Sunday, July 27, 2008
Free Rock Concert Drew Crowd In Berlin, Not Obama
History repeats itself in this campaign. A couple of months back the news media failed to mention a large crowd in Portland, Oregon gathered for a free concert in a park before Obama took the stage. In Berlin, two very popular German bands played a free rock concert to lure large crowds and the media failed to report it. The German band, Raemonn, is accustomed to drawing large crowds as confirmed by this video. CNN's Christianne Armanpour looked rather foolish trying to explain the lack of euphoria for Obama following his speech. “I did ask some people as they were leaving what they thought," Armanpour said. "Everybody said good, good. But I was surprised that there wasn't this sort of euphoria afterwards, given how many people had come to listen and how much it had been anticipated." Psst . . . It was the free concert, stupid.
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9 comments:
I believe the free concerts are given in order to entertain the large crowds while they gather to listen to Obama. If you notice, it usually takes several hours to get a crowd of that magnitude settled in before beginning. I don't think it is uncommon for music to be playing even while people are getting seated and waiting for the beginning of a town hall meeting. Indeed, I personally watched and listened to the crowd during concert before Obama took the stage, and it totally negates your claim that the crowd assembled because of the bank and not Obama. The minute Obama took the state, American flags sprinted to the air and huge cries from the crowd erupted. To even discredit your blog entry even more, you might also want to tell your readers that the 200,000 person crowd was chanting "Obama" and "Yes we can" - two sayings that I assure you do not come from the band. The crowd barely made a noise when the concert ended.
The compendium of these factors come to but one logical conclusion - The truth: The crowd gathered for Obama, and not the concert as you opined.
Just one hole in your theory: You had to go through Security to see the speech, so I doubt that 200,000 people subjected themselves to security checks by accident. My brother happened to be in Berlin on Thursday and went to hear Obama speak, this is his account of it:
"Senator Barack Obama was on a tour of the Middle East and Europe the same time my JS Bach group was in Germany. We found out that he would be speaking at the Siegessaeule in Berlin the night before I was heading back to the States. I thought it would be ironic for me to have to go all the way to Germany to see him for the first time. I was also curious about the German reaction to his visit and what it would be like to stand in a city with so much history listening to a candidate for US President.
The speech was scheduled for 7pm, so we arrived at about 5:00pm and it was already packed. We slowly made our way through security and up towards the stage. We ended up standing about 50 yards from Senator Obama, but there seemed to be a tall person convention in town and they all decided to stand in front of me. It got a little scary right before Senator Obama arrived; we were packed in really tight and people were pushing trying to get closer. I could barely raise my arm to take pictures and applaud because of the sardine-like nature of the situation.
Sen. Obama spoke from 7:20-7:50. We all knew he would start late, but I'm happy he kept it to 30 minutes. I was happy to be there. The speech itself was safe and bland, but the reaction was favorable. Many people in Germany pay some attention to US politics and many are big fans of Barack Obama."
At least, he didnt have to meet at a German fudge store in Ohio in front of 16 people.
I spoke to a friend living in Berlin today. We discussed Obama's visit, and i mentioned your post suggesting the draw was not Obama, but the free concert.
He told me no one heard of the group, and that people went truly to see Obama.
The speech was not translated in real time, so language was a great obstacle and probably contributed to the lack of enthusiasm noted by the reporter.
My friend (who grew up in east Berlin and is no fan of the current party running the government, the CDU, nor the more liberal SPD who took the reigns from the great Helmut Kohl upon his departure) is about as left one can be. He mentioned something that suprised me, but made more sense in light of the flat response to CNN than your attempt at an informed view of world events.
There are many liberal Europeans who just don't like Obama. A great speaker. Not much substance.
OMG! This is such a hilarious relief! Thanks Gary.
Translation wouldn't have been a problem. If you've been to Europe, you know that English is widely spoken and understood.
When it comes to celebrating a charismatic speaker and leader, trust the German instinct. It's spot on every time.
In response to Art Fuggins...at least McCain was visiting with Americans that can actually vote in the USA and did not feel obligated to apologize or cut down his own nation to do draw applause. McCain thought it was better to talk to real Americans in Ohio than show-off in front of Europeans and knock America. Did Obama or his staff realize the Victory Column in Berlin, where he chose to speak, is a famous Iconic monument of the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler?? I don't think he knew...oops. Too late.
In response to Its Me...the rock group "Reamonn" is HUGELY popular in Germany and often draws huge crowds even amongst "paying" fans. Look them up on You Tube. (You'll find a concert from 2006 in Berlin at the Victory Column! "Loveparade 2006" (The Obama-funded musical concert crowd of 200,000 is dwarfed by the vast crowd in this 2006 video.)Throw in a huge band or two, free pizza, free brats and free beer - heck McCain staff workers would have gone to this free music event. What a deal! I would have!!!
"Raemonn, is accustomed to drawing large crowds as confirmed by this video."
Except that the video you link to was the Berlin part of the live 8 benefit concerts. 23 bands played this show, including Green Day, Roxy Music, a-ha, Audioslave, and Brian Wilson, among others.
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