Then Springsteen asked the crowd in a thunderous voice, “Are there any Canadians for Kerry in the audience?” As Neil Young bounded the stage, the arena erupted into wild applause.With both men dressed in matching black, the two did a rousing version of Springsteen’s melancholic “Souls of the Departed” and then a blistering cover of Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower”. Springsteen, then joined by the E Street Band, continued with a run down of his original songs somehow connected to the current presidential race, including “Born in the U.S.A.”, “Badlands”, “No Surrender”, (used as a theme by John Kerry during the Democratic convention), “Lonesome Day”, and “The River”. Springsteen and the other musicians continually reminded the crowd verbally of the reason for the show, but the non-verbal message was much more inspirational. The song evoked Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock but more importantly, it reminded everyone in the audience of why we were there - not just to hear tunes but to create a political regime change. Springsteen led off with a jagged acoustic but amplified version of “The Star Spangled Banner”. during a few cuts, but his presence wasn’t dramatically announced until later, during Springsteen’s set. His voice may have gone flat at times, but his energy never flagged.Neil Young came on and played guitar with R.E.M. On the latter two songs Springsteen joined in, even doing a parody of Elvis Presley during the lines about Andy Kaufman “goofing on Elvis.” R.E.M.’s lead singer Michael Stipe, dressed completely in white with a shaved head and an unshaven face, lankily pranced around the stage like a marionette with one string cut. also performed “Begin the Begin”, “Losing my Religion”, “Bad Day”, and “Man on the Moon”. It was the first thing television broadcaster Dan Rather said after being mugged several years ago, and now Dan Rather was currently in the news for his less than honest reporting tactics during the presidential campaign. performed “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth” whose currency at the show derived from the title line. Almost of the song selections seemed to be chosen for their politically appropriateness as well as their popularity among fans. From the opening chords of Bright Eyes front man Coner Oberst flailing away at his guitar and singing about the current problems of the world until the grand finale in which every musician appeared on-stage to sing Patti Smith’s hopeful anthem “People Have the Power,:, the artists and the audience joined together in celebration for a better world order. And while this was no Nuremberg Rally, there were plenty of knee-jerk supporters throwing their fists in the air at any mention of an appropriate political message when delivered to a hard rock beat, which suggests only a thin line exists between fascism and community. Indeed, it would be the odd music fan that liked the line up but did not agree with the message as these artists had made their thoughts and values clear in their music for decades. The $75-plus fees ticket price, whose money went to the America Coming Together political action committee, largely guaranteed a receptive audience, for who else would pay so much money for a ticket. The musicians stayed on target with the agreed on message: Bush must be defeated/Kerry should be elected. The Bruce Springsteen led Vote for Change Tour is notable for its overt use of music as a way to support a particular partisan cause. All concerts are inherently political in the larger sense of establishing conformity. Within music can be read the codes of behavior in terms of how we relate to one another.So the idea of having a political concert is already a redundant concept. Music is more than entertainment: it is a tool for the creation of a community that links its subjects together at the center. As the French economist Jacques Attali has noted, the arrangement of sound helps fashion societies and gives birth to both authority and subversion. Theorists understand that all music is political.
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