There were people probably taking bets on how Thursday's Fund for Civility, Respect and Understanding benefit concert would end.
It was predictable that the 15 artists on the lineup - enough people to pack the Tucson Arena stage end to end - would come together.
What wasn't so predictable was what song they would perform.
The guessing game got even more confusing when stagehands handed out sheets of paper to the group - including fund founder and concert organizer Ron Barber and his family. Did someone among the talented singer-songwriters pen a new anthem? Or was this a song so long-in-the-tooth that the younger artists - Tucson's own Calexico or the Los Angeles Latin-fusion band Ozomatli stuck out - not know the words?
Turns out it was the latter when the group started singing Graham Nash's inspired 41-year-old anthem "Teach Your Children."
The song, recorded with his band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young in 1970, has a timeless message about teaching children the lessons of peace and civility.
And civility was more than just a buzz word at Thursday's concert, organized by Barber, a victim of the Jan. 8 mass shooting in Tucson that left his boss, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, with a bullet wound in the brain. She is still recovering in a Houston hospital.
Throughout the nearly five-hour concert, the rockers and folkies, dance bands and iconic songwriters preached the gospel of checking your differences at the door and searching for ways to find common ground.
Music has an interesting way of achieving that goal, a point driven home more than once Thursday night in songs of solace and protest, healing and helping.
The only unfortunate thing about the evening was that there were so many artists on the lineup, we only got two or three songs from each, including co-headliners Jackson Browne and Alice Cooper. They were great songs - Browne's "Doctor My Eyes" and "About My Imagination," Cooper's ubiquitous "School's Out" and "I'm Eighteen". But each set felt like an appetizer for the next, and while you were convinced by the very breadth of the musical styles and legacy you witnessed - legendary Southern bluesman Sam Moore, Native American traditional singer Quiltman and the impeccable Jennifer Warnes - that you had been served a meal, you couldn't help but feel a bit hungry.
Probably the biggest disappointment of it all was that we had only a few moments with the powerhouse culture-mashing Ozomatli, which broke its nearly year-old Arizona boycott to perform. We got to hear three songs. And while they were amazingly energetic, fabulously frenzied showpieces that really captured the essence of the band, it was not nearly enough given that they have pledged to continue avoiding us until we ease up on our stringent illegal immigration law. Thursday night was the only exception they were willing to make, and we wasted it on three songs.
It also would have been great to hear more from Moore, who gave us one of the night's highlights - a slight reimagination of "America the Beautiful" with the audience 4,500-strong singing along.
Another emotional musical highlight was Warnes goosebumps-inducing a capella turn at "Amazing Grace." She closed her eyes and clasped her hands for most of the song. At the final verse, she opened her eyes and reached her hands to the audience and coaxed them to join in.
The organizers more than once Thursday night mentioned the idea of turning the concert into an annual event. Hopefully next time the lineup will be small enough that we can spend some quality time with the artists.
