British invasion: 12-12-12 Concert

Time for some upbeat news today. So here are some thoughts, reportorial and critical, of the 12-12-12 concert.

The concert was scheduled for four hours and thankfully, the producers didn’t cut it off at four.  If they had, we would have missed Billy Joel, Chris Martin, Kanye West in his leather kilt — and the final Brit of this British invasion:  Sir Paul McCartney.  But no curfew wasimposed and the concert ran almost six hours.  I was hoping for one of those all-artists-on-stage-for-a-rousing-finale finale, but that didn’t happen.  Instead, Sir Paul brought a crowd of firefighters on stage and saluted them for their heroism during Sandy. It was a fitting end for a great concert.

Bruce Springsteen led off with thematic songs rather than his big hits:  “Land of Hope and Dreams,” “Wrecking Ball” and “My City of Ruins,” the latter written about Asbury Park but highly relevant today.  Then Jon Bon Jovi joined him for a duet of “Born to Run.”  Read the rest of this entry »