Music Madness

Last night, myself, segment producer Claudia Castillo and Best Week Ever talent guru Norman Baker were lucky enough to attend the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony at the hyper-classy Waldorf Astoria (cue the Coming to America soundtrack.) The evening promised a slew of big stars, including and pretty much limited to the one and only Madonna, who took some time out of her World’s Strongest Woman training sessions to accept her award.

Before the event began, we headed upstairs to the “Gift Suite”, a room where famous people go to get free things for being famous. Needless to say, I cranked the charm up to 11 and tried me best to weasel some goods out of the kind product reps — we’ll have video footage of my gifting escapades tomorrow (including an interview with the fabulous Ms. Patti LaBelle).

The Gift Suite was absolutely the place to be: Right off the bat, the room was abuzz when Billy Joel and his wife Katie Lee walked into the tastefully decorated room. Joel was my Madonna, Storm Front my Like a Prayer. But for the life of me, I couldn’t see him! Scanning the room, he was nowhere to be found: There were the purse people, there the Guitar Hero folk, over on yonder the folks from NYHRC, there was a dwarf and his 11 year old granddaughter, further back the lady from — wait, the dwarf? That’s Billy Joel? And that 88 pound middle schooler… that‘s his wife?! MMyikes. Love him to death, but he’s like 2 inches taller than a Mallomar. A little surprising, that’s all.

A bit later, we also spied a muuuuch taller Chevy Chase, and while we’ve heard some unsavory thing about his behavior at times, he’s also Clark Griswald, so respect where it’s due. Grizzy and his wife were good sports, and my entourage and I managed to get away with whispering Pig In a Poke references to one another. Win Win. About half of the cast of SNL was there, including brand new featured player Casey Wilson, who seemed excited and friendly, the hilarious Kristen Wiig, and the delectable foursome that is Jason Sudeikis, Will Forte, Seth Myers and Fred Armisen, donning their best looking tailored suits. Last but certainly not least, a man I’ve been dying to lay eyes on since his existence became known to me… Ed Burns, who easily fulfilled any and all expectations I’ve ever had.

From there, we headed back downstairs and into the press room, which was PACKED. Two flat screen TVs were set up and connected to a feed of the show. And for the most part, nothing too groundbreaking happened. We saw Leonard Cohen, the Dave Clark Five, a brief and satisfying glimpse at Tom Hanks, Ben Harper, and two large handfuls of free luncheon meets. And all remained calm for the most part…

Until Madonna showed up.

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