Photo: Still
Thursday night (19 January) will see Trump have a celebratory concert to mark his final day as President-elect before becoming the actual President of the United States. Crikey.
With a series of very public rejections from a-listers and a rejection from a cover band the line-up couldn't be more different from the calibre of those who played Obama's first inauguration. He had Stevie Wonder, Beyoncé and Bruce Springsteen.
But who are these performers? Surely being massively well-known and respected doesn't mean they're automatically better? Afterall their wesbite bills it as "out of this world." Let's take a closer look at who's been brave enough to align themselves with this potential wrecking ball of a President and step up on the American Hero Ball Room stage.
Toby Keith
Cheesy country band marketed towards men who like drinking in saloons and fighting. The whole song 'As Good As I Once Was' is about getting a bit older but still being able to batter people and how cool that is. Exactly the sort of band you'd expect Trump to like. Terrible. (CT)
DJ Ravi Drums
Apparently big news on the celebrity private party scene. This bloke plays drums over the top of mixes and beats - whoopy doo, Factory Floor were doing that innovatively years ago. Imagine Animal from the Muppets playing along to a Scooter backing track and you're in the right ball park. Which is just as well bearing in mind he's played at the Super Bowl and Hugh Hefner's house, so such fit in comfortably with Donald of Trumpton's "all American dream". (DG)
Radio City Rockettes
Their name suggests a hair metal throwback from the excessive days of the 1980s when Guns'n'Roses and Motley Crue snorted the entire colony of South America. In fact, they're a precision dance troupe who've been performing in one guise or another for 85 years. However, the decision taken to perform at Trump's inauguration hasn't gone down well with all of their 13-strong troupe, and a split in the ranks has ensued, with 3 members refusing to appear (good on them!) and others anonymously protesting at their involvement. We'd like to say they're awful, but actually there's something sweet and innocent about their repertoire. Which goes against the nature of their host and his wholly discriminatory persona. (DG)
3 Doors Down
This band have sold 20 million albums and line-up as one of the more successful groups to appear at the inauguration. Their singer has played for Bush and Obama and over 200 shows in Iraq and Afghanistan for the USO. Their championing of US foreign affairs contradicts the compassionate anti-war stance majority of artists hold and ethically this inauguration is just a continuation of what they're about. In 2012 they played the Republican National Convention and were singing to herlad in a republican leader back then making them longtime supporters of the Trump campaign. Musically, it's the American Nickelback you can listen to it below but we wouldn't recommend it. (CT)
The Frontmen Of Country
To describe The Frontmen of Country as a dollar store version of Bruce Springsteen and The Eagles would be over estimating the monetary value of the dollar. What The Frontmen Of Country create is the kind of bland, insipid and creatively limp AM radio rock that makes Coldplay B-Sides sound like pieces of creatively rich high art. Wholly forgettable The Frontmen Of Country’s music is only useful for the kind of mid-afternoon TV movie that only gets watched by a handful of sorrow folk. (NW)
Lee Greenwood
By this point it has become abundantly clear what the main theme of Trumps inauguration line-up is; a declaration that he and his supporters are all proud Americans. Yet Lee Greenwood offers nothing; other than a brief reminder of how bland and unmemorable music can be when it’s overly forced on conveying one particular worn out message. If Lee Greenwoods music was a pain colour it would be rustic brown. (NW)
Jackie Evancho
Ex-American’s Got Talent contestant who came in second on the show but has since sold over a million records. At 16, Evancho is an exceptional opera/classical singer with an angelic voice and her appointment mirrors that of Charlotte Church playing Bush’s inauguration in 2001 (Sorry Church but Bush was no angel). Like Church, Evancho may one day pick up a book, learn about all the views Trump has and not wish she was associated. We’ll have to wait and see. (CT)
The Piano Guys
The Piano Guys specialise in giving classical music and modern pop songs a neo-classical makeover but ultimately coming up with something that sounds best suited to the lounge area of a cruise ship that desperately wants to be seen as hip and on-trend. (NW)
...... Well, we tried to see if there was any quality but it seems the volume of rejection letters have truly made this line-up suffer. The idea of sitting through all that music in a row is quite painful. We'll stick to Primavera highlights of 2016 on Thursday and try and pretend this ball isn't happening.
Cai Trefor (CT), Dom Gourlay (DG), Nathan Westley
