Thunderstorms and heavy rain forced the organizers of a major concert in New York’s Central Park to cancel. By then, after around two and a half of the five planned hours, Carlos Santana, Andrea Bocelli and LL Cool J had already performed. Other artists like Reggeaton star Maluma, Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen hadn’t played yet.
“Rebirth” after Corona should be celebrated
At the event with 60,000 announced visitors, the city wanted to celebrate the fighting spirit of its citizens during the corona pandemic and the end of many restrictions. The broadcaster CNN reported that concert promoter Clive Davis was in the background talking to Mayor Bill de Blasio about a sequel without an audience later that evening.
Around an hour and a half after the demolition, however, it had rained heavily near the park with lots of lightning. Singer Barry Manilow, who was just about to be canceled and sang his hits “Copacabana” and “Mandy”, was then hooked up to CNN and sang two of his hits for presenter Anderson Cooper. His next planned song is “I Made
It Through The Rain, “Manilow explained.
Admission free for almost everyone
Around 80 percent of the tickets for the concert, which was broadcast worldwide on CNN, were free. Visitors had to prove at least their first vaccination against the virus at the entrance. Nevertheless, there was criticism that the concert had been scheduled too early due to the increasing number of cases due to the delta variant.
In New York, most of the restrictions due to the pandemic have been lifted, but since the beginning of the week a vaccination certificate has been mandatory for most interiors of restaurants, bars, theaters, cinemas and other leisure facilities. The east coast metropolis of New York was the epicenter of the corona pandemic in the USA last spring. The infection process is now under control.
haz / gri (dpa, afp)
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