Who: Jimmy Vivino, Mark Barden, Sheryl Crow, Peter Frampton, Kevin Bacon, Bernie Williams, Rozzi, the Dumes, the Alternate Routes, Jen Chapin, Aztec Two-Step 2.0, more
What: Benefit concert for Sandy Hook Promise celebrating film launch
Where: NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, 566 La Guardia Pl. between Third & Fourth Sts.
When: Thursday, December 7, $81-$256, 7:30
Why: “Music succeeds when politics and religion fail,” Darryl “DMC” McDaniels says in A Father’s Promise: The Story of a Father’s Promise to End Gun Violence, a documentary opening December 8 at LOOK Dine-In Cinema W57. Directed by Rick Korn and executive produced by Sheryl Crow, the film follows musician Mark Barden as he takes action after his seven-year-old son Daniel was one of twenty-six people murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012.
Barden, cofounder of Sandy Hook Promise, and filmmaker Korn teamed up with Matthew Reich and Neal Saini to form Artist for Action to Prevent Gun Violence. On December 7 at NYU Skirball, Barden and the Promise Band will join musical director Jimmy Vivino and a group of all-stars to celebrate the launch of the film; among the special guests performing live will be Crow, Peter Frampton, Kevin Bacon, Bernie Williams, Rozzi, the Dumes, the Alternate Routes, Jen Chapin, and Aztec Two-Step 2.0. The evening will be filmed for a future documentary, continuing to raise funds and awareness about the horrors of gun violence, the leading cause of death for children and teens in America.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]