An Awesome Tribute to Sting and More During Kennedy Center Honors
In what has become a New Year's Eve EVE tradition, our TV was tuned to the Kennedy Center Honors last night. I'll admit, looking forward to it make me feel old. But it's a great way to spend the evening, as we get in the "looking back" mode, and last night was no disappointment, especially as the show ended.
First off, the 2014 honorees were quite the line-up: Tom Hanks, Al Green, Lily Tomlin, Sting, and ballerina Patricia McBride. Unfortunately I missed the Al Green tribute, and only half paid attention to the Patricia McBride tribute. But I was very excited for the Tom Hanks tribute, as he's one of my all time favorite actors. The video montage was fantastic, as expected, and the "roast" style monologue from Martin Short was fun. I'll also give props to the surprising appearance of Pentatonix to give homage to one of my all time favorite movies, "That Thing You Do", a Tom Hanks film. Kind of a weird performance, as their style doesn't perfectly fit that song, but it was still enjoyable. It's still hard to believe the man's career started with an oddball sitcom about cross-dressing ("Bosom Buddies"), and moved into one of the grandest film careers of my lifetime.
The tribute to Lily Tomlin was also fantastic, with a great monologue from Jane Lynch, Reba McEntire, Jane Fonda, and SNL alum Kate McKinnon. Tomlin is such an amazing character actress, who did open doors for many to follow. However, I missed the tribute to the Incredible Shrinking Woman, my favorite Tomlin moment, and was half hopeful for a song and dance to "Galaxy Glue" or at least "9 to 5". I guess Dolly couldn't make it.
The unexpected highlight of the night though was the tribute to Sting. While the monologue opened me up to more of his story, and how the music suddenly stopped, the performances were top notch. Yes, Lady Gaga was slightly over the top (with glitter flying everywhere), and the Bruce Springsteen song I didn't know, but Bruno Mars really brought it home. I knew he was an amazing artist, but this was pure perfection in tribute to a great artist. Well done!
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