Kerry gets in tune for Moby gig

Classical-loving senator will play electric guitar in Boston concert

By Joanna Weiss, Globe Staff, 9/9/2003

At a big FleetCenter fund-raiser in 1996, Senator John F. Kerry was serenaded by a group of baby boom all-stars: Joe Walsh; Crosby, Stills and Nash; and Peter, Paul and Mary (who called the senator "our own magic dragon").

For this year's presidential bid, Kerry, 59, is reaching out to a younger crowd, and playing the tunes himself. On guitar. Tomorrow at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel, he'll share a bill with Moby.

Yes, Moby, the environment-saving, animal-loving, war-hating electronic music sensation, and Kerry devotee. The senator from Massachusetts has "the best chance of beating George Bush," the smooth-headed star said in an e-mail to the Globe. This is Moby's chance to help: the tickets, marketed to young professionals, range from $75 to $100.

It's also a chance for Kerry, who forged his political profile in the Vietnam era, to prove he can play convincingly to the modern music masses. And while the event is called "John Kerry Unplugged" -- and Kerry has been known to favor Spanish classical fare and selections from "Cats" -- his staff now says he plans to go electric.

He'll sit in for one song with local band The Popgun Seven; probably a Springsteen tune, an aide said.

Moby plans to play cover songs by Boston bands. Also, he says he has no sour feelings toward Boston, where, last December, someone punched him outside the Paradise Rock Club.

As for the candidate's musical prowess, Moby is optimistic.

"He seems to be quite good at most of the things that he does, so I'm sure that he'll be good on the guitar," he wrote. "Or at least as good as Bill Clinton is on saxophone."