Photos of the actual show are my crappy point and shoot
Pretty photos of the crowd by Dakota, then Ben Droz
“I’m really happy you guys are here” Jon Stewart said during his sincere closing speech at the much anticipated Rally To Restore Sanity which overtook the mall this past Sat.
he then laughed “…even if none of us are quite sure why we are here.”
After 3 hours of music and comedy,we had a 15 min speech that was poignant, reasonable, and ok, also a little funny.
But let’s back up a little. The metro ride in was like downtown Tokyo during rush hour, only I guess a lot more white and smug. But to the rally’s credit with it’s message of sanity, everyone got along, made room, offered metro advice to each other, didn’t bitch, and made new friends. No really, I watched two strangers decide to hang out at the rally together. Let me rephrase: A white guy made plans to hang out with a brown guy who was wearing a crazy Uncle Sam costume on the metro, cause they both think that this Jewish guy on TV isn’t a lunatic.
Amy, Sepie and I picked up our super exclusive VIP passes, cause we’re better than you, and headed to the front of the stage. No big deal. Just kidding, we just got lucky and knew a guy that knew a guy and were freaking out and losing our cool and bragging to our friends. The monitors were playing a montage of all the Rally To Restore Sanity promo bits from the past couple weeks of the Daily Show and Colbert Report. People were laughing loudly because it was genuinely funny, and not to prove to those standing around them that they got the jokes. That was a good sign. That’s not to say there weren’t annoying people and crazy activists in the crowd that was estimated to be over 200,000, but for the most part everyone seemed, well, reasonable.
Did you read that? Over 200,000. Just for comparison, Glenn Beck brought in 87,000 for his Restoring Honor to Baby Jesus or whatever it was get together. Speaking of that little shindig, BYT’s own pregnant demon showed up, but sadly she “lost” the baby (aborted that shit, what, you want horns going down your birth canal?) and took up wrestling on the Mexican circuit. She’s still hungry tho:
The program started off with The Roots. I guess it was a good choice. I mean, they’re pretty much well liked by everyone, but after a couple songs I was ready to get to the funny… that is until John Legend came on, wearing a fabulous coat, to join them in a riveting rendition of Bill Withers’ I Can’t Write Left Handed, followed by Seed 2.0 with a Curtis Mayfield tease. Ok, these guys do know how to put on a show.
Did I mention I was in the front row? It was something I didn’t take for granted. Being a (very) long time (rabid) fan of Stewart and Colbert, this was definitely a life highlight. I mention this not so you can seethe with jealousy, but as a caveat that my experience may have differed from yours. You can’t really have a bad time when you’re in front of 200,000 people. Well, unless Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock are on stage, but more on that later.
I checked into Foursquare just in time to receive my epic swarm badge before the AT&T network was rendered useless from too many people checking into Foursquare. Next up the Mythbusters took the stage. As a card carrying member of the Skeptics society I’ve been a (very) long time (rabid) fan of Adam and Jamie, so this was definitely a life highlight. They did some fun crowd experiments involving waves and stomping and I was grinning so hard it hurt. Although hours later, once the cell networks came back online, I received a “mythbusters = lame” text from my sister. Oh well, guess you can’t please everyone.
The man of the hour appeared to introduce 4 Troops, a singing group of veterans, to National Anthem us. He then returned to talk to a shirtless Colbert via monitor from inside his “fear bunker” below the stage. Once Stewart assured him that people had actually showed up to the rally, Colbert emergedvia a Chilean miner tube wearing his Evil Kenevil jumpsuit. Thus started the recurring theme of the rally, Colbert’s message of fear to Stewart’s sanity.
These comedic bits between the frienemies were the highlights of the show, such as the epic moment where Colbert interrupted Stewart’s guest Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam during a performance of Peace Train to introduce Ozzy Osbourne, who countered with Crazy Train. Eventually they agreed that the O’Jays could do Love Train, cause Colbert can still be afraid of STDs. This brilliant moment was even a surprise to those of us who had checked out the leaked schedule on Gawker. At that point the sun started shining and the temp increased about 10 degrees and it ended up being a perfect day.
Other surprise appearances by Father Guido Sarducci, Kareem Abdul Jabar, Sam Waterston, and R2D2 were amusing. Awards were given out to reasonableness (the woman that grilled Obama respectfully at that town hall debate) and fear (a 7 year old girl who was less afraid than NPR cause she showed up to the rally). Things were kept classy with a duet by Mavis Staples and Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, and Tony Bennet nailing America, The Beautiful.
The only real sore point in the entire program was the ridiculously trite duet with Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. It felt like they were thrown into the mix just so the event couldn’t be knocked for being too hipster elitist (more so than it already would be). But that was sort of the point I guess. To play it safe. The rally really wasn’t a political event. Liberals were made fun of as much (if not more than) conservatives. There weren’t any politicians on stage. We weren’t told to vote. While there were plenty of nut jobs walking around, the majority of costumes and signs I saw were light-hearted. When Stewart finally got serious for his impassioned speech, it basically boiled down to this:
Chill out, it’s not the end of the world. Most of us are sane and work together every day to get stuff done. The 24 hour news media is a crock of shit. Be hopeful, make compromises, and act reasonably. And most importantly, don’t leave trash on the mall.
I got a little teary at the end of the speech. And so did Jon. You should watch it.
Finally everyone came back on stage for a group rendition of I’ll Take You There. It’s gonna be hard for Fox News to paint this rally as a failure, but I’m sure they’ll find a way.
Some more great crowd photos by Dakota:
And Ben Droz:
Dakota, amazing pictures! I had to comment.
Nice write-up and photos!
I’m so glad, really, that someone dressed up as Dr. Rockzo.
We clearly were on different METRO cars because everyone on I encountered on the trains were awful.
I feel like one’s impression of the event varied depending on whether you were anywhere near the front. The outskirts and mid-to-back end of that rally were pretty bad unfortunately.
I was around the west end of the National Gallery – I think that’s 7th Street. It took awhile to get through the crush and get to the Mall. Once there, I could barely see a distant screen, and I heard bits and pieces of sound, which I guess was affected by wind direction.
Nice pictures – I guess if you knew a guy that knew a guy and you were up front, you were basically at a different event altogether from the one those of us on 7th Street attended.
Metro was a disaster, of course, though I found people inside the car to be friendly enough. A metro employee on a platform whom I tried to get information from was rude beyond belief, below vile.
Actually Cale, your photos are pretty sweet thanks to your awesome access. Not half bad. I’m glad to see some shots of Stewart and Colbert, lord knows I couldn’t see anything from the crowd.
@clockwiseclothing… it’s a new lens! 35 f1.4 so excited to use it alll the time!
Dakota you rocked that new lens!
Use Soy Milk: It Dilutes the Tea? Another epic fail, PETA. You guys are the worst.
I’m sure, but I mean, do you think there was something that they could have done better? When you have 200,000+ people, I feel it’s gonna be a clusterfuck no matter what. The volunteers and security I dealt with working the event were super friendly and helpful. My guess is they weren’t expecting quite that big of a turnout.
Did anyone stick around to see how the mall looked after everyone left?
yeah, I almost didn’t run that photo cause it annoyed me so hard.
@Cale – I know nothing about the art and/or science of predicting crowd size, but it appears that they were off by a factor of something in excess of 3 (200K+ vs. 60K). That is a lot. With a better prediction of crowd size, they could have set up screens and speakers near, and to the west of, 7th Street toward the Washington Monument, which would have spread the crowd west and given more people the chance to see and hear the show. That’s easy for me to say…
Walking around the Mall area until about 5:00-5:30 I guess, it looked as if a big effort was being made to clean the place up. I was impressed at how clean large areas of the Mall were.
We weren’t off in our crowd estimate. We built to max capacity (back to 7th street). The mall beyond 7th Street was technically closed due to re-seeding. When the crowd passed 7th St, a decision was made to allow crowd to spill over there – but obviously since it was not included in the permit, we didn’t have the ability to have previously set up monitors and delay towers beyond 7th.
I am happy to hear that most people had fun and truly enjoyed the show. For those in the back, sorry if the experience wasn’t all you had hoped for….should have gotten their earlier. Or known a guy.
Beyond listening to the Roots’ set, I didn’t hear or see a single bit of the rally itself. But you know what? I was fine with that. I had set my DVR, the weather was perfect, (nearly) everyone was in good spirits, and there was a dragon sound system pumping out dance music all afternoon on Pennsylvania Avenue – so dancing on the street for 3 hours was a perfectly acceptable alternative.
As far as the transportation network failing… well… that was OK too. Walking like 20 miles in total that day kind of sucked, but whatever, sometimes you just have to suck it up.
You fucking americans are the worst revolutionaries i’ve ever seen. All those people and nothing to show for it.
@LENIN
Well it’s November, so the whole October revoluion thing is already a no go for this year. Maybe next. Ooh and we can get a Foursquare badge for everyone who helps “the revolution”. Of course we will need a new name for it because “revolution” is so played, maybe “Crystal Bear Takeover” or “the freelance miniature Impala mountain retribution”. Also, I think our motto should be “The revolution (or Crystal Bear Takeover or whatevs) will not be Tweeted!” (mainly because of the terrible 3G service on the mall saturday) We can talk about it later, I have to go vote.