New York City tried to have a "homecoming" celebration in Central Park with several concerts leading up to a big all-star concert last night. Ironically, concertgoers had to go home early.
Henri, the storm, isn't going to affect my area today as much as I feared, but rain bands that weren't even associated with the storm caused a deluge that cut the concert short before the biggest - and the most interesting - scheduled performers (Brice Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Patti Smith, Paul Simon) were able to go on. No word on whether the remaining performers will be able to pick up later where last night's show left off, but it's unlikely. There is a precedent - Diana Ross's 1983 Central Park concert was rained out and she had a do-over the next night, but she was only one performer.
This "homecoming" concert was probably a bad idea anyway. It was meant to celebrate New York City getting through the COVID pandemic, but not only is the pandemic still in progress (and likely will be for the foreseeable future and maybe beyond that), it's affecting the Tri-State New York area hard despite high vaccination rates. And Henri - or the opening-act thunderstorms in its advance - only served to remind us that not only haven't we conquered COVID, we haven't conquered climate change either. Simply put, we have nothing to celebrate. We should stay the hell at home.
"Nature rules," Patti Smith said to CNN. "We have abused nature to the point where she is chaotic and unpredictable."
As an insult to injury, the last performer to go on last night before the concert was shut down was Barry Manilow.
And he didn't even perform anything from his 2:00 A.M. Paradise Café album, either.
New Yorkers tried to defy the reality of COVID and climate change with a party. Mother Nature - God's bratty kid sister - responded by smiting them with a flood.
The fire next time. 😢
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