Sunday

Patrick and I watched most of the Lincoln Memorial concert today for Barack Obama. I was in the shower and so missed the one performance I was most curious about (Mary J. Blige), but Patrick taped it on the rebroadcast, so I will watch it later. Mostly it was inspiring and incredible - those people who were there may have been frozen but boy were they lucky. President-Elect Obama looked great, and it seemed as if he and his family were having a really good time (except for the little kid behind him who was mostly snoozing during the whole thing). I hate to admit it, but I actually got a little choked up during John Mellencamp's performance of "Pink Houses." It happened, and that's cool (what an incredible thing, this celebration! I am so excited for Tuesday to come!); I was actually laughing about it when I told Patrick, because it was just totally ridiculous that it would happen during that goofy song.

All in all, I thought the performances were fine (Renee Fleming is amazing; she looked great, too). Sheryl Crow, Herbie Hancock and Will.i.am were interesting (I thought maybe they were on the edge of falling apart at one point, but they pulled it off); I felt kind of bad for Shakira during her performance with Stevie Wonder and Usher - her voice just wasn't carrying through, though, Usher and Stevie were a perfect pair. Josh Groban's performance didn't kill me as I thought it might, and Garth Brooks, though I'm not a fan or anything, is some showman. I loved the kids' choirs, and actually, all the backing singers were excellent. As usual my complaint is that you couldn't see the musicians - placing them below the performers was probably the only option, but it would've been nice to have seen more shots of the musicians and less shots, during the performances, of the crowd.

And then U2 came out.

I love U2. I am a huge U2 nut from way back when, at Missy's urging, I bought a copy of "Boy" on cassette after driving her crazy, making her play it on her little Sony boombox whenever I was at her house. When this was I'm not sure, exactly. I do recall drawing their name on my Pee Chee folders but that could've been Middle School or High School. I can say for certain that Larry Mullen, Jr., may be the one drummer I'm not crazy about (sorry Rachel: you can have him!).

The Edge, on the other hand? That's my guy.

(I also was sort of wondering... what happened to Bono's hair?)

Anyway, they got to all be on the stage (can you imagine putting Adam, Larry and the Edge in an orchestra pit type situation?) at the same time, and they started out with "Pride (In the Name Of Love)", which is a great song, and of course, topical for the event, but their performance was pretty iffy. I thought, these guys have played in worse weather, they're from Ireland, they can't be cold... why does this song sound so slow, so leaden? I never figured it out. The song they followed it up with wasn't that much better, though I guess because of it's connection to Obama's campaign, they had to do it. I thought it would've been pretty funny if they'd played "Sunday Bloody Sunday" or something totally out of place, but they played it safe. Bono sitting down at the end was a little weird to me. Was he tired? Overwhelmed? Looking for a good photo op under all the American flags?

I was pretty bored by Beyonce's performance - she can certainly sing, and hits the notes (I guess), but I'm always waiting to see her personality in her performances, and she leaves me cold every time.

Pete Seeger, on the other hand, has personality to spare, and I loved him, and Bruce Springsteen (not sure who the other guy was? His nephew? Dude could sing), which is kinda funny, because these are not names you might think I would say connected with the words "I loved."

Anyway, tomorrow, after I get my massage with Bruce (I made this appointment months ago and have been anxiously awaiting it) I'm going to watch the first part of the show, and maybe I'll update. Or maybe not, it's entirely up to me. You'll just have to wait and see.