In another timeline, Taylor Swift opened the brand new 70,000 seat Sofi Stadium in the summer of 2020. Unfortunately, COVID-19 made sure that didn’t happen in this world. Instead, the first public event at the stadium occurred eight months later and for an equally joyous occasion, the success of COVID vaccines in America and a light at the end of the tunnel for a pandemic that has taken 3.1 million lives worldwide. And that meant a glitzy taped event with high-energy musical performances for an in-person audience primarily of 20,000 or so frontline workers. But for Global Citizen, the Vax Live concert wasn’t just a cause for celebration, but a means to raise$53.8 million in philanthropic and corporate commitments to help fund 10.3 million doses for nations in desperate need of increased vaccine supply.
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Before the event, Hugh Evans, the Founder and CEO of the non-profit organization, spoke to The Playlist about the importance of also shining a light on the vaccine inequities in nations such as India, South Africa, and parts of Latin America.
“We have an amazing policy team behind us at Global Citizen, and they always knew that this was going to be a tale of two cities, where as soon as one part of the world had access to the vaccine, we knew that Latin America, across the African continent, across Southeast Asia, just wasn’t going to be the case,” Evans says. “But we didn’t know it was going to get as bad as it has in India. I think this is a stark wake-up for people where they’re like, ‘O.K., the fact that India just recorded 400,000 new cases in a single day is just…’ No one wants to see any nation have to break the record with the most number of cases. It’s just devastating. I’m getting texts every single day right now saying, ‘How can we help?'”
Evans advocates the United States and the rest of the G7 nation donating their extra doses to countries in need around the world, but even that might not be enough. For instance, during the taping, South African actress Nomzamo Mbathathe spoke of the lack of vaccine supply in her native country. For instance, last week 15 million doses were administered in the US last week but just 10,000 in South Africa, a nation of 60 million people.
“The US, by June, will have enough excess doses to fully vaccinate 75 million people on the planet,” Evans argues. “So they shouldn’t be donating doses in June, they should be donating them now as a proportion of uptake because they’re already exceeding the manufacturing capability. The second thing is pharmaceutical companies should immediately reduce the price of the vaccine, particularly Moderna. Moderna is holding out in negotiating with COVAX, which is the facility required to distribute the vaccine globally. And we need Moderna to bring their price down.”
Prince Harry, a campaign chair for the event, spoke about vaccine inequity to the audience as did the host of the telecast, Selena Gomez.
Evans says planning for the event began two and a half months ago with strict compliance with local and state officials. The decision to hold the “concert” in Los Angeles was partially due to the massive drops in California’s COVID numbers and the opportunity to open Sofi Stadium. However, as with the Oscars last weekend, the entire event had strict COVID compliance even if you were already vaccinated. Intriguingly, most attendees kept their masks on even though they were outdoors and not instructed to.
At one point during the taping, Eddie Vedder remarked to the audience “Good evening. Holy f**k. This is a feeling we haven’t had in some time. Feel’s good.” In fact, there was an obvious euphoria from the audience during the entire event. Even with 15-20 minute show stops for new staging or one of the speakers had to re-record their individual segments.
In a surprise, Jennifer Lopez’s first performance (which will be the opening of the show) saw her singing the Neil Diamond classic “Sweet Caroline” and an appearance from her mom who sang along sider her. JLO’s second number was an unexpectedly political version of “Ain’t Your Mama.” It goes without saying, that she’ll clearly be the star of the version of the show that airs on television on May 8th.
Other performers included H.E.R., who sang alongside local high school students outfitted with electric guitars, J. Balvin, who used a moon prop to intoxicating effect, and The Foo Fighters, who basically went over by giving the audience a five-song rock concert at the end of the night. Foo Fighters are also expected to be the bulk of the extended 90-minute version of the concert that will be available on YouTube.
The entire taping did an admirable job of balancing a need to inform its audience and entertain them.
“I think people, after a year in lockdown, are desperate to have human connection again,” Dancy says. “And so we want to use this an opportunity, one to encourage people to take the vaccine and overcome any vaccine hesitancy, but also to make sure that we’re fighting for the thing that is most necessary right now, which is vax inequity. When you consider here in California, they’re even closing down vaccine sites because there aren’t enough people anymore, whereas in India they just crossed 18 million cases yesterday. That’s devastating. And so this is truly a vaccine apartheid and I think that this concert has an opportunity, not just to encourage people to take the vaccine, but also to encourage governments and businesses to donate millions of doses to the heroic healthcare workers on the front line.”
Other in-person presenters included Olivia Munn, Sean Penn, Chrissy Teigen, David Letterman, and Ben Affleck. Jimmy Kimmel, who arrived in a Robin costume, chiding Affleck for not appearing as Batman. President Biden, the First Lady, The Pope, and other world leaders all appeared in taped segments. The biggest reception of the night though was for the only Royal in attendance. In an eyebrow-raising moment, Prince Harry was greeted like he was the biggest star in the building. 2021 is just full of surprises, isn’t it?
“Vax Live: The Concert to Reunite the World” will air on ABC, ABC News Live, CBS, YouTube, iHeartMedia broadcast radio stations, and the iHeartRadio App, starting at8:00 PM ET/PT, 7:00 PM CT. The concert will also air on FOX at 11:00 PM ET/PT, AXS TV, and will air internationally on Globo in Brazil and Caracol in Colombia, SABC in South Africa and MultiChoice across Africa.As the exclusive global streaming partner, YouTube will stream an extended version of VAX LIVE on the Global Citizen channel for a full run-time of 90 minutes.