So there I was, leaving the Vote for Change after-party at a swanky downtown restaurant, thinking how super cool I was for making it past the velvet rope in the first place. And then, as I headed through the door, I suddenly got cooler still, because walking in as I was walking out was Bruce Springsteen. We were brushing right past each other. Under those circumstances, he couldn't help but meet me. Quaking in the presence of a rock-god, I stuck my hand out to shake his. I gushed, "Thanks for a great show, Bruce. You really energized us," all the while wishing that I had come up with something more clever to say. And then, with the kind of humility one wouldn't expect from a rock-star of his stature, he replied with a grin, "It felt good to play for this audience."
So leaving the party at 2 am, I danced a little E Street Shuffle past the MCI center on G street, smiling ear to ear and thinking to myself, “This is rock ‘n roll, baby!”
Well, sort of. While many veteran concert-goers are all too familiar with that pungent combination of sweat and controlled substances, last night's “Vote for Change” show at the MCI Center smelled nothing of the sort. This was rock 'n' roll, only D.C.–style, 21 days before an election. Indeed, the blue glow of the Blackberry replaced all else as the evening's most ubiquitous sensory observation.
For a crowd that included the liberal fund-raising troika of Ellen Malcolm, Harold Ickes, and Steve Rosenthal, however, one had the distinct impression that the Blackberry people weren't typing the usual memos on their pads. Rather, e-mailed messages probably went something like, “Oh, my God! He's playing ‘Born in the USA'!” or “That Dixie Chick violinist looks good.”
Monday night, after all, was a welcome distraction for Washington's liberal activist core. “I'm leaving on a five-day, five-state tour tomorrow at 8:30 am,” the president of a high-profile environmental lobby screamed to me as REM's scrawny front man, Michael Stipe, took the stage. “I'm visiting our offices in a few swing states to rally our troops. I haven't even packed yet, but I don't care.” And, for at least a moment, you knew she really didn't. As the band played its hit “The One I Love” and Stipe danced around the stage in twitchy contortions familiar to fans of REM, the CEO shouted, “Will you just look at him! No one moves like him!”
Vote for Change, a concert tour headlined by Bruce Springsteen and organized by MoveOn.org's political action committee as a fund-raiser for America Coming Together, wrapped up its 33-city, 11–swing state tour with a finale in Washington. Though the Sundance Channel broadcast the concert live, the 14 acts that took the stage during the four-hour-long show knew their audience: This was not a swing-state crowd to be preached to, nor were they particularly playing for the viewers at home. The performers seemed to know that, at least for one night, they were singing for the liberal foot soldiers, interns, staff assistants, development associates, and phone bankers who breathe this election in every waking hour.
To be sure, there were scores of teens drawn to the show by the pied piper–esque lure that Dave Matthews still enjoys over white girls from the suburbs. They seemed to be thoroughly enjoying themselves, but this show wasn't really for them. Rather, this show was for the liberal election hordes. Singing along to John Mellencamp's “Pink Houses” and momentarily forgetting about Ohio's latest Rasmussen poll was precisely the escape that much of the crowd needed before they plunged themselves back into the trenches to fight the good fight before election day.
And they got boosts from the performers all night. Between songs, James Taylor, who shared the stage with the Dixie Chicks, told the crowd, “I saw the first debate. We launched our tour that night. And you know, it kind of gave us a kick start and a leap in our step.” The crowd ate this up. “Fuck yeah it did!” screamed a well-known Washington environmental activist seated in front of me as he pumped his fist. “Fuck yeah!”
The show, however, was not all fun, games, and back patting. Indeed, there was a mixture of emotions throughout that left the audience somewhat uncomfortable at times. Displaying a level of political maturity to which fans of Eddie Vedder have grown accustomed, the elder statesman of teen angst knew that this was neither the time nor the place to play any of Pearl Jam's best-known hits from Ten. He's angry, and knows that you are, too. After a riveting performance of Pearl Jam's new anti-Bush screed, “Bushleaguer,” Vedder belted out a haunting version of Bob Dylan's “Masters of War.”
While Pearl Jam provided an outlet for the crowd's anger and frustration, and performances by the likes of REM prompted joyful outbursts from the crowd, it was John Fogerty who added a needed gravitas to the event. Creedence Clearwater Revival's former front man, accompanied by Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, played only two songs, but the sadness on his face, projected by the JumboTron for all to see, revealed that he did so with a heavy heart. He put forth a chilling rendition of his new anti-war song, “Déjà Vu (All Over Again).” Afterward, an activist who came of age in the Vietnam era turned to me with melancholy eyes and said, “You don't know what his voice means to us. You just can't.”
Lest the concert end on anything but a hopeful, activist note, the entire lineup crowded the stage to bring it all back home for us. The performers skillfully traded lyrics on the Patti Smith anthem “People Have the Power,” and we in the audience, rather predictably, chimed in for the chorus.
At the afterparty hosted by MoveOn at Zaytinya, the mood was similarly upbeat. Eli Pariser, the boy-genius co-founder of MoveOn, welcomed everyone, and the decidedly unfashionable crowd of liberal movers and shakers sipped on their complimentary Moet, hobnobbed with the performers, and chitchatted with their friends. Perhaps wanting to cling to Springsteen's rocking performance for as long as the night would allow, no one talked much business. People were there, at least for that moment, simply to have a good time.
In the coming three weeks, they know, they have a hell of a job to do.
Mark Goldberg is a Prospect writing fellow.
