A CONCERT FOR THE GULF COAST

RAISES $42K

by Kate Tarasenko

[Originally published in Watts Happening, a supplemental insert in the Rocky Mountain Bullhorn (Fort Collins, Colo.),
week of Sept. 29—Oct. 5, 2005, pg. 7]

When asked how she managed to pull together A Concert for the Gulf Coast barely a week after Hurricane Katrina ravaged her hometown of New
Orleans, local musician Liz Barnez responds, "Let me think, because now I’m in Hurricane Rita mode, which is headed toward the west coast of
Louisiana where my family evacuated to." As of press time, the Category 5 storm was expected to make landfall in Galveston within 24 hours.

"The concert kind of came about in a weird, circuitous route," recalls Barnez. "Dawn Owens, the owner of the Sunset Events Center where the concert
took place, called me and she said that a woman was just visiting her and wanted to put together a fundraiser to benefit the Red Cross. Her heart was
in the right place she but didn’t really know who to get in touch with music-wise, so I made a lot of phone calls. People were all too willing and
generous to help out. Then KRFC called and wanted to know what they could do. It was a big group effort."

The live-broadcast concert happened on Saturday, Sept. 3 and featured Barnez, Tim Hunt, Colleen Crosson and Mark Sloniker, Nina Storey and
Christopher Jak, Rob Solomon, the Bluegrass Patriots, and The 3 Twins. Between donations taken at the door and those phoned into the station
telethon-style, the benefit concert raised over $21,000, which was matched dollar-for-dollar by the Gill and Bohemian Foundations, for a grand total
of over $42,000.

Barnez credits word-of-mouth for the huge turnout. "It was amazing how fast word spread," she says. "Through e-mails and phone calls and PSAs…
it was amazing."

But with so much anxiety and unanswered questions about her various family members’ whereabouts, how did Barnez deal with the logistical tasks
of wrangling different performers, and then performing herself?

"It was really great having to organize the thing because while I was making all these arrangements, I hadn’t heard from everybody in my family, so
it was good to stay busy. All I had been doing was sitting by the phone and trying to call everybody over and over, getting nothing but busy signals,"
she says. "But by the time the show rolled around, I had heard from everybody and I knew they were safe."

Barnez is also grateful that she was able to play a role in the relief effort, as stressful as the week was for her personally.

"I’m a musician, so if I’m worried, playing music is the best therapy," she says. "The best part of the evening was being with my friends, like the
Subdudes and the 3 Twins—people I would have wanted to hang out with anyway, to tell stories about New Orleans, and to laugh and cry and play
music."

Station manager Beth Flowers was at the KRFC studios with other volunteers taking phone calls for donations when she and Andrea Bradstreet,
a volunteer DJ, took a call from the road from a family making their way to Fort Collins from Biloxi, one of the cities hardest hit by Katrina.
"They just randomly tuned their car radio into KRFC, and they were so grateful that we were holding a benefit for them that they called in. A
bunch of us at the station just started crying," remembers Flowers.

In addition to being part of the solution, KRFC can claim a proud first for community radio fundraising. Because the station isn’t officially allowed
to raise money live for anything but itself, it had to obtain a special waiver from the FCC, effectively becoming the first community radio station in
the country to hold a live benefit for the Hurricane Katrina relief effort. The waiver is modeled after one that will be used for another benefit
organized by jazzman Wynton Marsalis, whose own event is scheduled soon.

While Barnez monitors Hurricane Rita’s arrival, she is busying herself once again by loading up a U-Haul with supplies (boots, chainsaws, water and
clothing) to take down to the Texas-Louisiana border to meet up with her large, displaced family. Her anxiety is tempered by a lingering impression
that permeated A Concert for the Gulf Coast—that of gratitude.

"My family lost everything," she says, "and what they expressed was complete gratitude—grateful that they were alive, and grateful that people were
thinking of them. They’re grateful—and I’m grateful—that they have the love and support of the incredible community of Fort Collins."

Stay tuned for a special-edition KRFC-produced concert CD which will be offered as a fundraiser premium to benefit Gulf Coast community radio
stations.

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