WE ARE ONE

Yes, it was cold out, but I
have loved to have been at the We Are One concert at the Lincoln Memorial honoring Barack Obama. Lots of huge stars there - and it was really cool that Bruce Springsteen both opened and closed the show: he opened with "The Rising," backed by a huge multi-cultural choir, and closed with Pete Seeger doing "This Land Is Your Land." I didn't see the show - I don't have HBO - but I watched that performance, and it was so incredibly moving. 45 years after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech, Seeger singing that song (including "banned" lyrics "The sign said private property / and on the other side, it didn’t say nothing / That side was made for you and me")... it was just so moving and powerful.

Bono was on the bill as a solo artist, but it turned out that all of U2 turned out to perform "Pride (In The Name Of Love" and "City Of Blinding Lights." I guess Bono is relieved that, for the next four years, if he hangs out with the President, his bandmates won't cringe and give him the silent treatment. I can't wait for the inauguration tomorrow: Barack is an extrodinary guy, but not a superhero, so I don't think that his inauguration will actually be the end of our long (inter)national nightmare: but hopefully it is the beginning of the end of it.

There were lots of artists from different genres there, but I was very glad to see Garth Brooks - the best selling country artist of all time - on board. He also played Al Gore's "Live Earth" concerts, so he's probably not the most red-state guy anyway, but still, he's country's biggest superstar, welcoming an African-Amerian Democratic President. Pretty awesome.