comedian and presidential candidate Jimmy Tingle. Dailey hit a down-home vibe in a rustic red and white shirt and rewarded the early birds with a short but sweet set including "Rise," which he also played on CSI:NY last season.

Arlo Guthrie sounded in good form and is still taking humorous jabs at the establishment with a "Fannie Mae" reference in a song. It's difficult to tell if Steve Earle penetrates those who don't already love his bare-bones country troubadour style, but he had one of the best quotes of the day: "I've only missed a few Farm Aid shows, and one year I was in prison."

More music notes, backstage hi-jinks, and mind-altering moments after the jump.

One of the show's highlights was Willie Nelson's cameo with Nation Beat for a Brazilian-inspired version of "Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain." A restrained Jakob Dylan played a pleasantly mild, Dylanesque set. If we're not mistaken, we heard his father's classic "When I Paint My Masterpiece."

The Farm Aid folks asked Bostonist to write a post about the "Homegrown Village" for their blog, and we gladly obliged. The information kiosks often included fun, low-tech interactivity like Guess the Veggie (we easily identified cabbage), Create a Seed Ball, and Wheel of Farming. We learned about sustainable farming and got some homegrown schwag.

For technical reasons, Bostonist had to go backstage to deliver Farm Aid's blog post. A volunteer escorted us, and it turned out her purple badge transformed into a super-mega-pass when combined with Bostonist's yellow badge. [These are magical Emerson College colors! --Ed.] Shout out to "Rasta," our new BFF! We missed Vermont's Grace Potter and jam band moe. while we ambled everywhere except inside Carson Daly's suit (yikes).

Bostonist and our badge-buddy wandered the lawn and collected mainly bland responses from the crowd about family farmers until we met some of Rasta's friends from Johnson & Wales. Jessica (23, from rural Rhode Island) shot back, "Why are YOU here? The music or the cause?" She felt scammed by "organic" labels on food, saying "Corporations probably run the organic food business. People should learn their food's relationship with farmers and educate themselves about the meaning of 'organic.'"

The performers expressed their passion for the farmer's plight to varying degrees. Almost everyone made at least one brief statement of support. Rock pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis gave a surprisingly vigorous performance, but he may not have known he was at Farm Aid. On the other end of the spectrum, Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders basically called for the elimination of McDonald's between every song in her PETA "Tax Meat" shirt. There's a steel-guitar player in latest incarnation of the band, and the group sounded bluesier than usual as songs casually stretched out beyond the originals like corn rows stretching off into the horizon.

As someone who pays little attention to Kenny Chesney, Bostonist liked "She's from Boston" until we read the lyrics later and realized it's about a Bostonian who moves to the Caribbean or The Keys or wherever Chesney goes to pretend he's Jimmy Buffet. The crowd obviously loved it. Festivalgoers also responded well to the rest of his set, including the duet with Willie Nelson on "Ten With A Two," the classic tale of waking up to the sober reality of the "two" that's sharing the bed.

When Dave Matthews took the stage, a cloud of smoke filled the lawn area that MassCann would've been happy to see (and breathe). A responsible journalist obviously couldn't partake, yet we still began to feel different somehow. The musical chemistry between Matthews and guitarist Tim Reynolds was so intense, one would think they met on eHarmony--or maybe even Chemistry.com. Rasta loudly proclaimed that every song was her favorite. As the crowd sang along to "Crush" so high above the stage, it felt like standing among a choir of angels. This was the best overall set of the day.

John Mellencamp and band hit stage by giving "Pink Houses" a swampy, martial stomp. “Rain on the Scarecrow” felt more poignant after having talked to farmers earlier in the day. To the aggro-dude in the cowboy hat, we're sure whatever Boston suburb you come from feels like a "small town" compared to Manhattan or Tokyo, but that's not exactly what the song is about.

While Matthews and Reynolds may have given the strongest performance, the "Best Individual Song" award goes to Neil Young. After blissful renditions of classics like "Everybody Knows this Is Nowhere," "Old Man," and "Powderfinger," the entire concert climaxed with "A Day in the Life" by The Beatles done up in the grungy style of his Crazy Horse days, albeit at a lower volume. Just when you thought he couldn't handle the McCartney bridge, he turned it into a Neil Young bridge. Bostonist silently begged for an ending drenched in feedback, and our prayers were answered. After he put his still-howling guitar down, Neil ripped all the strings off.

Farm Aid founder Willie Nelson had already made a couple appearances, but his "Best-Of" set cooled everyone down to send a happy crowd into the parking lot. Thankfully, we received an unexpected text from a friend who gave us a ride home in lieu of a hitchhiking adventure--although the latter might've been more authentic.

Photo of Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds by Lisa Abitbol, from the Farm Aid website. Photo of Kenny Chesney and Willie Nelson by Paul Natkin/Photo Reserve Inc. 2008.