Live blogging the Inaugural Concert on the mall today. Actually, not live blogging — because AT&T can’t maintain a #$%& signal on the mall — but kept blogging into my iPhone and uploaded it after the fact. Here you go:
| 11:01 am | on the 42 to the inaug concert on the mall. there is standing room only two stops in. |
| 11:42 am | made it through security. no where near as nuts as I thought. no bags … except purses, shoulder bags, backpacks, bodybags …. *sigh.* |
| 12:10 pm | lots of jumbotrons. early tweeters said there was only one. were they trying to drive down attendance? |
| 12:18 pm | pre-flight entertainment has started. wonder if they will use the same 20 songs from the manassas rally. |
| 12:35 pm | why does my blanket always end up as a prime cut through for people wandering the venue? |
| 12:38 pm | elmo leading a chant of “we are one.” sweet Jesus, take me now. |
| 12:53 pm | it’s nuts down here on the mall. two hours ’til showtime, and the place is packed. |
| 1:10 pm | amy Hawthorne! |
| 1:25 pm | The Lady Sparkler flipping out that people are stepping on her blanket. gonna be a long hour-twenty. |
| 1:52 pm | Yup. same soundtrack. |
| 2:10 pm | just noticed snipers on top of the Lincoln. btwn that and the low planes coming in to national, I’ve become temporarily distracted by mundane safetly concerns. |
| 2:20 pm | convocation. |
| 2:31 pm | nice reception for the first couples. |
| 2:36 pm | denzel actually got more screams than Obama did in our little section. ear drums bleeding from pre-teens behind. |
| 2:44 pm | Bruce Springsteen and a 100 person gospel choir. Sparkler’s happy. I think we can leave now. Oh, wait. Not until U2. |
| 2:49 pm | mlk3 just mentioned the peace corps and half the crowd holla’d. think there are hippies around? |
| 2:52 pm | jamie foxx doing an Obama impression is creapy good. |
| 2:56 pm | clapping with gloves on makes people sound stupid. |
| 3:00 pm | some just screamed “run forest run” when tom hanks took the stage. |
| 3:06 pm | is it too much to ask for ATT to keep a functioning network for 2m people in then mall?!? |
| 3:11 pm | I’m in such a good mood today, that I don’t even hate James Taylor … well, not *as* much. |
| 3:19 pm | at the climax of mellencamp’s “pink houses” we had a dramatic fly-over by a perfect formation of 20 very confused looking Canadian geese. |
| 3:22 pm | wow, the Daughters of the American Revolution just got thrown under the bus for denying African American singer Marian Anderson the right to perform at Constitution hall … in 1939. ouch. |
| 3:25 pm | someone just asked if josh groban was an American idol winner. ouch. |
| 3:28 pm | Is that the guy from “Harold and Kumar escape from Guantanamo bay”? what do you have to do to not deserve to appear at this thing? |
| 3:32 pm | tiger woods? hmm. |
| 3:41 pm | Garth Brooks singing American pie? this is the atlanta-olympics-memorial-36-white-pickups-stuffed-with-cheerleaders moment of the afternoon. |
| 3:43 pm | nope. garth brooks just medley-ed into “shout.” *this* is the stuffed-with-cheerleaders moment. I guess “pie” was just the white-pickups part. |
| 3:47 pm | celebrity #239 and #240 just spoke. can you imagine how big the greenroom must be? |
| 4:01 pm | not one, but TWO songs by U2? Sparkler has left her mind. I repeat. Sparkler has left her mind. |
| 4:07 pm | how do you follow that? two tethered eagles? ick. |
| 4:10 pm | or, maybe, Obama? |
| 4:18 pm | great speach. well written. made up for the awkward eagles thing. |
| 4:24 pm | sing-a-long. I get the feeling I am in kindergarten, and beyonce is my teacher (WOHOO!) |
| 4:35 pm | walking out. |
| 4:38 pm | there is a boy on a leash rolling around on the ground like a dog. interesting lesson in socialized behavior. |
| 4:46 pm | no way we are getting on public transportation. no way. |
| 5:10 pm | wow! made it on a bus. a metro manager stopped a south bound S2 and turned it around in the middle of L street. it has these fuzzy seats, as if it were a charter. strange. |
| 5:16 pm | Being interviewed by the Washington post. can’t wait to see how that story pans out. (pdf) |
| 5:21 pm | final thought: if this many people showed for the concert, the inauguration is going to crazy. CRAZY! |
![[Photo]](https://theparkerfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/3207837557_3d47529a0b.jpg)
Comments
4 responses to “live: obama inaugural concert”
I’ve been checking back all day for this post. I knew it would be good and it is. Darn that ATT but sounds like you all will have some memories of a lifetime. Watched on HBO and agree with all your assessments – except I actually enjoyed Garth, so shoot me 😛
Oh, would add that Pete Seeger looked so blissed out to be leading This Land I became worried that he would have a stroke or something right there on stage. Of course this was also because Jim said “Pete Seeger is still alive?” when he came out.
I’m sorry? You were interveiwed by the Post?!?
I was waiting for this all day, too. Did you see JP backing up Josh Groban with the Gay Men’s Chorus of DC? He was right behind Heather Headley’s shoulder. Having them sing the song that Marian Anderson sang when she was denied the privilege of performing at the DARCH was somebody’s way of getting back at California.
Was your sound ok? Heard from others that it sucked. You can blame the crappy production values on Austin’s own C3 productions. They always know how to screw up a soundboard.
And you’re in the post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/18/AR2009011800912.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2009011800913&s_pos=
Rock stars. How was that sprint across 16th street?
yeah, wow, was the network down there horrible. phones were useless, and text messages came through in bursts about every 35 minutes.
JP was great. we couldn’t pick him out (see photo above for how small even the jumbotron was for us) but super psyched to watch the concert on HBO. we Tivo-ed it, but still haven’t watched the actual production.
audio wasn’t horrid, but i could tell at least one of the speaker towers was out of sync. it wasn’t enough to drive us nuts, but i’m sure it was for someone.
now the bus thing was just dumb luck. we had just resigned ourselves to walking the 20+ blocks to mt. pleasant, when a metro bus manager jumped in front of us and screamed (at the bus stop we just passed) “IF YOU WANT TO GET ON THE S2…”
we were the third people on the bus. story makes it look like we were waiting, but not actually the case. the bus just kinda dropped in our laps …