Guster on joyfully protesting the Kennedy Center takeover from its stage

Boston Globe

31-03-2025

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On Saturday, the band slightly changed the lyrics in 'I Spy' from 'I went down to the May parade' to 'I went down to the gay parade.' During 'Hello Mister Sun,' vocalist/guitarist Ryan Miller donned a hat in the shape of a rainbow.
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Both Friday and Saturday, the band brought out co-creator Michael Kooman and cast members from 'Finn,' a musical with pro-LGBTQ themes whose tour, originally sponsored by the Kennedy Center, was canceled due to low ticket sales around the time of Trump's takeover. (A Kennedy Center spokesperson told The Washington Post at the time that the decision to drop the tour was made just before Trump's appointment by his handpicked board as Kennedy Center chairman.)
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'It's hard to ignore the circumstances in which the cancellation of the tour is happening,' Kooman told The Post in February.
The crowd, much of which wore rainbow shirts and sweaters, erupted while some of the cast of 'Finn' helped sing Guster's 'Hard Times.'
Before bringing them out on both nights, Miller read from a statement, saying, in part, 'As the new administration has made abundantly clear, 'Finn's' themes of inclusivity, love and self-acceptance aren't going to be welcome in this building while they are in control. So tonight our band is here to say our stage is your stage. We are your allies, we stand with the LGBTQ community, and we want you to sing with us.'
Kooman then described the show, about a shark who realizes it, 'deep inside, might actually be a fish.'
'It is a show about growing up, feeling like you don't fit in,' Kooman said. 'It's a show about finding your chosen family. And, most importantly, it's a show about being yourself and standing up for what you believe in, even if it's really scary to do. The message itself is more important now than whenever we began to write the show.'
The Post sat down with Miller and the band's percussionist, Brian Rosenworcel, after the show Saturday to ask about playing the Kennedy Center, their decision to protest from the stage and why they wanted to bring a slice of 'Finn' back to the masses.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: When everything happened with Trump taking over the Kennedy Center, you guys called the center to say you definitely wanted to play the show, that you weren't pulling out. Why?
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Rosenworcel: From the beginning, it felt like there was more opportunity in playing the show than in not playing the show.
Miller: It was not just a gig. All of a sudden, it turned into something completely different. We were aligned early on as a band, which we often are, that it was more important to use our voices onstage, take the space that was given us, rather than protest and be a line in a newspaper.
We just finished a tour in January and February. We didn't know what that was going to feel like: to tour through the middle of America. We went to Iowa. We went to Minnesota. And, every night, it felt incredible. And I'm sure there were Republicans in the audience, and it didn't feel divisive.
I feel there is real healing power in people being in the same space, if it's sports or church or a music concert. And there was an opportunity for 2,500 people every night to get in a room together to sing songs that often are about inclusivity, that are optimistic. That felt like a more effective form of quote-unquote 'protest' than by saying we're not going to do it.
Rosenworcel: There were a lot of people who came up to me this weekend and were like, 'We needed this,' and that wasn't lost on me. That our fans needed this. That the bassoon player was like, 'We needed this.' So, okay. You think about a cancellation. Who's affected by that? Is the Trump administration going to be like, 'Oh, f---'? They don't give a s---.
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I don't begrudge anyone who does cancel because they don't want to be in this room. That makes a lot of sense to me. But our orientation has always been toward our fans and how we can use our voices, so we did that. We did what we always do.
And we came up with the idea of restoring the stage to a group that should be there, that should be there in the future but won't in the near future. It felt whole, and it felt dignified.
Miller: I don't think we would book a show here in a year. I think that's an important point. The wheels were in motion, and it was like, 'Okay, now that the stage has been given to us, what do we do?'
Q: So you guys decide you're going to do the show, but you decided we're going to put some little bits of protest. Can you tell me how that came about?
Rosenworcel: Here's the thing: We're a band of straight White men. For us to play this show [at the Kennedy Center] while other acts don't, it feels like you can't just show up and use that privilege to just play this show. Not that we would want to anyway, but that was not lost on us: that we weren't canceled here. We've been allies with the LGBTQ community for a long time because the themes of our songs, because of our obvious politics.
Miller: Because we have queer kids.
Rosenworcel: Exactly. … We're not afraid to make a statement. We just felt like here we should do the most dignified protests we can, that will feel good and also feel like we're putting on a concert with our fans.
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Miller: Yeah, we didn't want to turn it into a political rally, because I think there is something political about being in a room singing these songs. That could sound self-serving, but that's what that last tour felt like to us. It felt healing for us to go out and play shows.
Rosenworcel: We can do something. People feel helpless right now. We can do something to help people.
Q: How did the 'Finn' moment come about?
Miller: I've known Michael [Kooman] for a few years. He's a composer of musicals, and I wrote a musical, too. I've been watching the 'Finn' thing from the beginning.
So I reached out to him and said: 'This is what we're thinking about doing. How does that feel to you? Because if it feels token or if it doesn't feel like something you could support, we obviously won't do it.' He was like, 'I think this sounds amazing.' He also thought it felt dignified.
[Friday] night, it was a really beautiful, vulnerable moment. So it happened organically, but the fact that I knew someone who has a bunch of people who could sing is just a little bit strange, that it brought us together in this way. You kind of want to honor that when it presents itself.
Rosenworcel: I think something that's gotten lost in the mix is that the 'Finn' show premiered here and was developed here. The Kennedy Center played a role … [but] there's two regimes here.
Miller: It was supposed to tour nationally, and the attention around Trump's takeover and the 'Finn' thing … made it very toxic. No one was willing to touch it.
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[Many people said the Kennedy Center] canceled 'Finn.' They didn't. And that's part of why we wanted to give Michael a microphone. The sponsorship of the Kennedy Center happened, and he still feels very positive about his relationship here.
So there's some nuance to this which, obviously you as a reporter understand, gets lost. But I do also think the fact remains that if Trump didn't take over, the Kennedy Center would be presenting 'Finn' across the country.
Q: Do you guys want to say anything else about everything that's happened or moving forward? I am curious what artists do moving forward about the Kennedy Center.
Rosenworcel: I don't think [board members] Maria Bartiromo or Laura Ingraham are going to book Guster here while they're calling the shots.
Miller: We won't play here for the next four years. We just won't. Even though this felt successful, and we took the stage that was given us, we won't do that.
Rosenworcel: And we won't be invited.
Miller: Mutually assured destruction here.
Rosenworcel: I'll say this: We're going to be more aggressive about making sure our stage is an inclusive stage. And any opportunity we have to perform and showcase voices that may be more muted because of this administration, we're going to use that.