COME TOGETHER Tribute Concert Reviews

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Sean Lennon performs "Julia" in the "Come Together: A Night For John Lennon's Words & Music" concert at Radio City Music Hall in New York, on October 2.

(Peter Morgan/Reuters)


ABC NEWS

By Nancy Chandross

N E W  Y O R K, Oct. 3 — John Lennon's "make love, not war" hippie battle cries seemed anything but dated in a star-studded salute to the slain Beatle.

With New York City, Lennon's adopted home, still reeling from the Sept. 11 terrorist bombing of the Twin Towers, the singer's peace anthems, such as "Instant Karma" and "Power to the People" took on an all new meaning.

Kevin Spacey, who pulled off a rousing performance of "Mind Games," got choked up while opening the show, reminding folks that its the "people, not the places" that must be remembered when looking back on the destruction of the World Trade Center.

Dave Matthews' rendition of "In My Life," was especially poignant, especially as he sang "I know I'll often stop and think about them."

Similarly, as the Stone Temple Pilots ripped through the Beatles "Revolution," it was impossible not to think of recent violence as they sang the classic line, "But when you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out."

Throughout each performance, footage of Lennon, often on New York City streets, graced the screen. Alanis Morissette did "Dear Prudence," Lou Reed sang, "Jealous Guy," and Lennon's son Sean performed "Julia," a tune Lennon wrote in tribute to his wife Yoko Ono and his mother.

"I think that most of us in New York are still in shock," said Ono. "And I am too."

"It just seems that now, it's very fitting," lead singer Scott Weiland told reporters backstage. "Almost in a spooky sort of way."

Lennon's political views were heard during the broadcast, as video clips of the star were projected behind the performers throughout the night interspersed with images of New York City fireman, police and American Flags.

One touching image was a clip of Lennon and Ono riding a ferry in the New York harbor with the twin towers in the background.

The show was initially set to air on Lennon's birthday, but was quickly turned into a fund-raising benefit for the Sept. 11 relief efforts.

Ono said she picked young musicians like Nelly Furtado and Craig David for the event out of a desire to bring her late husband's music to a younger generation. The artists who answered questions backstage seemed grateful for the chance to perform his songs, and honor his timeless ideas.

David, 20, performed a funked-up version of "Come Together" — three weeks after watching the towers fall from his hotel window in lower Manhattan.

Missing from the night were the remaining Beatles.

LAUPER IN THE PARK

Native New Yorker Cyndi lauper sang "Strawberry Fields" from that section of Central Park, and credits the Beatles for helping her find her own unique music style.

"The music was innovative, I learned how to sing singing their songs," said Lauper. "I learned harmony listening to John Lennon's voice."

Shaggy, a Gulf War veteran, headed up the ensemble finale of "Give Peace a Chance."

Scene-stealer Spacey might have summed up the spirit of the evening best. When asked how he was personally touched by the events, Spacey was caught in a lengthy pause before commenting on the tragedy.

"We've all known people affected, and people that have lost their lives," said Spacey. "And I think forever we'll be changed, and it's how we respond to that change [that matters], that's what tonight was all about."

THE STARS COME OUT...
The Liverpool Echo
October 3, 2001

The stars came out last night for a tribute concert to John Lennon - and to the people of New York, the city where he died.

Performers from Lou Reed to John's son Sean played at Radio City Music Hall in a night of his music and words aimed at uplifting the spirit of the city, still reeling from the September 11 terror strikes.

The show, broadcast live on American television, also raised money for charities helping the families of police and firefighters killed or injured in the aftermath of the attacks.

Hosted by Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey, musicians included Alanis Morissette, Craig David, Yolanda Adams, Billy Preston and Nelly Furtardo, while a starstudded audience included Richard Gere, Tim Roth, Ben Stiller, Kevin Bacon, Sopranos star James Gandolfini and Dustin Hoffman.

The show, called Come Together, had been planned before the September 11 strikes, but postponed by a week as organisers, including John's widow Yoko Ono, worked out what to do.

Spacey said: " Come together. That was the name for this night when it was planned over a year ago.

"But tonight as we come together on this date, in this hall, in this city, we have a new mission. A despicable attack of blatant hatred has failed completely to tear us apart.

"In coming together, we honour those loved ones taken from us." The musicians played songs including Come Together, Imagine, Revolution and Nowhere Man.

Speaking at the end of the show, Ono said: "I would like to first thank the firefighters and police officers and all the rescue workers of the city.

"You have restored my faith in the human race that we can still be good people, people with courage."

Yahoo News, Thursday, October 4, 2001

Kevin Spacey Shocks And Rocks At John Lennon Tribute In N.Y.C.

Darren Davis, New York

(10/4/01, 1 p.m. ET) -- Actor Kevin Spacey stunned a national TV audience and the patrons at New York City's Radio City Music Hall by performing John Lennon's "Mind Games" during Tuesday night's (October 2) tribute to the late Beatle.

His unexpected performance shed new light on his talents. LAUNCH asked Spacey backstage about the standing ovation he received. "I was pretty dumbfounded by the response, because, you know, I mean I was nervous," he said. "First of all it's television, it's live, and then Radio City Music Hall and all, and Yoko's there and you're thinking, 'I'm out of my mind.' That's what I've been saying for the last four days, 'I'm absolutely out of my mind.' But sometimes the things that are worth doing are the things that are a little risky and fun. And I really wanted to do something tonight that would be risky and surprising."

Spacey said he decided to perform "Mind Games" because he "knew the song because I heard it before, but I didn't know it well. [Music director and Eurythmics member] Dave Stewart was kind enough to teach it to me on Saturday and then we rehearsed it Sunday and Monday and today. I was relatively nervous about it because it's not an easy song; because the way John did it, he jumps over rhythms and cues. But actually once I heard it a few times it was easy to fall into it."

Anyone who failed to see Spacey croon can tune into the rebroadcast of Come Together: A Night For John Lennon's Words & Music on TNT tonight (October 4) at 11 p.m. ET/PT.

Yahoo News, October 5, 2001

Lennon's music still shines on

Come Together: The Music of John Lennon 

By David Sprague

NEW YORK (Variety) - When this celebration of the life and music of John Lennon first was conceived, many months back, it was designed as a testament to peace, with proceeds earmarked for gun-control efforts. And while recent events changed the tenor of the presentation considerably, the overriding message -- stated in the title of the show, broadcast live on TNT -- remained.

The program was considerably less subdued than might have been expected, with musical director Dave Stewart and ubiquitous keyboardist-mascot Billy Preston rousing the crowd with spirited backing.

Presenters, while saddled with dialogue that sometimes strained to incorporate Lennon-centric themes into pertinent speeches, likewise accentuated the positive, or at least the stoic.

While the participants paid lip service to Lennon's revolutionary attitudes -- some of which were alluded to in the interview clips that punctuated the performances -- few of the legend's most prickly moments were touched on during the program. Stone Temple Pilots' fierce version of ``Revolution,'' a notable exception to that rule, offered all the agitation of the original, while Alanis Morissette did a fine job of capturing the dislocation of ``Dear Prudence'' with her reading, which indicated she's still deeply fascinated with the Indian subcontinent.

Producers deserve credit for overseeing unusually smooth set changes and for keeping the inhouse audience involved, via video installations and taped segments that bridged the commercial-break gaps. Host Kevin Spacey also did a terrific job, speaking eloquently, often off the cuff, and turning in the evening's biggest surprise by singing "Mind Games" with passion and sensitivity.

The show certainly contained its share of misguided moments: Shelby Lynne, for one, was out of her depth performing ``Mother,'' replacing the raw urgency of the original with a thoroughly inappropriate mixture of Hallmark treacle and Broadway brass. Similarly, Marc Anthony's Vegas-revue take on ``Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds'' effectively ended William Shatner's three-decade reign as perpetrator of mankind's most heinous Beatles cover.

Generally, however, artists who departed from Lennon's musical intent retained the integrity of his spirit. Lou Reed, for instance, turned in a radical revamp of ``Jealous Guy,'' but his stuttering, frustrated delivery suited the song perfectly, as did Yolanda Adams' rousing, storefront church rendition of ``Imagine.'' Brit chart-topper Craig David also hit home with a stirring ``Come Together'' that incorporated a hyper-speed freestyle rap verse.

The all-hands-on-deck sing-along of ``Power to the People'' -- cleaved by the performers' snaking conga line through the aisles -- ended the evening (the first show at Radio City since the attacks of Sept. 11) on a high note, one that sounded both defiance and hope for better things to come.

Presented by Ken Ehrlich Prods. Performers: Dave Matthews, Craig David, Marc Anthony, Billy Preston, Sean Lennon, Alanis Morissette, Lou Reed, Nelly Furtado, Natalie Merchant, Cyndi Lauper, Shelby Lynne, Rufus Wainwright, Yolanda Adams, Moby. Musical director: Dave Stewart. Host: Kevin Spacey. Reviewed Oct. 2, 2001.

Reuters/Variety REUTERS

(Photo Right: Sean & Yoko Sing in
Finale - Photo By AP)

Yahoo News

October 5, 2001

By JON PARELES The New York Times

The TNT cable channel's tribute to John Lennon was a mourning for both the murdered musician and for the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

When the TNT cable channel planned "Come Together," its tribute to John Lennon, the show was going to be a benefit for gun-control groups, a concert "in support of a nonviolent world." After the terrorist attacks of September 11, it inevitably changed.

The rescheduled concert, which was broadcast live on Tuesday night from Radio City Music Hall on the WB network and on TNT, became a benefit for relief            efforts through the Web site www.helping.org.

Lennon's yearning to give peace a chance, and his conviction that "love is the answer," made an uncomfortable fit with the prospect of imminent war.                 Instead, the tribute found a new focus: mourning both a murdered musician and the thousands of victims in New York and Washington.

Its avowed purpose became, in the words of the show's host, Kevin Spacey, "to not only keep John's songs alive but to help rebuild New York." The most touching moment was broadcast from Central Park, where Cyndi Lauper sang "Strawberry Fields" next to the memorial to Lennon, with circles of candles flickering on the mosaic that reads, "Imagine."

The set for the show was based on the white room where Lennon made the video for "Imagine" and included a white grand piano like the one he used. At the music hall, concertgoers saw Lennon's home movies and heard his music during the broadcast's commercials.

"Imagine" itself, belted by the gospel singer Yolanda Adams with the onetime Beatles sideman Billy Preston on organ, sounded newly prescient and poignant in its longing for an end to countries, religions and possessions, with its utopia as distant as ever. It was just one moment in which an old song adapted to a new historical moment a testament both to the wise generality of Lennon's writing and to
fans' willingness to place themselves within a song.

Actors including Dustin Hoffman, Ben Stiller, Leelee Sobieski, Steve Buscemi and Benjamin Bratt condemned the attacks and praised heroic rescue workers and the city itself. Punctuated by videotaped interviews with Lennon, they cast his songs as dreams of a one-world community and transmutations of pain into beauty. Behind the performers, video screens showed New York scenes, hard-working firefighters
and American flags.

Many of Lennon's songs are filled with a sense of private loss that has now taken on a public resonance. When Dave Matthews gently sang "In My Life," its "places I'll remember . . . Some have gone" seemed utterly specific. The hallucinatory itinerary of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," sung by Marc Anthony, became a New York travelogue, with all its whimsicality vanished. When Nelly Furtado and David Stewart performed "Instant Karma," its peak came with Ms. Furtado trumpeting "surely not to live in pain and fear." And Natalie Merchant sang "Nowhere Man" without a hint of its original disdain, turning it into a folk-rock
lullaby for someone bewildered and displaced.

The program's original character, as an all-star musical tribute, emerged now and then. Mr. Spacey had a moment of celebrity karaoke, singing "Mind Games" as a finely detailed Lennon impression. Stone Temple Pilots did their own Lennon imitation as they replicated the Beatles' fuzz-toned "Revolution." Sean Lennon, Lennon's son with Yoko Ono (the show's executive producer), harmonized with Rufus Wainwright on Lennon's "Across the Universe" and "This Boy," and sang "Julia" alone, his voice a lighter echo of his father's.

Lou Reed made "Jealous Guy" completely his own, a volatile rocker that turned each verse into a cycle of tongue-tied bewilderment, fury and partial apology, warning, "I'm a jealous guy watch out!"  Alanis Morrissette gave "Dear Prudence" a touch of Eastern drone and mysticism. Shelby Lynne, who lost her own parents to violence, sang Lennon's primal "Mother," though the large band led by Dave Stewart made it sound strangely triumphant rather than lonely.

Craig David, an English pop-soul singer, dared to add some words to Lennon's own in "Come Together," with a quick-tongued rap that acknowledged, "It's real hard to try and say goodbye when it feels like yesterday" and "the heroes are the real superstars." The reggae singer Shaggy introduced "Give Peace a Chance" with another rap calling for "no more terror, no more wars," and added, "It's peace we
need." But "Give Peace a Chance" soon segued to another, more pugnacious
Lennon song:  "Power to the People" a sentiment from the 1960's that awaits its
21st-century meanings.

(Thanks to Harry Bluebond)

By Eric Brazil, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer    
Wednesday, October 3, 2001

New York

In a mood unimaginable when the event was first planned, stars of the
American musical world came together last night to pay tribute to the music
of John Lennon and the working-class heroes whose lost lives New Yorkers now
mourn and praise.

What had originally been contemplated as a mid-September fund-raiser for gun
control was postponed by the Sept. 11 terrorist catastrophe that traumatized
New York and the rest of the world.

Instead, the principal beneficiaries of the Radio City Music Hall
performance, which drew a capacity house of 6,000, will be New York's relief
organizations.

Celebratory and solemn, "Come Together: A Night for John Lennon's Words &
Music" lacked the red carpet and spotlight glitz of a Big Apple gala. The
organizers of the benefit, which TNT and the WB broadcast live (tape-delayed
on the West Coast), figured that such treatment would be inappropriate given
what has befallen and continues to torment the city.

Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow, said she thought "it was important to do it (the
benefit) in this city now." The destruction of the World Trade Center by
terrorists left her "in shock, like when John passed away. I am still in
shock today."

She thanked New York's police officers, firefighters and rescue workers. "You
have restored my faith in the human race that people can still be good."

John Lennon was shot to death in front of the Dakota Apartments in Manhattan
in 1980. His message today, said his widow, would be "Give peace a chance."

The eclectic evening featured 16 songs by Lennon, ranging from the upbeat
"Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" sung by Latino star Marc Anthony, to a
passionate version of "Mother" by Shelby Lynne, whose huge voice belies her
wispy frame, to a rousing "Revolution" by the Stone Temple Pilots.

Dave Matthews, playing solo acoustic guitar, sang "In My Life," Alanis
Morissette "Dear Prudence" and veteran rocker Lou Reed kicked in with an
energetic "Jealous Guy." All three were dressed entirely in black.

Producer Ken Ehrlich said in a prebroadcast statement to the audience that he
first entertained some doubt that the tribute should be held, but "we decided
it was necessary to send a message to the country about John Lennon and what
this city meant to him and what he meant to this city. . . . We want to send
a message to the world that New York is back."

Said master of ceremonies Kevin Spacey, "John Lennon was a New Yorker by
choice. John Lennon loved New York and New York loves John Lennon. He
struggled to be a working-class hero like our firemen and policemen. And let
there be no doubt, a working-class hero is something to be."

Spacey, an Oscar-winning actor, was the event's surprise performer, belting
out "Mind Games" to appreciative applause in his debut as a vocalist.

Sean Lennon, John and Yoko's son, sang a touching solo version of "Julia" and
dedicated it to "my mother," after which he and Yoko Ono embraced.

Among the movie stars who introduced the singers were Dustin Hoffman,
Benjamin Bratt, Steve Buscemi, Ben Stiller and Tim Roth. Lennon, said
Hoffman, exemplified the inherent decency of ordinary humans all over this
planet in his life and work.

Yoko Ono said that the essential message of her husband's life was to "create
unity, create joy and create life."

PHOTO OF YOKO AT RIGHT, REUTERS

Moby Honored To Be Part Of Lennon Tribute

Thursday October 04 08:57 PM EDT

-- Darren Davis, New York

(10/4/01, 6 p.m. ET) -- Moby was on hand for Come Together: A Night For John Lennon's Words & Music in New York City. He played guitar and sang harmony on "Across The Universe" with Sean Lennon, while Rufus Wainwright sang lead. Moby wrote of Tuesday's (October 2) Radio City Music Hall show in his online journal. "I've done lots of award shows and tribute shows in my life, but this one was really special."

"It's hard to write about John Lennon, because he was such a remarkable man and musician and humanitarian. What an amazing man he must've been. So talented and humble, and if ever anyone used their fame to good effect it was him."

"I was particularly honored to actually wear one of his shirts while I performed. Sean [Lennon] loaned me a Plastic Ono Band shirt that had been John Lennon's and still had John's sweat stains on it...That really meant a lot to me, and I've never held an item of clothing with such reverence."