The Recording Academy didn’t have to worry about whether the crowd that usually shows up for MusiCares’ annual dinners would tune in to the virtual version presented as an event with tickets on Friday night. There may well have been at least part of the usual black-tie crowd in the online audience for MusiCares’ “Music With a Mission” fundraiser, but what was clear from the chat was that the vast majority of participants appeared to be BTS ARMY members gathering for the event to see an exclusive performance of “Dynamite” by K-pop sensations.
Grammy Awards favorites Haim, Jhene Aiko, HER and John Legend also contributed original performance clips … all of whom passed the ARMY’s impatience test with praise, with demands for “Where’s BTS” in the stream, eventually giving way to respectful and even enthusiastic praise for the other stars.
The rather abrupt demographic change in the audience at a MusiCares event was made possible by the entry price that was reduced to the online event from the usual hundreds or thousands of dollars that it costs to attend dinner in person for an entrance fee of $ 25. accountant in the live video showed more than 18,000 viewers tuning in, indicating that MusiCares had raised nearly half a million dollars just by broadcasting the ticket sales, before donations were counted.
In addition to the five newly recorded performances, the nearly 90-minute show featured highlights from previous MusiCares dinners, including Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty performing at their own tributes, Lady Gaga saluting Carole King, the Jonas Brothers covering Aerosmith and Usher repaying his debt to Lionel Richie.
Of the numbers recorded especially for the show, Aiko’s simplified version of her song “Love”, accompanied only by a guitarist and a conga, was mesmerizing enough to make an impatient ARMY palpably in a crowd of passionate pacifists.
John Legend also remained calm and, in his case, solo, sitting at a white piano under shelves full of Grammys – a familiar environment for anyone who watched more than one or two live charity broadcasts last year – to sing “You Move I Jogada.”
The other two newly recorded artists put together complete bands for their recordings. Haim, the sister trio that will be seen in a presumably more elaborate way on Sunday night’s show, presented a true version of their ode to the lack of romantic communication, “Don’t Wanna”.
And HER, who has been on the awards circuit for his pre-selected Oscar song for “Judas and the Black Messiah”, “Fight for You”, has set up a band to recreate the qualities that smell like that anthem of the late 60s / early 70s.
Other stars appeared to make proposals for MusiCares’ efforts to help musicians and music industry workers in poor health or in financial difficulty or suffering from addiction – among them, Elton John (who said: “This year’s mission seems more urgent”) , Shakira, Ringo Starr, Mick Fleetwood, Bonnie Raitt, Gloria Estefan and Macklemore (who said, “For me, recovery is the most important thing in my life. Without it, I lose everything else”).
Testimonials were also offered by tourism officials who have gone through difficult or difficult times as a result of the pandemic that interrupted live activities. One crew member almost cried when describing the suicides of several friends in the industry last year in the midst of her own struggles to survive.
In the midst of all this serious and sometimes literally sober conversation, there was a lot of entertainment value in the often sweet interactions of BTS fans in the chat area, which were rolling at such a speed that it sometimes felt like everyone over 18,000 viewers were singing at once. Expressions of unease about BTS being held up until almost the end of the webcast were often met with reactions such as “Let’s make our boys proud to respect other artists too” (who in turn sometimes replied, “Guys, it’s okay, it’s just ARMY here ”).
While some fans who hoped for more than one song were disappointed – albeit not so much, with the promise of an even greater production number arriving at the Grammy in two nights – the enthusiasm for “Dynamite” was predictably ecstatic, even though the choreography sitting was calm by BTS standards. MusiCares representatives declined to say where the presentation was filmed, but fans quickly identified it as the Grand Peace Palace of Kyunghee University in Seoul, a place destined to fall into the BTS tradition as the place where Jungkook rocked the drums and Blue hair.
After the video made its debut with MusiCares, BTS uploaded it to the group’s own YouTube channel, where it accumulated over 650,000 views in its first three hours of being live.
The full MusiCares show can be viewed on demand until March 21 at https://support.musicares.org.