England for Obama

In my Chris Matthews-induced excitement, I realise I haven’t actually written about yesterday’s ‘We Are One’ concert.

From the moment I exited the Metro station and followed the crowds to the Lincoln Memorial, it felt like I was going to a rock festival. Which, erm, of course, I was. And yet not. Because the event, of course – or at least: the reason for it – was much bigger than that.

I also felt like I was going to a rock festival because there were stalls and hawkers selling every kind of memorabilia en route, including quickly rustled-up commemorative concert T-shirts.

By the time I arrived (having seen the Obama motorcade swoosh past at one point), the place was clearly rammed, with unbelievable queues – and it was clear that it would be impossible to get into the main area by the Lincoln Memorial and the Reflecting Pool.

So I headed up to the Washington Monument instead (cue Chris Matthews encounter), where crowds were gathering and where the concert was being beamed onto three Jumbotron screens:

And it turned out to be the perfect location. In the thick of it, and yet not. In fact, because we were far away, and yet not so far away, the sound was a little odd, because you could hear both the music/speeches coming through the speakers, and the original, live sound preceding it, quietly, just a few seconds before.

That’s Bruce on the screens above, btw. Any concert which kicks off with Bruce is alright by me. In fact, I thought it was brilliantly done – the mixture of music and speeches, and footage from previous inaugurations and Presidential moments. No gassing from any of the acts, just one song and bam, they were off. Unless they were Garth Brooks, of course, who inexplicably got more songs than, say Stevie Wonder (and who knew that Shout was a hit in America, too? Not I). The people I was most excited about seeing were Bruce, Stevie, James Taylor, Herbie Hancock and U2 – and they didn’t disappoint. In fact, no one disappointed. Except for Challenger the American eagle, who flapped around a bit, causing the crowd to get very excited because we clearly thought he was going to be released, like a dove. In fact, that would have been great: screw releasing hundreds of doves – the Presidential Inauguration Committee should have organised the releasing of hundreds of bald eagles. Sort it out next time, America!

One nice thing about ending up going to the concert alone was that I struck up conversations with random strangers. Including a woman who was taking photos for a magazine, and told me that Britney Spears was around here somewhere, in disguise; a lady and her daughter from Joe Biden country, Delaware; and a local guy whose brother was in the front row of the concert because his wife is a big Obama fundraiser, and he’s also friends with Bruce. As you are.

The crowd was peaceful and happy and diverse. In fact, as I wrote in my Orange piece, I can’t imagine any rock festival which actually could attract such a diverse crowd, made up as it was of young and old, black and white:

Aww.

When it was over, I wandered down to the Mall and towards the Capitol. Dusk was falling and the light was beautiful – and look, even the state of the grass on the Mall had that post-rock festival feel to it:

One reason I say that DC feels crowded and yet empty, is that it is, as anybody who’s been there knows, a city of wide boulevards and big buildings. In the main political/administrative part, anyway. It feels grandious, and spacious – ironically, almost Russian-like, in fact – and as a result, as I wandered up towards the Capitol, I had all the space in the world. Despite having just attended a concert around the corner with 400,000 other people.

A frozen Reflection Pond greeted me, I took some photos of the Capitol’s dome in the setting sun, and headed home. Or rather: to K’s place, the best little B&B in Washington.

(More pictures here.)

Tags: barack obama, barack obama inauguration, inauguration images, inauguration news, inauguration photos, we are one, we are one concert, we are one photos

This entry was posted on Monday, January 19th, 2009 at 5:47 pm and is filed under Celebrities, Inauguration, Photos, Washington. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.