Vote For Change Concert, October 11, 2004, by John Gerard Tetel

From MemoryArchive

Who: John Gerard Tetel
What: Vote For Change Concert
When: October 11, 2004
Where: MCI Center Washington, DC

I attended The Vote for Change Concert with my good friend Nick Banovetz. We both liked the bands that Bruce Springsteen had put together and we both wanted Bush out of office. We were fortunate that his mom is the Mayor of Vadnais Heights, MN and had before public access to buy the tickets for us. Even with this however, she could not buy the first tickets she wanted to. It was selling out too quickly. She tried to buy the cheapest tickets, but each time they had already sold out, so she kept going up in price. It turns out our tickets were ten rows out from the band. They were the best seat I ever had at a large concert.

The concert started out pretty slow. I guess the crowd wasn’t feeling Jurassic 5. Bano and I were still groovin’ to though. There was even some 50 or 60 year old woman droppin’ it like it was hot to them. The crowd enjoyed Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne a little more. But we could tell that who the crowd really came for. When Pearl Jam and R.E.M. came on stage the MCI Center was screeching. I have never been in an environment that loud before. Both being in our early 20’s we didn’t get into these two bands as much as what must have been the 30 something’s. As close as we were to the band, we couldn’t hear a damned thing! It was insane. We could tell they turned the music up too.

James Taylor and the Dixie Chicks calmed it down a bit. James Taylor even told a joke. I can’t remember what it was, something about wanting to change horses in midstream (referring to Bush). Dave Matthews tore the place down. Bano was a huge Dave fan. He even had a Dave tattoo of the fire dancer on his shoulder, so it was really fun to see both the band and Bano singing along with the band. Unfortunately they didn’t play his favorite song #41.

Bruce Springsteen was like an evangelical preacher when he got up on stage. He really got into the whole show. He ran around the stage, bending over when he spoke. He carried the stage. I didn’t really know many of his songs. I remember not thinking he lived up to the hype before the concert. But now, I don’t know if I can say there are any better performers. He started out with Born in the USA which brought the house down. He gave a little speech (evangelical like) and then brought John Fogarty lead singer of CCR and they sang Fortunate Son together. Both of these songs extremely provocative and fitting for the occasion. Eventually everyone came back up for a rendition of Marriot’s Place.

What a fantastic concert. The only issue I had with it was that it took a while to set up the stage for every performer to come on stage when the bands changed. Maybe it was due to the fact that they were filming it. Bruce Springsteen I believe aired each of the Vote for Change Concerts to air during one of Bush’s speeches. At least that was word on the street. All things considered, I would have to say this was at least on top 5 concerts I’ve been to list.