Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday unveiled the official star-studded lineup for the big blowout concert planned at Central Park next month — including Jon Batiste, LL Cool J, Jimmy Fallon, Journey, Carlos Santana, The New York Philharmonic, Paul Simon, Patti Smith, and Bruce Springsteen.
The “We Love NYC: The Homecoming Concert” will celebrate the city’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic with two dozen performers on Saturday, Aug. 21. But if you want to see the big show in person, you’ll need to be vaccinated, the mayor warned.
“This homecoming concert is going to be the signal of our rebirth,” de Blasio said at his daily press briefing July 27. “New York City is back, you can see it you can feel it, it’s time to celebrate it on the Great Lawn, where so many great things have happened before, this is going to go into the history books.”
Mayor de Blasio tapped Brooklyn-born producer legend Clive Davis to assemble a bill of 22 musicians and entertainers confirmed.
The iconic Great Lawn, near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, can host up to 60,000 people for the grand gig, organized with global concert giant Live Nation and the city Economic Development Corporation’s chairman Danny Meyer, and it will be broadcast live and worldwide on CNN.
“There is absolutely no place more special than Central Park to celebrate the reopening of New York City,” said Davis, an 89-year-old Crown Heights native. “I consider the mayor’s request a true honor; and, with Live Nation, we are curating an unforgettable show befitting of this historic occasion.”
Attendees will have to show proof that they got at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine at entry, according to de Blasio — a shift from last month when hizzoner first announced the bash and said that some unvaccinated people would be permitted.
