so, last night was the david lynch ‘change begins within’ concert at radio city music hall. it was a unique event (i’d say ‘very unique’ but i don’t know that you can technically qualify ‘unique’). i performed ‘natural blues’ with betty lavette and an amazing tm kids choir from weaver high in hartford, ct. then ‘we are all made of stars’ with the aforementioned amazing kids choir. then betty lavette came back out and we did her song, ‘as long as i get to heaven’.
she was amazing, truly amazing. then eddie vedder played, and ben harper, and sheryl crow, and jim james from my morning jacket (who was very nice and had a stuffed animal owl in his pocket), and then donovan, and then ringo starr, and then paul mccartney. and then for the finale we all performed together and i had the honor playing drums alongside ringo starr to 2 beatles songs (which was great, but playing ‘new dawn fades’ with new order still counts as my celebrity musician career highlight. oh, and playing ‘heroes’ with david bowie at carnegie hall. but playing drums next to ringo starr while paul mccartney sang 2 beatles songs was pretty remarkable).
i also played percussion with donovan to ‘season of the witch’, which was really fun, as eddie vedder was on background vocals and ben harper was playing guitar. and in between the songs david lynch and jerry seinfeld and howard stern and laura dern talked about transcendental meditation and the program to get 1,000,000 schoolkids to meditate (note: when at risk kids meditate it lowers violence in school and raises test scores, both of which are clearly very good things). as i said, it was a truly unique event (insofar as you can qualify ‘unique’).
ben harper and eddie vedder doing a cover of ‘under pressure’ was one of my favorite moments of the night. and also standing 15 feet away from paul mccartney while he played piano and sang ‘let it be’. that was great. but the oddest part of the evening was at the after party. we’re all at the after party hanging out and eating donut holes and drinking club soda (well, i was, anyway) and lo and behold there’s bill o’reilly, the highest rated conservative tv personality on fox news. apparently bill o’reilly was at the concert the entire time, and apparently he was really into the whole thing. we were all kind of baffled. i mean, bill o’reilly at a david lynch concert to promote transcendental meditation? at a concert featuring a bunch of lefties like me and eddie vedder and ben harper and jim james? as i was leaving i heard bill o’reilly talking to david lynch (yes, bill o’reilly and david lynch hanging out and talking about transcendental meditation. one word: very odd. ok, that was 2 words) and saying, i paraphrase, ‘it seems like a great program, i’ll support it on my show.’ huh. bill o’reilly, who knew?
it was a long event, but a remarkable and unique event, and i hope that if you were there you had a good time. and it raised a lot of money to help bring meditation to at risk school kids, which might seem fairly obscure, but when you look at how meditation helps school kids to focus and be less prone to violence and improve test scores it truly seems like a remarkable program. ok, thanks.
moby