Going Green at Red Rocks
August 25th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Leave it to a free-spirited lyrical giant like Dave Matthews to best sum up the sentiment at the DNC Welcome Concert Sunday night at Red Rocks Amphitheater just outside of Denver. “It’s nice to be in a place where people are talkin’ a whole lot of sense,” Matthews said, perched on a stool, holding his guitar and staring up into skies that threatened rain. Dave Matthews — just Dave Matthews, not the fifteen-man Dave Matthews Band known for its legendary sold-out shows at Red Rocks — was the final performer of the welcome concert, following Sheryl Crow and Georgia-based Sugarland . Matthews was accompanied by guitar master Tim Reynolds, who never sang or spoke a word, but tore into his guitar solos with, ahem, a fierce urgency of now.
The audience waiting for the DNC Welcome Concert to kick off on Sunday night at Red Rocks.
The theme of the concert was meant to reinforce Denver’s commitment to host the “greenest convention ever,” and Red Rocks — an amphitheater carved into the mountainside seemingly by Mother Nature herself, and known for its sweeping vistas of downtown Denver and the surrounding Rockies — was the ideal setting. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, who opened the ceremonies, got a warm welcome from locals and out-of-towners alike and was followed by Laurie David, producer of An Inconvenient Truth and organizer of the event.
One of the more impassioned speeches of the night came from environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who pointed out that Red Rocks was built during the Roosevelt administration. Labor was provided by the Work Projects Administration. That was a time, Kennedy said, when government was “competent and idealistic.” He railed on the Republican environmental and economic policies of the last seven and a half years, saying that they have “treated our planet as if it is a business in liquidation.” Kennedy recalled his teen-age trips to Europe, when America was respected for its moral code. He said that the country had been built and managed by “disciplined, restrained and visionary leadership,” all of which has since been washed away by events like Katrina and bloodshed in Iraq. “That to me,” Kennedy said, voice reverberating across the craggy sienna-colored boulders, “is the bitterest pill to swallow.”
A baby grand piano waited patiently center stage for most of the concert, and near the end, with lightning striking on the horizon from nearby storms, Dave Matthews settled in front of the ivories and mumbled, “This song was heavily influenced by our current president.” As Matthews began to play “Out of My Hands,” a simple chord progression drove home haunting lyrics: Our finest hour arrives, see the pig dressed in his finest fine, all the believers stand behind him and smile, as the day lights up with fire.
August 25th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
Great recap of Kennedy’s speech Rachel!
August 27th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
Excellent, I look forward to reading more, nice DMB quote apropos indeed