The craziness began on Sunday with the We Are One concert at the Lincoln Memorial. Thankfully the temperature was freezing and not in the single digits as it had been the previous few days. It was decided for the Inauguration that Virginians were banned and all bridges from the Common Wealth were closed to private vehicle traffic on Sunday and Tuesday. I also heard that earlier in the day the metro was completely packed. No matter, I’m mobile on my bike.
The concert was billed as the “Opening Inaugural Celebration”:
President-elect Barack Obama with the help of an all-star line-up of talent will kick off the inaugural celebration in Washington, D.C., with a free and open event at the Lincoln Memorial, between Constitution Avenue NW and Independence Avenue SW on 23rd Street.Musical performers scheduled for the event include Beyonce, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Garth Brooks, Sheryl Crow, Renee Fleming, Josh Groban, Herbie Hancock, HeatherHeadley, John Legend, Jennifer Nettles, John Mellencamp, Usher Raymond IV,Shakira, Bruce Springsteen, James Taylor, will.i.am, and Stevie Wonder.Among those reading historical passages will be Jamie Foxx, Martin Luther King III, Queen Latifah and Denzel Washington. The Rt. Reverend V. Gene Robinson will give the invocation. Rob Mathes will be the music director and arranger for the backing band, which will support all of the artists
As I rolled on to Constitution AVE from the half closed Roosevelt Bridge you could see streams of people flooding in from the city neighborhoods and the metro. All roads south of K street were closed (basically all of downtown). Tour buses lined the length of the Constitution AVE. Original estimates for Inauguration Day were as high as 5 million people. That was downgraded to just a couple million and I don’t think anyone had much of a clue how many would show up this Sunday. They had many thousands of port-o-potties and the security perimeter all set up for both this Sunday concert and Tuesday’s events. I’ve never seen so many port-o’s in my life. Verizon said they had 10x the network volumne compared to a normal day, I would have guessed higher. I think I saw at least one COW.
I found a nice open un-secured entry point through the security perimeter onto the mall and locked up my bike. The stage was on the Lincoln Memorial and this open entry point was down near the Washington Monument. I hung out in that area for a bit and took some pics. Some camo FBI agents were standing ground on top of SUV platforms with scopes and sniper rifles. They didn’t appreciate me taking pics of them; at least one yelled at me. Of course in such an estimated crowd of 400,000 I wasn’t the only one taking their picture; I saw a nice close up in the Washington Post online. Their sniper rifles were well concealed.
I never made it up towards the reflecting pool and the Lincoln Memorial. After hanging near the Washington Monument I jumped back on my bike and cruised around to the south side of the mall. Towards the end of the show before Obama spoke I tried to re-enter the security perimeter and some cops wouldn’t let me. What do they care if a few more people walk on to the mall? I had to jump back on my bike and cruise east a bit back towards the Washington Monument to get back in the thick of things. Why have the security perimeter if you aren’t going to check people and their bags anyway? The crowd was enjoying the show and I saw a few thousand people dancing to Stevie Wonder singing “Higher Ground”.
There were a ton of groups trying to stick together. People came from all over. And everyone had some type of Obama paraphernalia on. They must have made multi-millions on all the shirts, jackets, buttons, flags, and everything else. I only saw one “activist” group protesting to stop homosexuality. That is always entertaining as someone will inevitably challenge them and get in to a never ending argument.
There are tons of concerts and parties the next couple of days with all the celebrities and bands in town. Let the festivities begin!
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