He calls himself a god, but last night in Times Square, Kanye West couldn’t quite stop the heavens from opening.
During the free concert, “A (RED) Thank You Presented by (Bank of America)” (held at just a few hours’ notice in celebration of World AIDS Day), the rain that had threatened all night finally came down. But Yeezus responded with his own shower of hits. Prowling the small stage like a caged tiger, he barrelled his way through technical problems to deliver a 10-minute medley featuring “Jesus Walks,” “Black Skinhead” and “Touch The Sky” before dropping the mic and stalking off stage.
It should have been a cameo, but Kanye used brute force and a healthy hint of drama to turn it into a show-stealing performance.
The gig had originally been planned as a secret U2 performance, but Bono’s biking accident in Central Park last month scuppered that idea. Not wanting to disappoint, the three uninjured members of the Irish band invited Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Bruce Springsteen to fill in for vocal duty.
Wearing a shirt that read “SUBSTITU2,” the Brit sang “Beautiful Day” and “With or Without You” with plenty of earnestness but not quite enough power. Springsteen, on the other hand, can summon a stadium-filling bellow at will, and he made short work of “Where the Streets Have No Name” before leading the Times Square crowd (and plenty of office workers watching from the windows above) into a sing-along on “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.”
Also filling out the show was country star Carrie Underwood, whose voice was impeccable during stripped-down versions of “Change” and “Something in the Water.” For at least an hour, you would have been hard-pressed to find anyone moaning about how Times Square has become a flagrant tourist trap.
Before the music had even begun, Bill Clinton addressed the crowd and explained the progress that had been made in the fight against AIDS. “This year, for the first time, more people were put on lifesaving medicine than were diagnosed (with the disease),” explained the former president. “We are going to win this battle.”