I have several: 1990 Cotton Bowl (Texas wiped out by Miami) - Gatlin Brothers sang in harmony acapella. Some home UT game (approx. 1995-96) - This guy who sang it solo... he had the deepest voice I have ever heard, and instead of taking it high at the end, he just kept going lower and lower and lower. He sounded like a frog by the end of the song. Does anyone know who that was? Marvin Gaye's recording on the NBA CD put our a few years back.
The very first MLB game after the 9-11 attacks... The Star Spangled Banner was sung by two service people acapella, one male, one female. I THINK it was a Giants game? Anyhow... That performance was absolutely, positively horrible!!!!!!!! Those two were soooo off key, THEN they sang God Bless America! I mean I understand singing in front of a million people has it pressures and I never knock the Star Spangled and for crying out loud the first one after the 9-11 attacks, it was hard to even think it without feeling a little guilty, but, but geeeeeeeezzzz , it was truly, truly bad, bad singing. God Bless America. Did anyone else catch that one?!
Ahh so I wasn't the only one who thought this. I mean I'll give them props just for going out there and doing it, but still it wasn't good. Anyway, not that I heard it live, but I still gotta go with Whitney Houston's. She did just the right amount of voice showing off balanced with keeping the integrity of the song, and considering the moment it came at I gotta say it was the best. That's why it sold like 4 million copies as a single or something and when released after 9/11 went up to 1 or 2 on the charts. Just a great performance.
lets see.......hmmm........i don't know......maybe.........what about........nahhh........oh yeah... this guy called jimi at woodstock...
Columbus Blue Jacket hockey game Tuesday night had one of the TASK force members who went to ground zero in NY to help people played his bugle. Great thing was the crowd was singing the song! It was truly amazing to have 18,136 people singing along to it. Brought a tear to my eye!
Steven Tyler once got ripped up and down at the Indy 500 when he sang the national anthem, but replaced the words "home of the brave" with something like "home of the Indianapolis 500".
Anybody remember when Stevie Ray Vaughn got booed for playing his slide guitar, blues version? I think it was at the Astrodome and he was probably tweaked out on heroine. He butchered it from what I remember....not one of his better days. It has to be on video somewhere. I would love to see it again. Difficult to play with the slide there....yikes. Surf
My favorite performance was by James Earl Jones. I can't remember the event, but it was really cool. He didn't sing at all; instead he just spoke it in his powerful baritone voice while a brass band followed along with the music. The absolute worst has to be when they sang the Canadian and US anthems before Wayne Gretzky's last hocky game. In The Star Spangled Banner, they replaced "land of the free" with "land of Wayne Gretzky." In Oh Canada, they replaced "we stand on guard for thee" with something like "the home of Wayne Gretzky." I thought that was really lame.
I kind of like my own the best. I taught myself the Star Spangled Banner on harmonica this summer and performed before the Final Game of a Staff Basketball Tournament at my job. Now I can whip it out any time and it means alot more
Whitney Houston's performance was incredible, the best I've ever heard. Too bad she's doing coke now and still married to that freak. I wonder who will do this year's Super Bowl.
