Many athletes also appeared between the acts including Joe Torre, whose Yankees were on their way to competing in their fourth consecutive World Series.
The concert also included several short films made by New York City's most notable filmmakers such as Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, and Kevin Smith.
Over 60 stars that participated in the concert signed unique memorabilia backstage at Madison Square Garden that were later auctioned off to support the Robin Hood Foundation.
Three speakers were booed: actress Susan Sarandon (for plugging New York mayoralty candidate Mark Green), actor Richard Gere (for speaking about non-violent tolerance), and Hillary Clinton (for her perceived anti-police views).
Sarandon nearly fell when she was intentionally tripped by the wife of a missing police officer, whose foot came through the barricade fence at the most opportune of moments.
Musically, the audience responded most fervently to The Who, roaring as they came on stage with a roiling "Who Are You", drowning out the band on the famous "It's only teenage wasteland" refrain of "Baba O'Riley," and reaching a peak of excitement with "Won't Get Fooled Again."
Previously, during the opening chords of "Behind Blue Eyes", Daltrey said, "I'm not worthy of wearing this," when tossed a law enforcement officer's cap.
Multi-instrumentalist Jon Carin, who had worked with the band during the group's 1996–1997 tours, played keyboards in place of longtime keyboardist John "Rabbit" Bundrick.
Other highlights included David Bowie's opening tandem of Paul Simon's "America" and his own "Heroes", dedicated to his local ladder company, and New York's own Billy Joel's "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)" where Joel says after singing it, "I wrote that song 25 years ago, I thought it was gonna be a science fiction song.
When Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, the two surviving members of The Who, were given the Kennedy Center Honors in December 2008 for their contributions to American culture, a tribute performance of "Baba O'Riley" was delivered by Rob Thomas.
[7] The film consists purely of cell-phone conversation snippets of twenty-three random people walking through the streets of New York City.
In addition to longtime Allen collaborators Marshall Brickman and Tony Roberts, among the people seen in the film are Austin Pendleton, Griffin Dunne, Michael Emerson, Bebe Neuwirth, and Celia Weston.