The 40,000 people who eventually piled into the exclusive upper ballrooms and cavernous underbelly of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center looked like they were having a good time. We’ll have to assume as such, as for the most part, reporters covering last night’s official inaugural ball were penned inside a small box inside the main convention hall that stretches thousands of feet from end to end.
As reporters and camera crews took laps through the ball escorted by chaperones from the Presidential Inaugural Committee who made the prospect of interviewing partygoers that much more awkward, the room gradually filled up with tens of thousands of campaign supporters and donors squishing toward the stage in hopes of capturing a glimpse of President Obama and Michelle Obama taking a well-choreographed twirl.
Dinner. (Photo by Benjamin R. Freed)In the mean time, though, people had to wait through a series of pop acts and a DJ’s very limited playlist while snacking on an even more limited menu of snack mix, Cheez-Its and cocktail pretzels. Beverages were available after the purchase of drink tickets, the lines for which flared out from several counters and snaked well down the hall. (Smart attendees likely went to the drink ticket sellers in the far corners of the convention space; it was a hike, but no lines. Smarter, still, would have been sneaking a flask past the U.S. Secret Service and other personnel minding the store.)
This was the main inaugural ball, the one for which Ticketmaster botched the job and sold out the event the night before tickets were supposed to go on sale. The Obamas’ first stop, however, was the Commander-in-Chief’s Ball, a party for active-duty military service members that began with President George W. Bush’s second inauguration in 2005. The president and first lady stopped by there first, telling the crowd he wanted to “express the extraordinary gratitude not just of me as your commander in chief but the thanks of all the American people.”
Downstairs, people waited for the first couple through a genre-spanning crop of chart-pleasers, beginning with Alicia Keys, who performed one song, her recent hit “Girl on Fire” (altered this night to “Obama’s on Fire”), before heading off stage. Keys was followed by Maná, a Mexican group that played a four-song set.
Alicia Keys (Getty Images/Mario Tama)
Brad Paisley, a country star, played a longer set. Paisely’s hat act seemed a bit lost on the relatively more urbane crowd, especially a song titled “Miss My Tennessee Home,” which references NASCAR, gun ownership, regular church attendance, and other aspects of southern living perhaps not associated with the typical Obama voter. But Paisley’s Dixie themes didn’t dissuade any part of the evening, rather, he was as ready to party as anyone.
“We celebrate [democracy] by getting drunk in a huge convention center,” he said during his act.
Mixed between was a DJ with a short playlist—as great an album Thriller is—half the songs came off the seminal Michael Jackson record. The power pop band fun. played a four-song set, leading off with the incessant radio hit “Some Nights,” the beat to which was a lot better when it was in Simon and Garfunkel’s “Cecilia.” Nate Ruess, the band’s singer, also sanitized the song for the presidential crowd, swapping out one use of the word “fuck” for “hell.”
The Obamas arrived in the main convention hall about 9:20 p.m. The first lady wore a sleeveless ruby chiffon dress with black velvet highlights and a plunging back designed by the designer Jason Wu, along with a diamond embellished ring by the jeweler Kimberly McDonald. The president wore a black tuxedo with white tie and a white pocket square. Hundreds of smartphones were thrusted into the air, producing photos of mobile devices taking photos of other mobile devices taking photos of mobile devices in the front of the crowd.
Jennifer Hudson, the Grammy- and Oscar-winning singer and actress serenaded the first couple with a cover of Al Green “Let’s Stay Together.” Four years ago, it was Beyoncé who sang Etta James’ “At Last” to introduce the president and first lady to the party circuit. The couple danced closely, then waved to the crowd for a few seconds before departing the stage.
People who made it to the ball got there after some very long walks in outfits not exactly designed for extended city treks. Mary Hamann-Roland, visiting from Apple Valley, Minn., and her friend Elvi Gray-Jackson, who flew in from Anchorage, Alaska, got out of their cab at 17th and K streets NW and proceeded to hoof it—in heels—to the convention center.
“Do you know if Stevie Wonder is playing?” Hamann-Roland asked me across the fence herding in the evening’s reporters. I said he I believed he was on the program, though it was not clear when Wonder would be playing. Hamann-Roland and Gray-Jackson were explaining why they traveled in from thousands of miles for the inauguration when the DJ announced the next act and the funky beats of “Superstition” kicked up. They shrieked in delight and danced away from the press area.
Drink lines remained long, as did the queues to take photos in front of posters of the inaugural committee’s official seal. Soundgarden was scheduled to play sometime after Wonder, if anyone still cares about Chris Cornell. Vendors hocked official inaugural merchandise.
At least the Cheez-Its were free.
