Saturday night was supposed to be a celebration in New York City, but severe weather ruined the party in a big way. New York’s Central Park was the site of a “homecoming” concert that featured a slew of entertainers. The “We Love NYC” event, held during a still-ongoing pandemic, had another issue to deal with on Saturday night as hurricane Henri approaches the east coast of the United States. As the star-studded concert played out on Saturday, outer bands of the storm caused some severe weather in New York. And after reports of lightning strikes, the concert was abruptly ended and the 60,000 attendees were told to leave immediately.
So immediately, in fact, that the show ended right in the middle of a Barry Manilow song. Video airing on CNN on Saturday saw Manilow performing until a man came on stage and cut him and his band off, then an announcement told people to seek shelter amid inclement weather.
CNN just ended the #WeLoveNYCConcert due to the Hurricane Henri threat approaching
Right in the middle of Barry Manilow's performance pic.twitter.com/tUh39kCtu8
— Jay🍉 (@nicholaSyaJ) August 21, 2021
Manilow was right in the middle of performing “I Can’t Smile Without You” when the camera panned to a suddenly-worried crowd and the music stopped. An announcement told the crowd to “please seek shelter for your safety” because of lightning in the area, and chaos ensued as people raced out of the park ahead of the storm.
The concert was about halfway finished when the storm hit the city, and acts like Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, Patti Smith and Elvis Costello never saw the stage. Manilow did sing again, though: for Anderson Cooper on CNN.
https://twitter.com/aria_is_chicc/status/1429241491273179136
It’s a disappointing end of the concert for sure, though it certainly was called off for good reason.
https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1429238753533566982
Hopefully every made it out of there safely and prepares for the storm coming through this weekend.