Again, I have so much to write about and not enough time/energy! Here are highlights; I'll revisit some topics in more detail later (like the Global Festival).
On Monday I got to hear the Avett Brothers in Central Park. I saw them in Radio City Music Hall two years ago, and this was a different but also entertaining experience. They played all three of my favorite songs of theirs. I didn't bring my recording gear, but I recorded two songs with my Google Nexus tablet, and it worked surprisingly well. Here they are:
Laundry Room:
January Wedding:
On Wednesday we didn't have school because of Yom Kippur, so I spent the day at the theatre. I went to the matinee of Cyrano De Bergerac, which I found to be a pointless revival. The show was done less than five years ago (with Kevin Kline giving a great performance). This current production doesn't present anything new or exciting; it's a different translation of the play, but it's not a fabulous one. Douglas Hodge plays Cyrano, and he's great, but I still don't think this show needs to be on Broadway right now.
In the evening I went to see Enemy of the People, which was much more enjoyable. I remember reading Ibsen's play in college and was excited to see it onstage. Boyd Gaines is a four-time Tony winner, so I was eager to see his Dr. Stockmann. His portrayal was passionate, even though it wasn't exactly what I pictured when I read the play. I thought the character would be quieter and a bit less self-aggrandizing. Anyway, I was very glad to see this production.
Tonight I went to the Global Citizen Festival on Central Park's Great Lawn. The Great Lawn is a crazy place to see a concert (and it's very rare for concerts to occur there; the only other one I've been to is Bon Jovi). The line-up was a great collection of artists. We got to see K'Naan, Band of Horses, Foo Fighters, the Black Keys, and Neil Young with Crazy Horse.
I'm going to be a jerk and start with the complaining. I promise I'll get over it and get to the good stuff; I just need to vent first. First of all, I was supposed to go with my brother; I invited him a month ago and he said he'd love to come. I emailed him this Thursday so we could plan ahead and I asked him when he was coming into the city. I never heard back. I texted him this morning (the morning of the concert) to see what was up. He finally called me, the day of the concert, and said he couldn't come. And the excuse he gave was something he had to have known about for at least a couple of weeks. Thanks for the notice. I wanted to go into the concert at a decent time to get a decent spot, so I didn't have enough time to find someone else to take the ticket (there wasn't enough time for any of my friends in NJ or upstate NY to make it into the city, and the people I asked who live in the city already had plans). My friend Kim had wanted to come visit me this weekend, and she could have actually come and gone to the concert with me if I had known in advance (even the night before) that I would have an extra ticket. Anyway, I went by myself. I was fine by myself; it made it easier to sneak through the crowd and get a good spot. But I'm never inviting my brother to anything ever again; I just think it was really rude and inconsiderate of him. When I won the tickets I was torn over whom to invite, and I obviously chose the wrong person.
Okay, complaint number two. I promise I'll stop whining soon. They really needed to organize some things better. The website said you could bring in food and empty water bottles to fill up inside. Despite what the website said, they made us throw away all food and water bottles (even empty ones) at the gate. First of all, at a concert that's trying to end poverty, it seems incredibly wasteful to make everyone throw out their food (even sealed stuff, like granola bars). Anyway, since they made people throw out food and drinks, they must have known that everyone going into the concert (all 60,000 of us) would need to buy food and drinks inside, considering we'd be there for about 8 hours (doors opened at 2pm, concert ended close to 10pm). I waited in line at the concession stand for over an hour. They really should have been better prepared to handle all the people more efficiently. Luckily I was there early and got my food and water before the concert started.
We were divided into pens (yes, they really called them pens; there were signs everywhere), and I was in Pen 1. I realize this makes us sound like livestock, but it actually worked well because each pen had its own concession stand, porta-potties, and merchandise table. Once a pen was filled, they started filling the next pen. This was nice because even though I waited in the concession line for over an hour, I wasn't stuck with a terrible spot because I was already in my pen and people who came in after me were sent into other pens, where they had to stay.
I'm sorry for the whining; I realize I sound like a complete jerk. Because of everything I just complained about, I wasn't in the best mood when the concert started. But by the end of K'Naan's set, my mood had completely turned around. He was a great choice to open the concert because of his upbeat music. He closed with a beautiful performance of "Wavin' Flag," and after that it was impossible to feel down.
Band of Horses were next. I love, love, love Band of Horses. If I hadn't seen them live before (at MSG), they would have been the band I was most excited about seeing tonight. Their set was too short, but it was really good. They played some of my favorites, including "No One's Gonna Love You."
The Black Keys followed. They really are very impressive live. Every one of their songs sounds like it was meant to rock a crowd of 60,000. They got the crowd up and moving.
Foo Fighters were my favorite. It seems like most people were there to see them; everyone was singing along and moving with the music. Dave let the crowd sing a few lines of "My Hero," and it really is amazing to hear 60,000 people singing together. Dave talked about this being their last show in awhile. He said, "Without making a big deal out of it, we don't have any shows after this. This is it, man. This is the show where we come out and we play as many songs as we can in a short period of time, because honestly I don't know when we're going to do it again." I hope they do keep making music together and tour again, but I'm really glad I was at this concert because I don't know if I'll have another shot at seeing them again.
Neil Young with Crazy Horse was last. A lot of people left right before his set, so I was able to move from the back of Pen 1 up to the second row of the pen (so only the VIP section was in front of me). It was cool to see such a legend perform.
There are already some videos online from the live stream, and I'm sure a bunch more will pop up soon, so I'll continue to share my favorites. For now I'll just share this one, Foo Fighters' "Learn to Fly". And below are some of my bad pictures.
ETA: More videos added!
(BTW, anyone who finds me in any of videos from this event gets a prize. :D )
K'Naan (Wavin' Flag):
Foo Fighters (Best of You):
Band of Horses (The Funeral) (I was one of the three people who knew the song):
Neil Young w/ Crazy Horse, The Black Keys, Foo Fighters (Keep on Rockin' in the Free World):
Foo Fighters (Learn to Fly):
Band of Horses (The Funeral) (I was one of the three people who knew the song):
Neil Young w/ Crazy Horse, The Black Keys, Foo Fighters (Keep on Rockin' in the Free World):
Foo Fighters (Learn to Fly):
K'Naan:
Band of Horses:
John Legend (he sang "Imagine"):
Olivia Wilde:
The Black Keys:
Foo Fighters:
Neil Young with Crazy Horse:
