3 Doors Down, Macy Gray Among Inaugural Performers

WASHINGTON (Billboard) - With the Jan. 20 inauguration of President Bush (news - web sites), visitors to the capital won't be able to swing a cat next week without hitting a ball or party.

Although there will be free daytime festivities open to the public during inauguration week, the closed soirees are the hot tickets.

The nine "official" nighttime balls, all sponsored by states' societies, most set for Jan. 19, command most of the attention. All are closed affairs reserved for the Republican Party faithful, with campaign contributors flying in from all over the country.

There are also boatloads of "unofficial" parties being thrown by lobbying groups all over town, including two late-night entertainment industry wingdings: One is planned by the Recording Industry Association of America, and the other is by the Creative Coalition, the Hollywood-tilting nonprofit arts advocate.

The Jan. 20 RIAA bash at the upscale H20 club will be slanted toward a young crowd, with a set by Mississippi-based rock band 3 Doors Down.

"We're honored that the RIAA asked us to perform at their inauguration party," 3 Doors Down vocalist Brad Arnold says in the party announcement. "It was great that so many people voted this year --especially young people -- and we're proud to be a part of this event."

Ticket prices are about $1,000, with proceeds used to pay for the cost of the "serious food, open bar" event, according to an RIAA spokesperson.

The Creative Coalition's event, also Jan. 20, is called The Ball After the Balls. Macy Gray is the musical headliner. Tickets are also $1,000.

While the RIAA and Creative Coalition bashes will likely be cowboy-hat-free, the Black Tie and Boots Ball, a non-official jamboree put on Jan. 19 by the Texas State Society of Washington, D.C., will be Lone Star State-intensive. It is also the hottest ticket in town.

Macy Gray sings during taping of an ABC TV network special 'Motown
45' in Los Angeles, April 4, 2004. (Fred Prouser/Reuters)

The ball has been held for years but became wildly popular four years ago with the first-term inauguration of the man from Crawford. Tickets went on sale Nov. 10, and 10,000 have been sold at $125 a pop. Most were sold in slightly less than 50 minutes, according to the organizers. The few remaining tickets, according to a spokesman from online company Great Seats, were $1,300 apiece and heading upward.

A sampling of the event's talent lineup (on seven stages) includes 2001 inauguration vets Lyle Lovett (news) and Asleep at the Wheel, as well as Clay Walker, Robert Earl Keen (news), Neal McCoy, the Derailers, the Gourds, Del Castillo and Yolanda Adams.

The state societies also sponsor satellite parties. For example, the Wyoming State Society is hosting a not-so-intimate event Jan. 19 at the 1,500-seat Constitution Hall. Robert Randolph & the Family Band will put the pedal steel to the metal at the function.

This year, the Inauguration Committee is throwing a special Commander in Chief Ball Jan. 20. It will be free to invited men and women of the armed forces and their families and will focus on those who have recently returned from Iraq (news - web sites) and Afghanistan (news - web sites) or will soon be deployed to those countries.

Planners have also announced a Jan. 19 youth entertainment concert that will focus on "community and public service." It will include music acts, as yet unannounced, as well as videoclips and guest speakers.

Washington will also host dissenting voices during the inauguration festivities. On Jan. 20, the District's Black Cat nightclub will host a pair of events. Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore will be among those on the venue's main stage under the Noise Against Fascism banner, while a host of poets will rail against authority during the Black Cat's Inaugurate This! spoken word gathering in its separate backstage area. Tickets are $12 and $8, respectively.

I wonder if Macy Gray has learned the lyrics to our national anthem yet.
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Macy Gray on anthem mishap

NEW YORK (AP) -- Don't expect to hear Macy Gray belting out the national anthem at a sporting event anytime soon.

Gray was famously booed for her off-kilter rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" in August 2001, when she garbled the words at the Pro Football Hall of Fame exhibition game in Canton, Ohio, her home state...

"...I got on the press and I said, 'Yeah, they need to change that song anyway,"' she said, laughing again.

Gray, 32, acknowledged that the national anthem is "not my favorite song."

And if offered the opportunity, she wouldn't sing it again.

"I don't think I have the voice for it," she said. "You've gotta be like Whitney Houston to really blow that song out."

If you were alive and even semi-conscious in the year 2000, you undoubtedly heard "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down. It was inescapable. The song and the debut album from which it leapt, The Better Life, defied the laws of gravity. Both clung to the top of any given chart--album, singles, multi-format radio--for most of that year and beyond. "Kryptonite," in more ways than one, was like the dude Brad Arnold was singing about: Superman. The song struck a huge literal and figurative chord with the populace, a full year before America truly needed a superhero. But who knew that then? Two years, four #1 singles, a couple of world tours, unprecedented radio success, multiple big award nominations, and a bazillion album sales later (alright, it shifted 6 million, but who's counting except the RIAA?), 3 Doors Down were back in the real-life Smallville that spawned the band back in 1996--Escatawpa, Mississippi, a mere hellhound's leap from the crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul.

It's safe to say the members of 3 Doors Down—Brad Arnold, guitarist Matt Roberts, bassist Todd Harrell and guitarist Chris Henderson (with new drummer Daniel Adair who hails from Vancouver)--could afford to move anywhere in the world following their debut's rampant success. But the childhood friends remained down-to-earth and returned to their old hometown for a well-earned breather before recording the follow-up, Away From The Sun. "I came home (from touring) and didn't listen to any music at all," says Brad. "I had to let my head stop spinning. It was like I had been going 90 miles per hour for so long, and then it all came to an instant stop."

The break didn't last long, however. After four months of relaxation, the band members "got the hunger to make music again." They rented a house and spent four hours a day crafting songs and jamming--just to play. "We worked just long enough that we weren't trying to force anything," says the singer. The success of that approach is evident on Away From the Sun. With the disc's twelve tracks, 3 Doors Down return to take their rightful place in the forefront of a musical resurgence they helped create. Mighty guitars, swaggering bass, meaty drums support big vocal melodies and even bigger lyrical sentiments. The band humbly calls it "good ol' American rock 'n' roll." Now, however, their sound has been road-honed.

Produced by Rick Parashar (Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Blind Melon), Away From the Sun finds 3 Doors Down back with a vengeance and ready to rock. Most bands feel pressure to sidestep the dreaded sophomore slump, the expectations of the millions of listeners who'd purchased the debut, but Brad didn't have any worries. He had compelling subject matter: All that time spent on the road. "A lot of the lyrics on Away From The Sun are about loneliness," admits Brad. "On tour, you really have nothing but time on your hands. I was feeding off those feelings of isolation. With these songs, I wanted to convey to the listener that he or she is not alone--there are a lot of people who feel the same way." "The band has grown a lot on the road," he adds. "Our sound is different now," says Matt. " The music has grown. In one word, it's better." One listen to the first single, "When I'm Gone" and you'll agree.

Brad wrote the lyrics to "When I’m Gone" one night in Puerto Rico, alone in his hotel room. "I was feeling like all these people thought they knew me when they really didn't," he says. "I want people to just to accept me as I am." You can practically feel Brad’s frustration when listening to the heartfelt lyrics. Radio is ‘feeling it’ in the US, making the single #1 Most Added at Mainstream, Modern and Active Rock formats with over 200 adds its first week out.

The album’s title track, which Chris calls "our masterpiece" mixes one of the best air guitar chords in recent memory with dead-on lyrics about longing and how “Now and then [you] find yourself so far down away from the sun.” On "Running out of Days" and "Ticket to Heaven" the guitars and bass surround questions of fame and its price on family and friends. And "Here Without You" is the best road weary travel tune to come down the pike in a long while.

Away From the Sun continues 3 Doors Down’s evolution to rock band supreme. "Dynamically, our sound is bigger," says Chris. They've come a long way from where they began but never strayed from their original goal which was to "make rock n' roll and good ol' American music."

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