march in place, vote for change

after an exhausing exit/return from philly, i am here to report about the Bruce/Stipe/Fogerty/Conor(?) version of the vote for change concert series, which got a decent sized NY Times piece by Pareles, excerpt here, cause Caryn Brooks turned me on to the Chicks:

The Dixie Chicks, who started their part of the tour in Pittsburgh, faced radio-station boycotts and a talk-show furor last year after their lead singer, Natalie Maines, disparaged President Bush onstage.

We have nothing to lose at this point, so any sort of fear or inhibition is out the window,'' Ms. Maines said by telephone this week. "We definitely want a regime change, and now that we're getting down to the wire I'm even less afraid to speak out. I just think things are absolutely life or death right now.''

We sort of weeded out the people who apparently didn't know who we were, though we never felt like we were trying to hide what we thought,'' she added. "Free speech is not free: we paid dearly. But we're more determined and stronger now. And from this point on, what fans we have will be our true fans.''

Missed Bright Eyes but heard some of the big lookin Bruce fans mumbling about his performance on the way out - indeed, when the patriotic Patti Smith cover secion of the performance came on - we are the world becomes because the night - Conor choked at his turn on the mic, then going for a second turn with Michael Stipe knocking the rythmn out on his back as he crooned (the beauty of seats on the side, bands are best in profile?).

It was my first REM and Bruce concert, and indeed the first time I'd been in a stadium in a good long while. The audience was overwhelmingly nice, covered in clever anti-Bush slogans, older and less ethnically mixed than I am used to for seeing shows, and between every song for both REM and Bruce, a loud hum of "bbbbbbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrruuuuuuuuuuuuu" came from the crowd - the problem with having an everyman's name is that it can't be chanted. Bruce fans. Narrative singer/songwriter parking lot in full effect. REM were overt - Stipe engaging the audience directly, dressed in all white, his eyes sad as always but his body dancing to every song. Snips of the things you would hear were sprinkled in, but not too heavily...these are performers, and perhaps Bruce knows how to build an audience to its fever pitch best; i realized that most of his songs must be crafted, at least the more uptempo ones, with the idea of the cathartic audience experience somewhere in his mind - fists in the air, they are one as the lights in the stadium go dental office bright and you see every mouth open, singing. See Dan Cavicchi as usual. So many people on stage, so many guitars blending into that epic chorus sound where the nasal whine rides - his voice is really beautiful and musical, something I just hadn't appreciated until last night, the whispers, the switch, like a pedal, into the earnest, rough and powerful rocker. The only painful part was maybe in the middle of "Mary's Place" where he broke down into this gospel call out to the audience, saving the soul of a Bush voter (Jon Landau, no less) by giving him the will to change. My god, it was like at U2 show or something ("Vertigo" umm. Adam Clayton, Peter Hook called and wants his bassline back...).

Anyway, I can't tell if it felt slightly brainwashing and weird because it was a political rally or because it was Bruce Springsteen arena show. In the finale, Bruce asked his legions to mobilize, to do something to help for this 'change' and mentioned thinking "Senator Kerry and Senator Edwards as being the best men for the job" while Stipe, ever the iron-on sloganier, wore his support on a t-shirt. Oppurtunists in Darth Vader costumes sold "start wars" t-shirts in the parking lots (and nitrious balloons) and everyone got in their SUVs, that they had paid $10 to park) and went home. Maybe this sounds cynical, and it isn't entirely, but I do wonder if the preaching from on high celebrity cause in the 11th hour stuff isn't a little Janus-faced. Shouldn't we, the audience and voters, have always been critical? Don't we already share some sentiments with REM and Bruce, and thus we love them and would be there regardless? Is this doing anything more than boostering the good feelings of celebs and the passive reception of an audience bathed in their good deeds? What happens after the election, are they Kerry's friends then?

Certainly, if so, then Kerry will need to look at the shitload of anti-artist, pro-IP goonies wheeling and dealing the Senate these days. What will he do when the chickens come home to roost? Does Kerry owe these artists anything?

And what if Kerry looses, will Bush banish the Boss? And if he did, could we impeach him?