America Coming Together Concert: October 6, Ames, Iowa - Hilton Coliseum
by Stacey and Connie Wilson
 

UPDATE:  Tonight, the FINAL ACT concert will be webcast live for your enjoyment, starting at 5:30pm Iowa time.  Click on the link below:

http://www.vfcfinale.com/
On Wednesday, October 6th, at 6:00 p.m., my 17-year-old daughter and I began the trip to Ames, Iowa, home of Iowa State University, to hear Dave Matthews Band, along with My Morning Jacket, Jurassic5 and Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals. We would not return to Des Moines for the night until 1:48 a.m.

Dave Matthews in Ames (photo: Stacey Wilson)

Hilton Coliseum was packed. With 14,178 seats, all of which appeared to be sold out, the concert (at roughly $50 a ticket) grossed an estimated $708,900 for the Kerry/Edwards campaign war chest (exclusive of band expenses). While it was “politics light,” with most of the acts simply urging the young crowd to vote at all, while not necessarily saying for whom, the concert was organized by MoveOn.org to (hopefully) rally the youth vote for the Democratic ticket. Judging from the number of Bush/Cheney stickers on cars in the parking lot, the largest contribution that many of these students will make will be financial, as some were obviously just there for the music. As they exited in their Bush/Cheney cars, they hunched down like criminals leaving the scene of a crime.

If you were just there for the music, you were treated to a six-hour concert that underscored this message articulated by Dave Matthews when he said, “You probably know why we’re here. You all know who I’m going to vote for. The most important thing is that you vote. That’s what makes this a successful democracy, so vote for whoever you’ve got to vote for. And wish me luck, too.”

The most overtly political act of the night was Neil Young, the final participant,  who was a surprise contributor not listed before the concert. Playing with peace symbols on his guitar strap, this dinosaur from groups like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young said he represented “Canadians for Kerry,” but added, “But I’m also here for you, no matter who you are. All the Canadians I know want a change. I’ve been around the world and everybody says the same thing: they want a change.” He then launched into a song about Spain, where, he said, “the people took the government back.” The Buffalo Springfield version of “There’s somethin’ happenin’ here; there’s a man with a gun over there. Stop, Baby! What’s that sound. Everybody look what’s goin’ down,” was repeated many times, in tandem with Matthews.

The best act of the evening was definitely Dave Matthews’ Band, which played for almost 2 hours after a short intermission. Very few spectators made it out for My Morning Jacket, who mainly sound like Beach Boys Lite and are best described as having very long hair, which they flail wildly while playing.


Jurassic5 in Ames (photo: Stacey Wilson)

Dave, himself, introduced Jurassic5, a creative group that fuses rhythms from the thirties with rap. They were very energetic and very good. Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals followed Jurassic5. Ben might have been smoking some of those funny cigarettes. Some of his remarks made little or no sense, and certainly, “Burn One Down,” a song about smoking marijuana, while well-received, did not seem to have an overtly political theme supporting a change of Administrations.

By the time Neil Young joined Dave Matthews onstage, his long, wild Howard Hughes hair and Big Foot geriatric jig added little, other than to legitimize the fact that some of us were protesting wars in the sixties and we are now protesting them, again, in 2004. Sad, but true.

We had truly excellent seats and, although at six hours the concert seemed a tad long, Matthews’ finale of “Too Much” from the Crash album was outstanding.

All-in-all, a good Mother-Daughter Bonding Tour experience, with numerous photos to prove same.