On Sunday night, Dave Matthews played to a packed house in Assembly Hall at Indiana University. To say that the show was sold out, however, would not be accurate. You see, tickets were not sold - they were given away as part of a massive voter registration drive. Monday was the last day to register to vote in the state of Indiana.
For the past two weekends, I have come to Bloomington to help register voters and talk to undecideds about Barack Obama. Every time I stop by the campaign office, I find it buzzing with other volunteers. In fact, I was told that so many new registrations have been pouring in that the county clerk's office is struggling to keep up. Early voting has already started here in Indiana, but many of the people we have just registered won't be able to vote early because of the flood at the county clerk's office.
More about the concert below the fold... (photos and videos - bandwidth beware)
Dave Matthews is popular at IU. People started to line up as early as 8am, even though the show didn't start until 7pm. When the doors opened at 5:30, the lines were immense.
I was one of 100 volunteers that went up and down the lines. We registered voters, passed out information on how to vote early in Indiana, and signed up new Obama volunteers. I was really happy to hear so many people tell me that they had registered in the past week or so, and many of these recently registered people had been signed up by Obama volunteers. Not everyone supported Obama, but the great majority did. The detractors were most McCain, Nader, or Ron Paul supporters. I don't recall one person saying they were a Hillary fan.
It took a while for more than 16,000 people to get into the stadium. One of the perks of being a volunteer was that we didn't have to wait in line. Once we finished handing out fliers, we went straight inside to the best seats in the house. All the volunteers were told to wear green.
One of the downsides was picking up after the folks in line. They'd been waiting a long time, and many in line were drinking and leaving bottles and cans all over :(
Walking out on court level made me feel like a star. In order to get those seats, you had to bring in 20 filled-out voter registration forms, so I guess that made me a Barack Star. (A girl sitting behind me had a shirt that read "Barack and Roll.")
Not long after we got to our seats, leaders of Students for Obama at IU, Butler, Indiana State, and Purdue came on stage. They were applauded for the most part, but there were some people being obnoxious and shouting "We want Dave!" (They booed the Purdue guy, but hey, what are rivalries for?) To be fair, many of the people chanting for Dave were up front, and they had probably been waiting in line all day.
The mayor of Bloomington - who has come out in support of Barack - came out next. He could tell folks were anxious, so he only asked four questions.
- Are you ready for change?
- Do you believe in yourselves?
- Are you going to vote?
- Will you join me in welcoming Dave Matthews?
The first three were answered with a loud "Yes." The fourth question made the place go nuts. Then Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds took the stage.
This picture was taken shortly afterwards. They opened with 'Bartender.'
Dave and Tim played for nearly three hours. Every so often, between sets, they reminded the crowd of how important it was that they get out and vote. At one point, Dave said "Early voting begins tomorrow. You may be able to tell by all the poster strewn about the building who I'm voting for..." then he started into 'Satellite.'
About 4 minutes into the video, you see the new IU head coach make show himself, which made the crowd cheer. Whether he was here for Dave or Obama or both, I'll leave you to predict. Dave said a few times that he hoped people voted for Obama, mentioning him by name multiple times. I thought I had video of Obama mentioned by name, but I don't. He also said that people could vote for whoever they wanted, and that the most important thing was that people make their voices heard. I don't have video of all that. This is just what I caught with my camera phone. I did see a comment requesting #41. I didn't get it, but someone else did, so I'll put it up for you, lecsmith.
Some of the songs I recognized were Sister, Crush, #41, Ants Marching, Dancing Nancies, Seek Up, and Gravedigger. He even played Dreaming Tree, which is pretty rare, I hear. In between two songs, Dave talked about his children, and how blessed he felt. He said how important it is that we leave behind a planet as beautiful as the one we inherited, and it was well-received with the crowd.
When it was all over, I had an awesome time. I really appreciate Dave Matthews coming out and doing a free show for this cause. We still have an uphill battle in Indiana, but I am hopeful. There were thousands that were registered in just the past two weeks - and it feels like Bloomington will go strong for Obama. There were also hundreds of volunteers who are joining this movement to bring change to America. I am proud to be one of them, and I know we can do it.
YES WE CAN!
(There were some inaccuracies in the first post, which have been corrected in this update. Thanks everyone! Here's CNN's take:)