Music producer Clive Davis, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, thousands of eager concert-goers, and CNN all got a firsthand lesson in a Yiddish proverb on Saturday: “Man plans, God laughs.”
The much-anticipated We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert on Central Park’s Great Lawn, announced in late July and simulcast on CNN, was intended to represent a mostly-vaccinated city’s return to a semblance of normalcy. Tickets to the outdoor event were free, and one had to show proof of vaccination to attend.
But lightning strikes in the region, in advance of the swiftly approaching Hurricane Henri, prompted organizers to pull the plug on the show midway through a Barry Manilow medley. The Brooklyn-born entertainer sang “Copacabana,” “Mandy,” and half of “I Can’t Smile Without You” before a stentorian voice interrupted and told the audience to seek shelter. (At least Manilow was a man of his word and did not sing “I Made It Through The Rain.”)
The sudden announcement led to a lot of confusion, with Mayor de Blasio saying from the stage that people should, “for a brief period of time, move to someplace safe” and that afterward, they would bring the concert back.
Suppose you were lucky enough to be watching CNN at the time, as I was. In that case, you’d have heard Anderson Cooper demonstrate an understanding of New York City greater than its outgoing mayor when he noted that there’s not really any place to go in the middle of Central Park at night.
A New York Post reporter on the scene tweeted that a PA announcement urged audiences to “proceed to your vehicles,” which implies that there’s a great big parking lot next to the Great Lawn. (There is not.) One could easily wager that nearly all the New Yorkers who attended the show called the 6 or the 1 trains their vehicles, if not their own two feet.
There were subsequent reports that the musicians might perform to an empty field, just for the television audience, but at 10:30 pm, the event was officially called off.
But these are the negatives! What about the positives? Things started out quite well, with the New York Philharmonic performing music by Leonard Bernstein and George Gershwin. Then Andrea Bocelli sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and “O Sole Mio.” Jennifer Hudson kept the opera theme going with her version of “Nessun Dorma.”
Later, LL Cool J led hip hop luminaries, including Busta Rhymes, Fat Joe, Remy Ma, French Montana, Melle Mel, Scorpio, and A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie, through a history of the art form. The mini-set concluded with a duet between LL and Run D.M.C.’s Rev. Run on the old school classics, “It’s Tricky” and “Rock the Bells,” before LL Cool J reminded audiences that rap music as we know it was invented in New York City.
If nothing else, the night brought us this backstage moment between Stephen Colbert and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York.
Earth, Wind, and Fire were welcomed to the stage by Mayor de Blasio and his wife Chirlane McCray and were accompanied by Lucky Daye.
Earlier in the evening, Carlos Santana also played with Wyclef Jean and Rob Thomas. And Jon Batiste wore this amazing purple get-up.
The impressive line-up was to include a back-from-retirement Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Maluma, Elvis Costello, and The Killers, but they were all scheduled for the back half of the show and, as such, never performed.
Weirdly, across the river from Manhattan in Queens, the band Wilco performed at the outdoor Forest Hills Stadium. While there were some delays, that show did go on.
Free Central Park concerts and bad weather have a history, of course, and anyone of a certain age might remember what happened to Diana Ross in the summer of 1983.
Ross performed for around 25 minutes, looking majestic in the rain, to a reported 800,000 fans. But as with Saturday’s event, a lightning storm ended things early. From the stage, Ross announced there would be a return engagement the following night, requiring “an army to put it together,” according to television director Steve Binder. Ross’s company then covered the expenses for the do-over the following night.
As a result of that two-night production, the concerts were not profitable, even with the broadcast rights sold to the nascent cable channel Showtime. Nevertheless, Ross made good on her promise to fund what is now called the Diana Ross Playground on the park’s west side at 81st street, right near the American Museum of Natural History and the mammoth Beresford apartment building, where she lived for many years.
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