So am I am the only one who watched the 50-hour long “Concert for New York” on VHI and cried through 51 hours and fifteen minutes of it?
Sheesh! Even The Who made me cry, although that might have something to do with how old those guys got while I wasn’t looking. Man. Roger Daltry’s got those hanging grandfather ears that dust the tops of his shoulders. Pete Townsend looks like Sean Connery’s older brother. But WTF. The boys can still rock!
Seemed like the only one of the classic rockers that hadn’t shown any signs of slowing down was Mick Jagger, natch. He’s the same ol’ wily, manic pogo stick he always was, skipping from one end of the stage to the other.
Tell me the truth girls. Don’tcha just hate a man who weighs less than you do?
Anyway, all the boys were there, as you probably know, and they all rocked on with nary a tech problem or hitch that I could see, anyway.
But then my homophobe alarm started going off when Melissa Etheridge took the stage. One second into her first song, her mike went dead, so she had to keep banging on her guitar, till they got her a new mike, then someone squashed a fireman’s hat on her head, so she couldn’t see. And when she started into song number two, she had to switch guitars because the first one had been tuned by Helen Keller.
But Melissa kicked ass, as usual and even made me like Bruce Springsteen for a moment by cranking out “Born to Run.”
Always hated The Boss. It’s a Jersey thing. No offense to all you Jerseyans. It’s just that I hated living there so much as a teen that I built up a natural dislike for Bon Jovi, Springsteen, The Asbury Jukes … Michelob Light … anything that reeked of Exit 11.
But I digress.
As I said, I cried myself silly. I cried that The Who got back together for this. I cried at every camera close up of someone holding a photo of one of the heroes killed in the WTC. I cried at the shots of the New York skyline with the towers still there. I cried because I just hate The Backstreet Boys so much.
My inner ’70s rock babe was getting down, big time, but my outer New Yorker was having her intestines wrapped around her heart.
Damn! It was touching.
My fave moment of the whole night; the tough guy firefighter from Rockaway who upstages Michael J. Fox and tells Osama bin Laden to “kiss my royal Irish-American Ass!”
You gotta love a moment when a no-name bruiser from the boroughs can cause the crowd to ask “Michael J. who?”
I was also partial to the Woody Allen short film that ends with Bebe Neuwirth (oh you know that actress who played Frazier’s wife) talking on her cell phone saying things are so strange ... she heard Al Sharpton and Giuliani are getting a house together on Fire Island.
Ahahahhahahahha.
By the way, did anyone notice that all the firefighters booed when they brought out their fire chief for intro? Or was that just the sound system sending a wailing, steady, bass OOOOOOOOOOOOOO?!
I loved it all, dearies, even John Cougar Mellencamp, who sets off my Jersey alarm, too, even if he’s from Indiana.
It was a great night to be a New Yorker, and everyone was a New Yorker last night, well at least everyone in Madison Square Garden or in any home that got cable.
I fell asleep as Paul McCartney capped the show with “Yesterday” and “Let it be,” which suddenly sounded as though they’d been written for the occasion.
I never liked the Beatles, either, and there’s nothing New Jersey about them,(’cept maybe the hair). I just hate boy groups.
But man ... last night, I felt like McCartney was some kinda prophet!
“Yesterday ... all my troubles seemed so far away. Now I need a place to hide away. Oh I believe in yesterday.”
So do I, Paul. So do I.
“When I find myself in times of trouble....[insert Jewish equivalent of Mother Mary] comes to me ...speaking words of wisdom ... let it be ...”
AAAKKK!
I gotta go buy more tissues. …
