Not surprisingly, there was a Volkswagen van parked onstage during the tribute to the Grateful Dead at Sunday’s Kennedy Center Honors ceremony. It was somewhat surprising, though, when the door to the van opened, unleashing a massive cloud of (implied) marijuana smoke, and David Letterman stepped out. After walking to center stage, Letterman, who frequently had the Dead on his late-night talk shows, looked out at the Washington, D.C., crowd of arts patrons and politicians, including the president, First Lady, vice-president, and First Gentleman, and announced: “I’m so fucked-up.â€
Feeling fucked-up — both in the state of the world sense, and the Haight Ashbury sense — was a recurring theme at this event, which celebrated the Dead, maverick filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, Bonnie Raitt, composer and trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, and the Apollo Theater, the first institution to become an honoree.
The reality of an upcoming second Trump presidency was in the air, but not dwelled on, throughout the night. Queen Latifah, who acted as the evening’s host and pitched in on some of the tributes, alluded to this right out of the gate when she talked about how all of the artists being celebrated were in their early, creatively fertile eras in the 1960s and ’70s, a time of “political turmoil and a nation reeling from crisis after crisis.†“You could say it was a heavy time for our country,†Latifah said. “It feels a little bit like right now.†Still, there were multiple standing ovations for President Biden and Vice-President Harris — including a thank-you to Biden from Kennedy Center chairman David Rubenstein for his 50 years of service to the country — and Letterman joked that he had been told backstage that “they’re going to try to get as many of these honors in place before the inauguration.â€
Robert De Niro was there, too, to salute Francis Ford Coppola, but said nothing about Trump, which gave off some real Don Draper, “I don’t think about you at all†vibes. (For those keeping score, three cast members from the Godfather franchise showed up for Coppola Sunday night: De Niro, Al Pacino, and the director’s sister Talia Shire, also the sister of Pacino’s Michael Corleone. Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Laurence Fishburne, and Coppola’s nephew Jason Schwartzman and his granddaughter filmmaker Gia Coppola also spoke of their fondness and appreciation for the risk-taking and no-bullshit Megalopolis director.)
“Great art is usually created by those who are willing to chance it all, and Francis has been willing to chance it all his entire career,†said Fishburne, who made one of his earliest screen appearances in Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.
Referring to that notoriously challenging film to make, Pacino said of Coppola: “For Apocalypse Now, he put up his house, with his wife and three kids in it. I know, I was there.â€
“I honor you, Francis, my hero, my friend,†Pacino said, choking up, “and my godfather.â€
Of course risk-taking not only can involve bombing at the box office but, also, sometimes, onstage at the Apollo. While paying tribute to the theater, Dave Chappelle remembered being booed off the stage when he was 15 after winning the chance to perform during one of the Harlem theater’s famously judgmental amateur nights.
Recalling that he rubbed the statue of the tree of hope displayed at the Apollo and replicated on the Kennedy Center Honors stage, he said, “I gotta tell you: That shit doesn’t work. It went so bad — I was doing good for a minute, I don’t even remember what I was talking about, but one guy in front decided he didn’t have time for it.†That guy booed. Then everybody started to boo until Chappelle was kicked off the stage.
“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,†he dead-panned. “The Black community agreeing on something.†The tribute to the Apollo also, naturally, featured several musical numbers, including a lively medley of hits belted out by husband-and-wife duo the War and Treaty that culminated with “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.â€
The message repeatedly sent was that even in trying times like those alluded to by Latifah, art is necessary and sometimes can be wielded as a tool for change.
During the tribute to Sandoval, actor Andy Garcia, who played the musician in the 2000 film For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story, spoke about how Sandoval remained committed to his pursuit of jazz even when the government in his native Cuba banned it.
“Arturo blew into his trumpet,†Garcia said, “blowing his annoyance right into his oppressor’s faces.â€
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, a die-hard Bonnie Raitt fan, whose music she described as “all red hair and no bullshit,†has consistently used her music to advocate for a variety of causes.
“She fights for social justice, the environment, human rights, ancient forests, native people and for blues and music education,†Louis-Dreyfus said. “She is the original musical good-deed doer.â€
The musical portions of Raitt’s tribute were equally emphatic, and included Dave Matthews — like Raitt, raised a Quaker, he pointed out — and Emmylou Harris dueting on a spare, acoustic version of “Angel From Montgomeryâ€; Brandi Carlile singing “I Can’t Make You Love Me†accompanied by Sheryl Crow on piano; and Crow, James Taylor, Arnold McCuller, and Jackson Browne coming together for “Nick of Time.â€
Sadly, the Kennedy Center did not pass around joints for the Grateful Dead portion of the program, but it did line up a dope band to honor a dope band — including Don Was and Sturgill Simpson, who performed a touching version of “Ripple†that featured an old video clip of the late Grateful Dead front man, Jerry Garcia, singing the song himself. Maggie Rogers and Leon Bridges chimed in with a stripped-down version of “Friend of the Devil,†while Matthews and the members of Tedeschi Trucks — Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks — did a joyful rendition of “Sugaree.†In addition to Letterman, Dead Heads Miles Teller and Chloë Sevigny also paid homage to the bootleg-friendly band.
At the after-party, Sevigny — wearing a dress best described as Holly Hobbie chic and precisely what a proper Dead Head would wear to a Dead show — tried to offer an answer to the question, “Which Dead show is your favorite?â€
After admitting that they all blur together to an extent, she remembered going to three nights of the 50th anniversary Fare Thee Well tour, staged by the living members of the band in Chicago in 2015 and dancing like a maniac to the song “Terrapin.â€
“I turned around and John Mayer and Katy Perry were staring at me like I was a crazy person,†she recalled. “Like, mouths agog.â€
 You, too, can dance like a maniac to the Dead during the Kennedy Centers Honors ceremony when it airs on December 22, on CBS.