Jon Stewart's Rally To Restore Kid Rock and/or Sheryl Crow Failed Miserably

It's been almost a week, readers. By now you've heard the speeches and seen the signs from Jon Stewart's rally in Washington, D.C. There are plenty of great recaps of the event, but one little item seems to be glossed over in all of them, and that is the performance of Kid Rock and what might be his girlfriend? I don't know, that just seems like a reason they might have performed together. Anyway, Sheryl Crow was also there, and no one seems to want to discuss it past "Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow were there." No one wants to mention that a "Rally to Restore Kid Rock and/or Sheryl Crow" featured such an "unintentionally hilarious and/or slap-dash" performance by them. The main act, readers, was by far the best metaphor of the day.

The whole event featured guests no one was expecting: The Roots, John Legend, Ozzy, the MythBusters, Father Guido Sarducci, the Artist Formerly Known As Cat Stevens, and Jeff Tweedy (to name almost all of them). After these delights and other "bits" of "c"omedy, Stewart began to tease the next performer. I can't speak for every one, readers, but I've spoken to several ones, and I'm fairly certain most of us were expecting Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen, some more jokes, then the main event: Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. Instead, Stewart announced "Ladies and gentlemen... Kid Rock" and immediately turned his head away, as if to say "Ladies and gentlemen... sigh... Kid Rock."

Kid entered, looking like Kid does, and sat down at the piano. He muttered that it was ironic how he was the one to play the serious song, which instantly made it ironic that he didn't. He opened his copy of Kid's Fourth Rock Piano Book: Bawitdarpeggios and played a few lines from his new song "Care." Kid lamented, "I can't stop the war, shelter homeless, feed the poor... but the least that I can do is care." Technically, Kid, the least you can do is sit quietly, or maybe just care less. Semantics aside, though, I did appreciate the intended sentiment, even if the song could have just as easily been called "Imagine (If (John Lennon Were Five)." The Kid was earnest, and it was- after all- his rally.

Then Sheryl Crow came out and she sure was Sheryl Crow I guess, except I honestly thought it was Shania Twain up until very recently. Sheria Twow, loyal to her name, spent the duet going between "real words" and "just sounds" at random, as if that were the correct thing to do. It quickly became clear that she did not even do the least that she could do, which is care enough to learn the words. The whole performance begged for a single rehearsal, or a desire to sing together from either of the two people singing, or Kid stopping mid-song to scream "MY NAME IS KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID!

KID

ROCK!"

only to then go back into "What If Everyone Was Nice." That would have been insane.

Readers, up until Kid Rock And Guest's performance, the rally had been entertaining and understandable. This was the first time I stopped to wonder what the hell was going on. Kid's bizarrely panderous song felt like it was meant for the "flag-wearin', sign-wavin'" crowd everyone was there to "refudiate." Looking around, though, you could see that this was also a crowd of sign-wavers, however tongue-in-cheek the signs may be. While most were harmless ("THE PEOPLE BEHIND ME CAN'T SEE" and "DON'T YOU HATE PANTS?" come to mind), many went about rejecting childish sign-waving by waving childish signs. FYI, Tea Partiers: a lot of people seem to think you like balls in your mouth. And a "JUST BECAUSE I SPELL CORRECTLY DOESN'T MEAN I'M LIBERAL OR CONDESCENDING IT JUST MEANS I WENT TO COLLEGE" sign is still pretty condescending. When will they understand? We are all waving signs, readers. We are all reading waved signs.

Then T.I. beamed in from jail, eventually the song ended, everything became right again, and Sheryl Crow played her own song. At first I thought it was "Get Back," then it wasn't, then four minutes later the song was over. The crowd cheered the equivalent of "Yeah, I guess," and Jon came out to finish off the rest of the rally with The Roots, who had been there the whole time. For some reason(s?), no one mentioned Kid Rock or Sheryl Crow again.

In conclusion, readers, as a rally to restore Kid Rock, it was pretty not effective at all because he only played one song. As a rally to restore Sheryl Crow, it was extremely not effective at all because she only played one song. As a Kid Rock/Shania Twain concert, it was fucking incredible, because they only played two songs.