The show opened with the So You Think You Can Dance crew shaking their groove thangs across the stage to Rihanna’s “Please Don’t Stop The Music”…which was all good and well; I enjoy a guy who can dance, its quite sexy. But then…the Idol kids came on stage to take over vocals for Rihanna…and that’s when things got interesting for me. It was gloriously cheesy, something akin to watching Grease at a sleepover with your girlfriends and dancing around the living room to “You’re The One That I Want”. They were followed by Snopp Dogg (joined on stage by kids from his Snoop Youth Football League) and Charlie Wilson (in a fantastic black glitter fedora…I seriously need to get me one of those) singing “Cant Say Goodbye”. Other musical acts of the night included Miley Cyrus (twice!!), Fergie with John Legend on piano and again with musical powerhouse Heart (who sounded absolutely as fierce as they did 20 years ago and, quite frankly, didn’t need the distraction of a leather-clad Fergie writhing around on stage doing one-handed cartwheels).

Annie Lennox brought perhaps the most real emotion to the stage singing Jimmy Cliff’s “Many Rivers to Cross”, after showing a pre-taped clip in which she visited Africa and was clearly deeply effected by what she encountered. Annie Lennox is as ferosh as ferosh can be, and her performance was by far my favorite of the evening. Carrie Underwood also gave a solid performance of George Michael’s “Praying For Time”, looking absolutely stunning (why isn’t she a Covergirl yet???). Gloria Estefan (w/a special appearance by none other than Sheila E!!) sang “Get On Your Feet”…still looking every bit as fierce as ever! The current Idol kids took the stage again to sing “Seasons of Love” from the musical RENT (from what I can tell, everyone got a solo but Brooke…did I miss something there or did she really get the cold shoulder??), Brad Pitt took the stage to much hormonally-induced applause to introduce Daughtry (yawn) and Mariah Carey closed out the night with Randy Jackson on bass for “Fly Like a Bird” (I think she lip-synched…I’m sorry, but it just didn’t sound natural. Agree? Disagree).

Dane Cook, Jimmy Kimmel, Sarah Silverman, and Robin Williams all tried to lighten the mood with humor, and I must say, Kimmel was pretty funny as he attempted to tear Simon to pieces (“We should use some of this money to buy Simon a shirt that fits him”, “You make $40M a year, its time to step up from Supercuts!”…classic). However, its tough to achieve an air of lightheartedness when the topics and video pieces were so grave.

Putting the spotlight on things like poverty, homelessness, gun crimes, poor education, AIDS/HIV and malaria isn’t easily done on primetime TV. We, the viewing public, tend to digest those things better with a hefty helping of entertainment, celebrities, and humor…but I think Idol managed to successfully bring to mainstream attention the suffering that is happening both abroad and in our own backyard, suffering that doesn’t need to happen if we all open our hearts and our wallets, give of our resources and our time, and put the common good before the individual. “Be the change you wish to see in the world”….Gandhi charged us all with taking responsibility for the change we aim to see around us, and if a show like Idol Gives Back can help effect that change, I figure that’s an alright way to spend 2 and a half hours. And if donating last night wasn’t enough for you, please take a moment to check out some of these websites for foundations that could all use your support; I promise, you’ll feel like a million bucks…even if you donate just one:

http://www.freerice.com/

http://www.noopportunitywasted.com/

http://www.make-a-wish.com/

http://www.campsunshine.org/

http://www.esiason.org/

http://www.shrinershq.org/Hospitals/_Hospitals_for_Children/

http://www.unitedway.org/

http://www.bbbs.org/

http://www.michaeljfox.org/

http://www.habitat.org/

http://www.farmaid.org/

http://www.jimmyfund.org/