This weekend, the Global Citizens Festival took place on the Great Lawn of central park. The foundation raises awareness of poverty all around the world and helps raise money to help these poor countries with water shortages, health issues and pregnancy defects.
The Great Lawn on Central Park in New York City was covered with 60,000 people on Saturday September 29. I was lucky enough to hold a free ticket in my hand as we walked into the first barricaded section of the field. My best friend won four tickets to the event. Global Citizens gave out over 50,000 free tickets to people who signed up for their website and shared their articles on Facebook and Twitter.
The festival doors opened at 2 p.m. and the show kicked off at 5:00. The benefit was a huge music festival feature some of the most amazing musicians of today. K'naan, Band of Horses, the Black Keys, the Foo Fighters and Neil Young with Crazyhorse made the bill for Saturday nights concert. John Legend also made a special appearance singing John Lennon's famous song "Imagine".
There were multiple famous guest speakers to talk about the organizations they support and raise awareness of the issues that Global Citizens was raising money to help. Olivia Wilde, Katie Couric, and Selena Gomez all spoke to the crowd on Saturday.
K'naan and Band of Horses both hit the stage before the sunset and got the crowd going early. As dusk started to fall upon New York City, The Black Keys wowed the crowd with a powerful performance. They played about ten songs that were all enjoyed by the crowd. I even enjoyed them even though i had never heard their music before.
After about 30 minutes of public service announcements from various people on the stage after the Black Keys performance, the crowd started to get restless and starting chanting "Foo Fighters, Foo Fighters" over and over again. This crowd was clearly here for one reason, and one reason only, to see the Foo Fighters take the stage.
Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters took the stage as the sky darkened and the NYC skyline lit up behind the enormous crowd. They played a fantastic set of some of their most famous and popular songs. In the middle of the set, Dave announced that this would be their last performance for a while and that he didn't know how long it would be. You could hear the gasps of shock and disappointment ripple through the crowd. This sadness was once again over whelmed by the loud music and the crowd singing along every word.
My group of friends and I left after the Foo Fighters set, but Neil Young did grace the stage with a performance that was rumored to be amazing.
All in all, the Global Citizens festival made a lot of money on Saturday night and was a huge success for the organization. It was the most watched televised charity event in history. The music was also amazing.
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