The "We Are One" Concert -- by Randy

For those of you too far away (or too smart!) to attend the Inauguration festivities this week, here's a short post with my reflections on last Sunday's "We Are One" Concert. I'll post again tomorrow with my experiences at Tuesday's Inauguration.

I don't know if there was an exact moment when I became an Obama supporter, but I do know that as I watched him announce his candidacy in February of 2007 I was telling myself that I would go to his inauguration if he were elected President. Since then I've been excited, but it wasn't until last Saturday night (January 17th) when I went to pick up my Mom at the airport that it really hit me that he was the soon-to-be-president. As I walked into the baggage claim area of the Baltimore-Washington Airport, there were young people arriving in town for the festivities, laughing with each other, texting, and listening to their iPods. There were people--many of them African-American--introducing themseleves to perfect strangers and talking about their plans for getting to the week. And there were a lot of airport employees, shuttle drivers, and other transit people bracing themselves for the coming crunch. The mood at the airport was electric, and it's stayed that way in the DC area all week.

On our way home from the airport (about 11pm) I decided that, as tired as I was, we needed to get organized for the concert on Sunday. So we stopped at Wal-Mart to look for cold weather gear, only to find out it completely wiped out of footwarmers, handwarmers, and other staples. Judging from the number of people selling handwarmers on the Mall on Tuesday, I'd say that entrepeneurial types had gone to every retail area in a 50-mile radius of DC and cleaned them out! Having had no luck there, we went to the Greenbelt Metro station to purchase our Metro tickets in advance. That turned out to be one of our better decisions, since the lines to buy tickets on Sunday morning and on Tuesday morning were long and slow.

The "We Are America" concert was scheduled to begin on Sunday at 2:30, so we left for the Metro station (only about 3 miles from our home) at around noon. Getting there was relatively easy. There were crowds, of course, but Metro seemed prepared for it. We got off at the Smithsonian station, which is right on the Mall, and made our way towards the Lincoln Memorial.

I've been to the Mall many times by now, but I'll now always think of this concert and Tuesday's Inauguration when I go there. It was beautiful, as always. But what was really striking about the day was the happiness and the all-around goodness of the people. If you stayed at home you had better food, had better views of the stage, and were no doubt much warmer. But what television can't convey is the sense of relief, the sense of excitement, and the sense of comradery that people felt in being together at this historic event. It really was something to be a part of, and for me it made it worthwhile to brave the low temperatures, the crowds, and those foul porta-potties.

The noise of the crowd was loud, so it was hard to hear what was said on stage as the concert began. Fortunately some roadie figured that out and turned up the volume during the opening prayer, which led to an applause from the crowd, though not a thunderous one, since everyone was wearing gloves. (Have you ever heard 500,000 people gloveclapping? Not nearly as impressive as handclapping!) Then Bruce Springsteen opened with "The Rising."

The concert itself was great. I had low expectations going in, because usually star-studded concerts are a disappointment: too much showmanship and too unwieldy. But the people who put this show together seemed aware of this danger, because they avoided a chaotic playlist by putting together interesting musical combinations, like James Taylor singing his "Shower the People" with Jennifer Nettles (of Sugarland) and John Legend.

The highlights of the "We Are One" Concert: Garth Brooks (always a crowd-pleaser!) singing "American Pie"; U2 (playing the part of Rock Star to perfection!) with "Pride (In the Name of Love)"; Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger playing "This Land Is Your Land" (including the often-ignored verses!); and Shakira, Usher and Stevie Wonder singing "Higher Ground."

The lowlights: Bruce Springsteen's "The Rising" (not a very stirring song in my mind); Mary J. Blige's "Lean on Me" (great voice, so-so song); and Betty LaVette and Jon Bon Jovi's "A Change is Gonna Come" (great song, so-so rendition).

When the concert was over, everyone made an orderly exit. People had a real sense of humor about things. At one point a police motorcade went by--a common event in DC--and everyone applauded and laughed. It wasn't Obama's motorcade, but it seemed fun to cheer anyway!