If attending shows at the Black Cat and 9:30 club is starting to take a wallop on your wallet, the D.C. Commission on the Arts and the Humanities has a solution.
Beginning today with later performances on Sept. 14 and 20, the commission is hosting free outdoor evening concerts from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. with a diverse group of legendary performers.
Tonight, the genius behind "U Can't Touch This," MC Hammer, will perform a helping of his hits. What has MC Hammer been up to, you might ask? After reaffirming his Christian beliefs in 1997; lending his talent to some commercials and marketing campaigns for companies including Taco Bell, Pepsi and Purell; and offering his two cents in the documentary "Finishing the Game" on the late Bruce Lee, Hammer's legacy has been most evident in movie sound tracks. Most recently, Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" can be found on the sound track to the maverick blockbuster "Borat: Cultural Learnings of American for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." MC Hammer performances are tantamount to Haley's comet: they are as rare and special as they are glorious and beautiful.
On Sept. 14, the musical odyssey continues with the renowned urban salsa wizard Willie Col¢n. While he may not have been in "Finishing the Game," Col¢n has been keeping himself quite busy. He currently serves New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg as the liaison to the Latin Media Entertainment Commission, and with 11 Grammy nominations, 15 gold records and a coveted Yale University's Chubb Fellowship honor, Col¢n must be doing something right. Take note, salsa fans: this is Col¢n's only scheduled performance in the United States during the summer of 2007, so do not miss out.
The final concert will be held on Sept. 20 and stars everyone's favorite tutti-frutti rock 'n' roll and rhythm and blues star, Little Richard. After the opening act, D.C.'s own The Jewels, the 74-year-old will take the stage and perform an array of his greatest hits from yesteryear up to his 2006 album "Here Comes Little Richard/Little Richard." In the past decade, Richard has been showered with adoration--from being inducted into the NAACP's Hall of Fame, the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Apollo Theater Legends Hall of Fame to being knighted the eighth greatest musical artist of all time by Rolling Stone magazine.
The concerts will be held in the Woodrow Wilson Plaza at the Reagan Building, located at 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. N.W. There is no better way to cap off summer 2007 than at these free concerts. If anything, it will surely beat any barbecue you might have planned to attend.
