TheSound
An Englishman in New York
I could hardly be more lucky, or privileged, to have obtained a ticket for Wednesday night’s benefit concert for Hurricane Sandy Relief here in New York at Madison Square Garden...though with zero effort on my own part, but there are just some people in life who never let you down, and constantly surprise you with their incredible generosity of spirit, which is how I ended up with a ticket when I didn't even make any effort to get one, and I had no intention of even going!!
I’ve been quite a few times to MSG, and even on a relatively mundane occasion such as a hockey or basketball game, there’s still no doubt that as an arena it has a quite unique aura and place in the history of great music (and sports) events going back over decades, but I don’t believe it has ever staged a concert quite on this scale before, at least in terms of the acts performing. With the Rolling Stone, The Who, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Roger Waters, Bon Jovi, Billy Joel, and Eric Clapton all already confirmed, there alone you have some of the biggest names in the history of rock all coming together, so this is a once-in-a-lifetime event in every possible sense, plus, most importantly, it will raise millions for the many victims on the US east coast of the recent hurricane, which even in the relative safety of just north of mid-down Manhattan where we live, was probably the most scary thing that I have ever witnessed first hand.
It's also being either televised, or will be viewable on line, to over 1 billion potential viewers on every continent, with a free-toll phone line to make donations, so please support it if you can afford a few bucks/£ etc...
121212home | The Robin Hood Foundation
And here's how to see or hear it, wherever you are...it's being streamed Live on YouTube, Yahoo, and MySpace, which are probably the best and easiest ways to watch it...
121212watch | The Robin Hood Foundation
We actually have great seats too, in section 107, which if you know MSG at all and think of it in terms of say a Knicks basketball game, is roughly on the half way line, with the main stage to our right. The most fun you can normally have pre-concert for a multi-artist even like this is speculating about set lists, though in this case it’s pretty pointless as I assume most people will only get to play maybe 2 or 3 songs each, as the thing doesn’t even start until 7.30, and there’s already 13 acts on the bill, with maybe more acts still to come. Billy Joel will do ‘Miami 2017 (See the Lights Go Out on Broadway)’…and The Boss and the E Streeters will probably/hopefully do ‘My City in Ruins’ and/or ‘The Rising’, all of which have overt references to various actual or fictional NYC disasters, The Who will probably do ‘Won’t Get Fooled’ , ‘My Generation’ and ‘Baba O’Reilly’…because they always do…and I will be amazed if we don’t get ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘Live and Let Die’ from Macca, who on these high profile occasions forgets that he has written like 1,000 other great songs!
Anyway, we’ll see, and I’ll let you know my first hand impressions later on in the week after I have returned back down to planet earth from rock ‘n roll heaven!
I’ve been quite a few times to MSG, and even on a relatively mundane occasion such as a hockey or basketball game, there’s still no doubt that as an arena it has a quite unique aura and place in the history of great music (and sports) events going back over decades, but I don’t believe it has ever staged a concert quite on this scale before, at least in terms of the acts performing. With the Rolling Stone, The Who, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, Roger Waters, Bon Jovi, Billy Joel, and Eric Clapton all already confirmed, there alone you have some of the biggest names in the history of rock all coming together, so this is a once-in-a-lifetime event in every possible sense, plus, most importantly, it will raise millions for the many victims on the US east coast of the recent hurricane, which even in the relative safety of just north of mid-down Manhattan where we live, was probably the most scary thing that I have ever witnessed first hand.
It's also being either televised, or will be viewable on line, to over 1 billion potential viewers on every continent, with a free-toll phone line to make donations, so please support it if you can afford a few bucks/£ etc...
121212home | The Robin Hood Foundation
And here's how to see or hear it, wherever you are...it's being streamed Live on YouTube, Yahoo, and MySpace, which are probably the best and easiest ways to watch it...
121212watch | The Robin Hood Foundation
We actually have great seats too, in section 107, which if you know MSG at all and think of it in terms of say a Knicks basketball game, is roughly on the half way line, with the main stage to our right. The most fun you can normally have pre-concert for a multi-artist even like this is speculating about set lists, though in this case it’s pretty pointless as I assume most people will only get to play maybe 2 or 3 songs each, as the thing doesn’t even start until 7.30, and there’s already 13 acts on the bill, with maybe more acts still to come. Billy Joel will do ‘Miami 2017 (See the Lights Go Out on Broadway)’…and The Boss and the E Streeters will probably/hopefully do ‘My City in Ruins’ and/or ‘The Rising’, all of which have overt references to various actual or fictional NYC disasters, The Who will probably do ‘Won’t Get Fooled’ , ‘My Generation’ and ‘Baba O’Reilly’…because they always do…and I will be amazed if we don’t get ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘Live and Let Die’ from Macca, who on these high profile occasions forgets that he has written like 1,000 other great songs!
Anyway, we’ll see, and I’ll let you know my first hand impressions later on in the week after I have returned back down to planet earth from rock ‘n roll heaven!
If this is simply because Paul plays left-handed....and so did Kurt... then it's about the most contrived thing I ever heard of. I mean what's he going to do...wear a blonde wig and inject heroin into his veins backstage to complete the effect??? Anyway, we'll see.
