Answering the previously hypothetical question “What if you held a ‘nonpolitical’ birthday concert in the nation’s capitol and nobody came (because almost all the bands dropped out in extremely public fashion)?” the White House confirmed today that its proposed “Great American State Fair” concert has now been canceled. Donald Trump has since papered over this quite public embarrassment in the usual “louder and more attention-seeking” fashion, announcing that the event—organized by the White House’s Freedom 250 task force, which is putting a decidedly Trumpian spin on the upcoming semiquincentennial celebrations—will now be replaced with a political rally, with Trump himself making a speech.
Which is, obviously, going to be a big disappointment for fans of Vanilla Ice, who was one of the only artists to not drop off the bill shortly after it was announced last week, after Young MC, The Commodores, Bret Michaels, Morris Day, Martina McBride, and at least some of the people associated with Milli Vanilli all expressed unhappiness at the more-political-than-expected overtones of the event. Only Ice—accompanied by Milli Vanilli’s Fab Morvan, small portions of the workforce of the C&C Music Factory, and Flo Rida—managed to hold strong, with the Cool As Ice star asserting that he literally does not give a fuck who he performs for (“I’ll go play for Putin and I’ll play in Iran if you want”), as long as his remaining fans are into it.
Alas, the holdouts’ loyalty was not to be rewarded: Trump hopped on his Truth Social asocial media platform on Thursday to announce that he’s moving forward with threats to scrap the concert and replace it with his own mouth. Not that there won’t be music at the June 24th event, mind you: Trump declared that he’d have some truly heavy hitters on hand, including at least some who won’t face potential court martial for backing out of the gig: “God Bless The U.S.A.” singer Lee Greenwood has been tapped to, presumably, sing “God Bless The U.S.A.”; opera singer Christopher Macchio will thrill audiences excited to rock out to “Ave Maria”; and military music fans will get to look forward to performances from the U.S. Army Band, the Armed Forces Choir, and the United States Marine Band, a real victory for those who like their musical celebrations extremely orderly and disciplined. Who says the American right doesn’t have great music, huh?
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