IIt’s the hype-up riddle of 2021: How do you get people excited to party when you are the people who explicitly told them not to party and no one can party because it’s a pandemic? The celebration of the Biden Inaugural Committee’s kickoff to swearing-in events week was about as awkward and as confusing then one might expect.
A persistent attempt to organize something uplifting and fun, Sunday evening We, the people concert and fundraiser (a small donation that gave Biden / Harris supporters access to the virtual event) was a bit silly, a bit sad, incredibly random, hopelessly energy-efficient, scrappy, admirable and in the end maybe actually quite nice?
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The line-up wasn’t just the normal, hilariously eclectic bookings telegraphing “we know the guest of honor has no idea who most of these people are, but we were determined to hire at least one act to tick off every demographic to prove that we inclusive ”for what these political events are notorious for.
Maybe it’s because the big guns are being reserved for Wednesday’s primetime inauguration concert or maybe they couldn’t justify the effort of appearing at a virtual live stream event without the spirit of a live concert, but We, the people featured whiplash inducing twists from A-list artist to, not quite Z-list, but maybe P-list? Q list?
Keegan-Michael Key and Debra Messing, from the iconic “I’m for Joe” memeServed as co-hosts and were perfectly cheerful and happy to be there, so good to them. But even as they introduced the night’s lineup overly enthusiastically, it was tempting to chuckle at the diminishing returns: “Cher!” “And Fall Out Boy!” “And [pause] Kal Penn … “
President-elect and Dr. Jill Biden spoke, as did Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff. “Even though our inauguration traditions look a little different this year,” warned Biden, “we’re all still together all over America.”
And so it may be necessary to enjoy these things as they are in these extreme circumstances: the best anyone can do. You must feel that.
Between pandemic restrictions and ongoing threats of insurgency, this is the worst time to try to spread excitement for a new government, and they are doing their very best to do what they can and what is appropriate. It’s an impossible situation, as if someone gives you a couple in their twenties, a barrel of Busch Light, the keys to the banquet room at the Ponderosa Steakhouse, and says, “Turn this into a presidential event.”
There are many opinions about it. It is exhausting that there is always an urge to do things like this, days of parties and ultimately uninteresting concerts as part of some bourgeois splendor, especially now that we are in a pandemic. Still, it’s time to start feeling good about things – or at least to believe that it is possible to feel good about things one day.
To that end, it is inspiring and fun to have the opportunity to meet with people who are eager to defend and support not only the newly elected president, but also the promise of what the country could be under his leadership.
But at the end of the day, how refreshed can you feel sitting on your couch on a Sunday watching a glitchy live stream on your computer at 8 p.m. on a Sunday like Grace Adler and the guy kissing Meryl Streep in The Prom are you trying to fool you into thinking the upcoming performance of Fall Out Boy is similar to watching Beyoncé quit Coachella?
Was the Inaugural Commission trying to conjure up wistful memories of the Obama era with that seemingly out of the blue entry? In an effort to reassociate Biden with times when Trump was just a tough reality TV star, the only face masks we saw on the cast of Grey’s Anatomy on Thursday night, and we all went down, down in an earlier round, sugar, we gonna swing down?
Until oral history is released on how this event was cast – the first celebrity presenter was Michael Bivins, a former member of New Edition and Bell Biv DeVoe … – we’ll have to be content to politely remain confused about how the favorite rock band from my high school graduation class of 2005 became a headliner. (Their performance of their 2014 single “Centuries” was … fine?)
The clumsiness of everything could not be saved.
A pop trio called AJR, who were touted by Messing and Key for writing and producing songs from their own living room, played “Bummerland,” as if the jokes weren’t already writing themselves.
Yes, they booked Barbra Streisand, but only for a voiceover. She teased that she would sing a song she had played for three presidents, and was excited to make Biden the fourth, then archive footage of her belts “Happy Days” at a concert played years ago. What was that about “Bummerland?”
“A pop trio called AJR, who were touted by Messing and Key for writing and producing songs from their own living room, played “Bummerland,” as if the jokes weren’t already writing themselves.“
Kal Penn joined to talk about the famous bagels from… New Jersey (?), And the similarities between the opportunity America offers and the acting. Will.i.am performed, which I can say with confidence no one wanted.
Towards the end, we were blessed by the presence of Cher, who gave a delightfully rambling speech before lip-syncing to her ballad ‘I Hope You Find It’ from various parts of her house, not too different from a self-recorded music video. that 13 year old I would lip-sync to a Cher song in my own living room.
The truth is, I think I was assigned this review for being snappy, which, admittedly, is easy to do, especially considering the random setlist and gloom of trying to pump people over a Zoom video. Instead of applauding, you have Deb and Keeg cooing and screaming about how good each artist was. There was no cheers or laughter, but there was that biting glitch noise from video delays that we’re all so familiar with now.
But there was rightly something pleasant, even uplifting.
For example, the first artist was Ben Harper, who sang the beautiful song ‘With My Two Hands’. It has a beautiful, lilting cadence, with lyrics like, “I can make peace on Earth with my own two hands / I can clean up the Earth with my own two hands / I can reach out to you with my own two hands.”
It is now a surreal message. It is badly needed, but can only be metaphorical. We can’t do anything with our own two hands – at least not without a bathtub of disinfectant and meticulous COVID testing – but it’s appropriate reporting.
We have all received a loud and clear march order in recent weeks that anyone who wants this current national nightmare to end must be active participants in digging ourselves out. This is only possible if there is support: from the government, from the community. And it will only be possible if there is empathy, a new concept nowadays.
The last chorus of the song changes the lyrics to “with our own two hands. “Maybe the inches of ice that have formed over my heart over the past four years are really starting to thaw as I found myself being touched.
Carole King sat at a piano and played ‘You’ve Got a Friend’. James Taylor strummed along as he sang his own version of “America, the Beautiful.” There is no time when watching one of these things is not the highlight of a day. They were nice.
But just as we were won the grand final started and again annoyed us that we even did this. Just as they did after the remarkable, impressively produced Democratic National Convention – a triumph of ingenuity and democracy – this concert, inexplicably, ended with a DJ.
This time it was DJ Cassidy instead of Diplo, but it was just as strange to stare at a person in a YouTube screen with dance music as if we were all in an arena to party together, and not in the same place on the bank we’ve been to for the past 11 months, half paying attention as we scroll Twitter.
I don’t know what we ever want from these celebrity meets politics events that take place every four years, and I have absolutely no idea what we want from them in a pandemic.
Perhaps we can just say it was the ultimate opening act for Wednesday’s big show, which will turn on Lady Gaga, Tom Hanks, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Timberlake and the ultimate headliner: saving the United States of America from its current fiery hell. It didn’t matter if you missed it, but watching definitely got you more excited for the main event.