Capitol Fourth

Did you see me on television tonight?

We were at the Capitol Fourth concert tonight on the west steps of the Capitol. which was broadcast live on PBS. There was a great big "jumbotron" screen over the stage which showed the audience the television feed, and there were a lot of shots of the Capitol and close-ups of the fountain level, which is where we were sitting. They said that there were over 400,000 people on the Mall tonight.



We almost didn't go tonight. About 5:30, when we were planning to go to the Mall, there was a major thunderstorm that pounded through town. There're a lot of tree branches and stuff down and we had a brief period of BB sized hail. The Park Police had to herd all of the people on the Mall at that time into tents and into various Smithsonian museums to get them out of the rain, high winds, and lightening. The storm was fairly short, though, and the sun came out pretty quickly, so we Metroed on down to the Mall.

The entire Mall was in a "security area," so we had to have our bags inspected and go through a magnetometer before we were admitted. The entire two miles of the Mall was packed with all kinds of fair-like tents and activities, but we had to go down to the Capitol where the concert was going to be. After pulling some strings to get into the secured area in front of the stage and on the Capitol steps, we found our spot. They were giving away little American flags to everyone.



The concert featured the National Symphony Orchestra Pops and the Choral Arts Society of Washington with Erich Kunzel on the podium. They had a lot of special guest entertainers. Jason Alexander (Seinfeld) was the host and he did some song and dance numbers with some uncredited dancers. A teen pop singer called JoJo sang the national anthem. Vanessa Williams sang that Pocahontas song everybody sings, then she was joined by the puppet Elmo. Elmo "sang" with Vanessa and then did a couple of songs of his own and he was on way too long, but I suppose they were trying to appeal to the little kids in the audience. Michael Bolton showed up next to sing a Frank Sinatra song and another song in the style of Ray Charles (and he was on too long, too!). He was followed by a country singer called Jo Dee Medina.


Cuba Gooding was there to present a lifetime achievement award to Stevie Wonder. After the award, Stevie Wonder sang four or five songs that ultimately were punctuated by the fireworks display being shot off down on the other side of the Washington Monument.



There were two problems with going to the Capitol Fourth concert to see the fireworks. First, that big Jumbotron screen blocked the view of a lot of the fireworks. Second, we were so far away from the fireworks launch point (the reflecting pool by the Lincoln Memorial where they did the launching is between one and two miles away) that they didn't seem as spectacular as they should have. I think I actually had a better view of the fireworks last year when we watched from my apartment building rooftop. It was still nice to be where we were, though.

Once Stevie Wonder got done playing (I don't know what was planned, but I had the distinct impression that he played longer than scheduled and the fireworks weren't supposed to have started during his performance), the National Symphony came back and did the Tchaikovsky "1812 Overture" with the assistance of an Army group of state trumpeters and they had a battery of cannons behind the stage that shot at the appropriate times.

Leaving the Capitol area after the show was challenging. There were thousands and thousands of people trying to cram themselves into the subways. In fact, we saw a line for the Archives station that came out of the station and wound around out to the sidewalk and down about a block. Rather than deal with all that mess, we just walked home. It's a long walk (about two-plus miles), but it just seemed easier.

And, thus was our Fourth. What did you do?