NEW YORK — A new dawn’s about to break — on the Great Lawn.
The famed 55-acre field at the heart of Central Park is set to host a super concert on Saturday, with music megastars like Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen and Jennifer Hudson ready to help the city close the book on the darkest days of the pandemic.
Earth, Wind and Fire perform a soundcheck on Friday in Central Park, a day before the "We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert" at the culmination of NYC Homecoming week, a celebration of the city's recovery during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Clive Davis, the venerable Brooklyn-raised record producer, booked the show’s acts and said the celebration will strike a balance as the city springs back to life despite an ongoing COVID threat.
“New York will be reopening, so we’re going to be marking that and celebrating that,” while “at the same time, encouraging people to keep on top of all of the guidelines,” Davis told the Daily News.
A mass of some 60,000 people is expected at the city’s largest concert since coronavirus arrived in early 2020. Concertgoers over the age of 12 will need proof of vaccination to get past the gates, according to the city.
The event, branded the “Homecoming Concert,” caps a week of concerts across the five boroughs meant to celebrate New York’s comeback from the virus crisis.
Manhattan landed the grandest bash of the bunch, a five-hour spectacular that will follow in Central Park’s tradition of ambitious concerts.
Over the years, some of the the world’s most venerated musicians have played the park before crowds the size of small cities. Count Elton John, Diana Ross and James Taylor among them.
Four decades ago, Simon himself reunited with his old feather-voice partner, Art Garfunkel, on the Great Lawn, an almost mythic moment in music history.
“We were both really nervous,” Simon, a 79-year-old who was raised in Queens, recalled in an interview that aired Sunday on CBS. “That was a large group.”
The jitters seemed to show at moments.
The pair fumbled the start of “The Boxer,” with Simon cracking a sheepish smile at Garfunkel. But then they launched into one of the best-loved renditions of the classic New York working-class anthem.
Simon returned to the Great Lawn again a decade later for another performance in front of a sea of fans.
Saturday’s event will deliver him the Central Park hat trick, while mixing in an eclectic batch of artists including the operatic Andrea Bocelli, rapper LL Cool J, smooth-singing Barry Manilow and the New York Philharmonic.
Most acts will perform two songs, Davis said. The 89-year-old added that the selections are meant to “do justice to the full range of great New York music.”
Springsteen, a tireless rocker and one of New Jersey’s favorite sons, will perform a duet with punk powerhouse Patti Smith, Davis said. The lineup also features Elvis Costello, Wyclef Jean and Carlos Santana.
The city organized the concert with the entertainment company Live Nation, and Mayor de Blasio has gushed about the celebration.
“This is going to be one of the greatest Central Park concerts in history,” the mayor said last month. “This is something for the ages.”
Organizers made most tickets free, but the passes have proven hard to come by. Live Nation is also hawking pricey premium tickets with promises of private bathrooms and choice food options.
The ticketless can tune into CNN starting at 5 p.m. to catch the concert. The broadcaster will also stream the show on its homepage and apps without requiring a log-in.
Davis said the Central Park setting will carry symbolic heft, signaling to the rest of the world that the Big Apple is coming back.
“The history of the Great Lawn, with its historic concerts, I couldn’t think of a better place to have this concert,” he said. “Music is the messenger.”
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