We Are One Concert 1/18/09

The first official post of the new blog! It's going to be pretty quick, but here we go. I'll be back in force tomorrow...

As long as I'm counting this entire four-day weekend as basically one big national birthday party for me, which I am--though I'll cede the limelight to one Barack H. Obama for part of tomorrow--yesterday was one of the best birthday presents I've ever received. The inaugural committee put on a two-hour concert on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial that featured most of the big names in entertainment from the past thirty years or so, and culminated with addresses from Biden and Obama themselves. In other words, I just saw a whole planetarium's worth of stars, the vice-president-elect and president-elect of the United States, and was seen on HBO and the front page of this morning's New York Times, all in the space of the last twenty-four hours. For those of you that try to find me on HBO or the Times, I'm a bit hard to spot--approximately 200,395th from left in the Times, seen fleetingly on TV--but I'm there none the less.

As far as the aforementioned planetarium goes, here is a sample listing as I recall it:

Entertainment: Denzel Washington, Jamie Foxx, Queen Latifah, Jack Black, Tiger Woods, George Lopez, Steve Carell, Tom Hanks, Samuel L. Jackson, Forrest Whittaker, and two bald eagles from the National Zoo.

Music: Bruce Springsteen, Mary J. Blige, Herbie Hancock, Usher, Shakira, Stevie Wonder, James Taylor, Josh Groban, Renee Fleming and the U.S. Naval Academy Glee Club, will.i.am, Sheryl Crow, John Mellencamp, Garth Brooks, Jon Bon Jovi, U2, Beyonce, and Pete Seeger.

And that's just a partial list of all the acts we got to see in two hours. We were close enough that I could actually see all of the performers (including Obama and Biden), albeit as tiny little specks. Springsteen was good, Mellencamp was great, U2 was fantastic, and Garth brought the house down with an abbreviated "American Pie," "Shout," and his own "We Shall Be Free." All the performers either covered famous songs having to do with solidarity/love/peace/Americana/etc. or played their own songs on the same topics. Many appeared together with one another (Sheryl Crow, will.i.am and Herbie Hancock on "One Love," and so forth) and most only got one song. Garth got about 2.5 (only the highlights from the 8-minute "American Pie") and U2 got two ("Pride (In the Name of Love)" and "City of Blinding Lights"). All in all, a ticket that would have been about a zillion dollars had they actually charged to see all those people. As I mentioned to my friends at the concert, this weekend alone is worth at least my second semester tuition if not the whole year's. At the end of the concert, Springsteen came back onstage and then introduced Pete Seeger to lead the crowd in "This Land is Your Land." That performance was priceless, and thanks to the new blog format you all can watch it here. The other highlight you have to see is Jamie Foxx doing a spot-on impression of Obama's speech in Grant Park on election night (sorry the video's not that great--that's one thing I can't control).

All in all, a wonderful way to spend the second day of my nineteenth year (along with 400,000 other people). From a musical standpoint (longer set, real fans who know the words and sing along, etc.), I've seen better concerts, but I've never seen anything that had quite the atmosphere of yesterday's extravaganza. Part of it was the gathering of people from all over the country to celebrate the inauguration, part of it was the huge collection of celebrities, and part of it was the pure novelty and joy of singing and head-bobbing (no joke) along with the man who will become the 44th President of the United States tomorrow at noon. Whatever you might have thought or continue to think about Obama vs. McCain, I would say that this weekend would have been meaningful but not nearly as fun had McCain won. Not that the concert necessarily wouldn't have happened, but the city has really bent over backwards to make this weekend an experience and I can't help but think it's partially due to Obama's election. So, to all of you who were kind enough to vote for Obama, thanks for a hell of a birthday present!

That's it for now, but I thought you would all enjoy a little vicarious taste of what it's like to be here right now. As mentioned above, I'll be back at full strength tomorrow with all kinds of euphoric things I think and quotes of the day and predictions and reactions and....

In honor of SI's Peter King, whose "10 Things I Think I Think" column feature inspired me to get started on firing off all the things I've thought I've thought over the past year, I'll once again shamelessly loot his column from this morning and give you one of his quotes of the week:

"Barack Obama is selling hope, and I'm buying."
--Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin [I'd add that, as a 36-year-old black man, Tomlin is already the youngest head coach to get his team to the Super Bowl and stands a good chance of becoming the youngest to win it, as well as the second black head coach to win it. Finally, it was Tomlin's Steelers who came to town and beat the Redskins on election weekend, a traditional sign that the incumbent party will lose the White House. Coincidence? Happenstance? You tell me...)

Once again, please do react to this via comment and/or email. To a certain extent, it's your column--take some ownership and help me make it better. The feedback you send, the better it will get and the faster that will happen. As my other influence Rick Reilly says, "Love the column, hate the column, got a better idea?" Pass it along s'il vous plait...