Beastie Boys, Sheryl Crow to play Valley for voter harmony

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Sen. and Democratic Presidential Nominee Barack Obama

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Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams

By David Skolnick

Tickets for the Get Out and Vote ’08 concert in Youngstown go on sale Friday.

YOUNGSTOWN — The Beastie Boys, Sheryl Crow and other musicians will perform Oct. 29 at the Chevrolet Centre to encourage people to vote — preferably for Democrat Barack Obama.

The Youngstown concert would be the third stop on the Get Out and Vote ’08 concert series that starts Oct. 27 in Charlotte, N.C., and ends in Milwaukee on Nov. 2, two days before the election.

Tickets go on sale for the Youngstown concert at 10 a.m. Friday with each costing $36.50. Tickets will be available at all Ticketmaster locations.

The six-city tour goes through five swing states, including an Oct. 30 concert in Dayton. The other two are Virginia and Minnesota.

Ohio, considered a key battleground state in the presidential election, is the only state with two concert stops.

The Youngstown concert will feature hip-hop legends the Beastie Boys as well as Crow, Ben Harper and Norah Jones, according to the Beastie Boys Web site.

All the artists have publicly endorsed Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, for president.

“This is huge for the city and the Chevrolet Centre,” Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams said of the concert. “Youngstown continues to be an important part of this campaign. This is an important event for the facility.”

The concert could be the “biggest event” ever held at the center, which opened three years ago, said Williams, an Obama supporter.

Representatives from Rock the Vote, an organization that encourages young people to vote, will be at the concert to distribute information on local polling sites and encourage early voting.

Although the Obama campaign isn’t involved in Get Out and Vote ’08, it is pleased by the effort.

“Anyone who can generate interest in getting people to vote and excitement in Senator Obama’s campaign, we welcome them,” said Isaac Baker, an Obama campaign spokesman.

The Mahoning Valley will also be the location for other presidential political events today and Friday.

U.S. Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, will host a “Change We Need” rally today at the Warren Community Amphitheatre.

Col. Tom Moe, a Vietnam War veteran who spent more than five years in a Hanoi prison cell next to then-Navy Lt. Commander John McCain, is visiting the Mahoning Valley today. Moe will speak on behalf of McCain, the Republican presidential nominee, at 11 a.m. at the Mahoning County Veterans Memorial at the Canfield Fairgrounds on state Route 46. Moe is to then go to the Hope Cemetery’s War Memorial on North Lincoln Avenue in Salem at 1 p.m.

Also, U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, who lost the Democratic presidential nomination to Obama, is to be in the Youngstown area early Friday for an Obama rally.

The specifics of Clinton’s appearance haven’t been announced.

Most polls show the race in Ohio between Obama and U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican presidential nominee, to be a statistical dead heat.

skolnick@vindy.com