Bowie performs Paul Simon’s ‘America’, at
The Concert For New York City last October.
Playing games with the faces…
David Bowie performed a version of ‘America’ at the request of
The event took place last Thursday evening, May 30th, at The Javits Center in Manhattan. Eye witness reports described David’s performance as “breathtaking and highly emotional” and apparently the crowd “absolutely adored him”. I asked David about his appearance, and this is what he had to say:
“I was asked to do ‘America’ before their auction started. (Auctioneer was Mike Myers.) The evening was opened by Billy Crystal. MC for the evening was Diane Sawyer. I went over straight after my own rehearsals and did the song for them, then went home for dinner.
They raised …wait for it…$14,000,000 in one night. (Yes, million) One of the auction prizes was for ‘Britney to come over to your child’s sleepover party’. Well, then!!To say there were some heavy hitters there would be an understatement.
It’s an amazing charity. It is run and paid for by the wealthy of New York therefore there are NO expenses whatsoever, every single penny made goes to charity. They are the biggest funder of schools in New York’s poorest neighborhoods. They’ve also made it possible for, so far, over 700,000 uninsured kids to get access to health care. Since 1988, they’ve raised literally millions and millions of dollars and started more programs than I can remember.”
You will remember that David performed this same Paul Simon song at The Concert For New York City back in October last year. Along with ‘Heroes’, the track ended up on the commercial release of the concert. We will hopefully have some pictures from Thursday’s performance for you shortly.