Man, it sure was good to have all this John Lennon music tonight.
Lou Reed rocked this explosive version of “Jealous Guy”. He threw into it all the force of his considerable Angst and showed up most of the other performers.
Natalie Merchant’s version of “Nowhere Man” was very low key. She’s put on quite a few pounds since she was famous, but you know what? She looks pretty good with the extra weight!
Kevin Spacey did “Mind Games” fairly close to the original. Kevin Spacey??? Who knew he could sing? It wasn’t bad.
How about Cyndi Lauper’s version of “Strawberry Fields Forever” with the mountain dulcimer at Central Park’s Strawberry Fields?
Wasn’t John in a group before he married Yoko? And doesn’t he have a son (who is also a musician) from a previous marriage? Strangely absent from the Yoko show…
(No, I still haven’t forgiven her. Money-grabbing leech whose only claim to fame is that she owns the rights to a genius’ work…)
Mmmmm… I tuned in because I’m a huge JL fan, but I thought the whole production came of as pretty amateurish. Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice bit of spirit-rallying and fundraising and all that, but the grandiosity of the themes led me to expect much more.
First there were all those stints at the microphone where celebs quoted Lennon lyrics with a sober face and in an oh-so-serious monotone. (" ‘Help’… it’s not just the title of a great song…" ; “We all… shine on… like the moon… and the stars…”) All the while the crowd cheers at any familiar bit like junior high morons at a Rick Springfield concert.
I’m afraid I wasn’t a big fan of Kevin Spacey singing, and shuckin’ around the stage like the whitest white boy at Kudzu High. All I could think of was that he must have said , “Yeah, I’ll host the show. I’ll do it for free… on ONE CONDITION…”
A couple of the singers sounded a little off key to me. The editing seemed off. And the grand finale where everyone shimmied down the aisles, and singers were missing cues and stepping on each other (each other’s singing, that is). Somehow the whole thing had Yoko’s bad taste written all over it.
Wait a minute, drpepper, I think what you were hearing was “LOOOUUUU!!!”, NOT “BOOOOO!!!”. Least that’s what I think. What I wanna know is, who was that beautiful girl singing a song somewhere in the middle of the show. It was a duet with a guy playing a guitar that looked sort of Ringo-ish, or maybe like the guy that used to be with Annie Lennox. She had a purple shirt on, too. Good God, I could eat her alive. She’s my idea of the perfect-looking female. Caveat here, I know she might be a really lousy person in real life, but I’m dreaming here…
Okay, now I’m waking up from my stupor. It was pretty cool for a Beatle-freak like me (and my 4-year old daughter) to get to hear all that good stuff, but it was a little slick, and I can definitely also picture Kevin Spacey forcefully saying the “ONE CONDITION…” line to the producers.
Poor Natalie Merchant, her voice cracked in the middle of her song. How long has it been since she’s sung anything?
Don’t you miss the big time, girl,
You’re no longer on the ball?
I still can’t get over how good she looked with her full, womanly figure. Those goddesslike breasts and hips. Too bad she’s a has-been. This is probably the last we’ll ever see of her. <sigh>
How’s This For Irony Dept.: Circa 1974, I read an interview with Lou Reed in which he mocked and insulted John Lennon’s song “Imagine”, he called it “shit.” Now here he is performing a song from the Imagine album … and seriously doing justice to it. And getting cheered for it. “Lou! Lou! Lou!”
Please, no more Yoko bashing. She has had to put up with more racist & misogynist shit in her life than anyone else in rock-‘n’-roll, just for daring to be an assertive Asian woman in a male-dominated business. Woman is the Nigger of the World. I say more power to her!
Kevin Spacey - say what you will, he pretty much nailed the (albeit not the most challenging) vocal on “Mind Games” Shelby Lynne - horrible version of “Mother”. Simply put, she forgot about the anger present in the original version. Lou Reed - worth the price of admission, but did anyone think he was reading the lyrics, much like he did on “Foot of Pride”, from the Dylan tribute concert in the early nineties?
I’m not going to Yoko bash…I actually liked her on “Double Fantasy” (I’m Movin’ On esp), I suppose she inspired some of my fav. songs (Julia, Don’t Let Me Down, Jealous Guy, and so on…).
But why wasn’t Julian there, or Paul and Ringo? or George Martin even…
I thought they had all “reconciled” a few years back. And they did play Beatles songs, especially “This Boy” and “Help” (aren’t they co-compositions)…“Revolution”, “Julia”, and “Come Together” were more Lennon, but still they were ‘Beatles’ songs.