Confession time! We’ll gladly admit that we might have gone a little overboard in the way that we took the “We Are the World†reboot to task yesterday for being, well, let’s say, less than impressive in terms of the quality control organizers showed in assembling its core cast of characters. Now that we’ve had some time to reflect, we feel less angry about Babs Streisand bringing her diva ‘tude to the recording session and more thankful to Geoff Boucher for having the balls to call her on it in print. And because our judgment was somewhat cloudy yesterday morning, we pretty much failed to appreciate the subtle beauty of Vince Vaughn’s homage to the kookiest participant in the original “We Are the World†sessions, one Dan Aykroyd.
We’ll admit, we were initially caught off guard by the appearance of Vaughn, an actor whose charisma is undeniable but whose voice isn’t exactly Bublé-esque. But now that we’ve had the time to process it, we can appreciate the parallels between Vaughn’s efforts over the weekend and Aykroyd’s in the original: the manner in which both stood in the back row of the risers in the same way that class clowns usually sit in the back of the school bus, their insistence on wearing headphones in a comical fashion, and the way that an “I’m not exactly sure what I’m doing here but I’m kind of digging it†expression washes across their faces. The only thing missing from Vaughn’s tribute is a pair of egghead, black-rimmed frames, but we’ll gladly let that one slide. Now the only thing that remains to be seen is how low the producers will bury his vocals in the mix. Regardless, kudos to Vaughn for bringing a much needed feeling of levity to the proceedings. Only one question remains: When are we going to be able to hear the actual song?
P.S.: Credit must be paid to Mark Lisanti, who tumbled this very same thing while we were putting this together. Great minds (or something)!