I stumbled into last night's concert on the mall with mixed feelings. While fully supporting the ordinary service men and women put in harm's way, I didn't fancy a jingoistic night of bespangled stars punctuated by chants of USA, USA.
I caught the show from Dave Grohl's set to the finish and grew increasingly fascinated by the substance and subtext of the event.
For starters, the Capital dome wrapped in scaffolding seemed a fitting metaphor for a government and a country badly in need of repair. For some strange reason I kept waiting for a corporate logo or the bat signal to appear on the dome.
When Grohl, Brown and Springsteen sang Fortunate Son, it surprised me and I immediately imagined the chickenhawks in Congress wrapping themselves in the flag while queuing up at the microphone to denounce the affront to their privilege. I wondered if a fully hydrated Marco Rubio was prepared to offer a musical rebuttal for the GOP?
The Metallica performance was interesting because so many in the audience knew all the words. And that's when I really noticed how young the soldiers were. Juxtapose those faces with Congressional haircuts talking about the troops and it makes you want to puke at the hypocrisy of it all.
Springsteen's stripped-down acoustic set of Promised Land, Born in the USA and Dancing in the Dark quieted the crowd to where you could hear a pin drop. I don't know whether they all "got" it; so many misconstrue the meaning of his anti-war, working-class Born in the USA to be a nationalist anthem. But he brought a poignant, sobering conscience to bear on the stage and that was the high point (and low point) for me. I just wished he'd sang "If I Fall Behind" to wrap his set. I love that song.
The Rihanna and Eminem performances brought it back to the 20 and 30 year old's who don't fit into conservatism's cookie-cutter patriotism; chasing relevance, sanity or celebrity in a fucked up world. The profane intensity highlighted the disconnect with the mythology.
I continue to hope we bring all our veterans home and improve our poor record of caring for them when their fighting has stopped.
Postscript: I highly recommend Sebastian Junger's Last Patrol documentary on HBO.