Library of Congress Blog
“Light and liberty go together.”

Wow.

Wow, wow, wow!

I promise that I will quit posting so heavily about Paul Simon � maybe after the concert airs on June 27 on PBS � but I do have to gush a bit about Wednesday night�s performances. Where to begin?

First, leave it to the Library of Congress�s blogger (moi) to be so behind the curve in blogging about the concert for the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song! Now that that�s out of the way �

Numerous sources have already weighed in with great accounts of the concert. The Washington Post�s review dwelled a bit on what few technical gaffes there were, but I�ll bet the vast majority of the audience didn�t much care about a couple of microphone glitches.

Yes, Alison Krauss and Shawn Colvin performed �The Boxer� twice because of a couple of feedback-related incidents, but I felt privileged to have gotten a second helping of what is probably one of my top-three Simon and Garfunkel songs ever. Far from the view that a few stops and starts were a distraction, many of us felt � in the words of one of my colleagues � that we all had been �privy to a jam session.�

Everything, of course, will be ironed out when the spectacle airs on PBS. (Now this is why I own an HDTV!)

The Washington Times had a slightly more positive take on things. (By the way, a number of media sources have referred to what the Times called James Taylor�s �impish� remark during �Still Crazy After All These Years.� My take on his, er, colorful use of language was that it was a wink and a nod from a man who has survived debilitating mental illness and drug addiction.)

The fun didn�t end for me even yesterday evening, as we secreted ourselves in a Washington hotel suite in order to shoot a video PSA with �a major celebrity,� extolling the virtues of the Library of Congress. Obviously, I will be eager to share that/those with all of you in the not-too-distant future!

A few more takes on the concert:

USA Today ran its story with a photo from Tuesday�s dinner that included a prominent picture of the Library�s seal, making at least one blogger squeal with delight.

Reuters ran one of the first reviews, with this version posting at TV Guide barely two hours after the concert ended.

Ajayquixote � If this was the guy I saw with a straw fedora a few rows ahead of me, then his blog-rave probably still doesn�t do justice to the amount of fun it looked like he was having.

Blogged In also seems to have had a rollicking good time.

Washington�s City Paper conveyed a little more snark than the others (along with an unexpurgated quote of the aforementioned James Taylor reference), but that�s what we bloggers do, right?

And finally, while WashingtonPost.com�s �The Sleuth� crashed the after party, I went home and went to bed.

(Photos: Courtesy of my crummy cameraphone)

Tags: gershwin prize, paul simon, pbs, library of congress, song, songs, music, concert, concerts, washington, washington dc, warner theater

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 25th, 2007 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Events, Music, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.