Ithis is the riddle of the 2021 hype-up: how do you get people excited to party when people are the ones who explicitly told them not to party and also no one can go to the party because it is a pandemic? The celebration of the launch of the Biden Inaugural Committee for the week of the oath events was, then, as embarrassing and confusing as you might expect.
A stubborn effort to stage something uplifting and fun on Sunday night We the people show and fundraising (a small donation that gave Biden / Harris supporters access to the virtual event) was kind of silly, kind of sad, incredibly random, woefully low energy, disconnected, admirable and, in the end, maybe even cool?
The Daily Beast’s Obsessed
Everything we can’t help but love, hate and think about this week in pop culture.
The schedule was not just the hilariously eclectic reservations that telegraph “we know that the guest of honor has no idea who the majority of these people are, but we were determined to hire at least one act to mark each demographic to prove that we are inclusive”, at least which these political events are notorious.
Maybe it’s because the big guns are being reserved for Wednesday’s prime time opening show or maybe they just couldn’t justify the effort of appearing at a virtual live broadcast event without the spirit of a live show, but We the people did it have listener-causing twists from list A artist to, not exactly list Z, but maybe list P? List Q?
Keegan-Michael Key and Debra Messing, from the iconic “I’m for Joe” Meme, served as co-hosts and were perfectly happy and happy to be there, so good for them. But even as they enthusiastically presented the evening’s schedule, it was tempting to laugh at their diminishing returns: “Cher!” “And Fall Out Boy!” “AND [pause] Kal Penn… ”
President-elect and Dr. Jill Biden spoke, as did Kamala Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff. “Although our opening traditions look a little different this year,” warned Biden, “we are all still together across America.”
And therefore, it may be necessary to enjoy these things for what they are in these extreme circumstances: the best that anyone can do. You have to feel it.
Between the restrictions on the pandemic and the continuing threats of insurrection, it is the worst time to try to flaunt enthusiasm for a new government, and they are doing their best to do what they can and what is appropriate. It is an impossible situation, as if someone were to give you a few twenties, a barrel of Busch Light, the keys to the ballroom at the Ponderosa Steakhouse and say, “Turn this into a presidential event.”
There are many minds about this. It is tiring that there is always an insistence on doing this kind of thing, days of celebrations and boring shows as a part of some pomp and civic circumstance, especially now that we are in a pandemic. However, it’s time to start feeling good about things – or at least believing that one day you can feel good about things again.
To this end, it is inspiring and good to have the opportunity to meet with people who are excited to defend and support not only the new president-elect, but the promise of how the country could be under his leadership.
But then, at the end of the day, how can you feel refreshed, sitting on the couch watching a problematic live stream on your computer at 8 pm on a Sunday like Grace Adler and the guy who stayed with Meryl Streep in The prom are trying to make you think that the next Fall Out Boy performance is similar to watching Beyoncé close Coachella?
Was the Inaugural Committee trying to evoke melancholy memories of the Obama era with that reserve seemingly out of nowhere? Trying to reassociate Biden with times when Trump was just a reality show boaster, the only masks we saw were in the cast of Grey’s Anatomy on Thursday nights, and we were all going down, going down in the previous round, sweetie, are we going down swinging?
Until the oral history is released of how this event was launched – the first celebrity presenter was Michael Bivins, a former member of the New Edition and Bell Biv DeVoe … – we will have to be content to remain politely confused about what rock is like my 2005 school’s favorite graduation class band became a headliner. (Was the performance of the 2014 single “Centuries” … good?)
There was no saving the strangeness of everything.
A pop trio called AJR, who was praised by Messing and Key for writing and producing songs from their own living room, sang “Bummerland”, as if the jokes were not already being written.
Yes, they had hired Barbra Streisand, but only for a narration. She joked that she would sing a song she performed for three presidents and was excited to make Biden the fourth, and then a footage of her “Happy Days” belt was played at a show years ago. What was that about “Bummerland?”
“A pop trio called AJR, who was praised by Messing and Key for writing and producing songs from their own living room, sang “Bummerland”, as if the jokes were not already being written.“
Kal Penn came together to talk about the famous bagels from… New Jersey (?), And the similarities between the possibility that America offers and being an actor. Will.i.am acted, which I can safely say that nobody wanted.
Near the end, we were blessed with the presence of Cher, who gave a delightfully rambling speech before voicing her ballad “I Hope You Find It” from different areas of her home, not unlike a self-filmed video clip that I was 13 years would do in my own room dubbing a song by Cher.
The truth is that I think this analysis was designed to be sarcastic, which, admittedly, is easy to do, especially considering the random setlist and the monotony of trying to pump people up in a Zoom video. Instead of applause, you have Deb and Keeg cooing and shouting about how good each artist was. There was no shouting or laughter, but there was that caustic sound of video glitches that we are all so familiar with now.
But there was something legitimately pleasant, even edifying, about it.
The first artist, for example, was Ben Harper, who sang the beautiful song “With My Two Hands”. It has a beautiful and rhythmic cadence, with letters like: “I can make peace on Earth with my own hands / I can clean the earth with my own hands / I can reach you with my own hands”.
It is a surreal message now. It is extremely necessary, but it can only be metaphorical. We can’t do anything with our own hands – at least not without a tub of disinfectant and diligent COVID tests – but it’s an appropriate message.
We have all received loud and clear march orders in recent weeks that each person who wants this national nightmare to end will have to be active participants to dig up. This will only be possible if there is support: from the government, from the community. And that will only be possible if there is empathy, a new concept nowadays.
The song’s final chorus changes the lyrics to “with our own two hands. “Perhaps the inches of ice that have formed over my heart in the past four years are really starting to melt, because I felt touched.
Carole King sat at the piano and sang “You Got a Friend”. James Taylor strummed while singing his own version of “America, the Beautiful”. There is no time when watching any of these things is not the highlight of any day. They were adorable.
But when we were being won over, the grand finale started and left us exasperated again for doing this. Just as they did after the remarkable, impressively produced democratic national convention – a triumph of ingenuity and democracy – this show ended, inexplicably, with a DJ.
This time it was DJ Cassidy instead of Diplo, but it was so weird to be looking at a person on a YouTube-sized screen blowing up dance music as if we were all together in an arena ready for the party, and not sitting in the same place in the couch where we’ve been for the past 11 months, kind of paying attention while browsing Twitter.
I don’t know what we want from these celebrity and politics rendezvous events that happen every four years, and I definitely don’t know what we want from them in a pandemic.
Perhaps we can only say that it was the definitive opening act for Wednesday’s big show, which will recruit Lady Gaga, Tom Hanks, Jennifer Lopez, Justin Timberlake and the main attraction: rescuing the United States of America from its current hell of fire. . It didn’t matter if you lost, but watching it sure made you more excited for the main event.