The Concert in Central Park attendees. Although rain fell throughout the day and continued until the start of the concert, an estimated 500,000 audience members made this the seventh-largest concert attendance in the United States in history. The stage backdrop depicted an urban rooftop with water tank and air outlet, symbolic of New York's skyline. At twilight, the backing band went onstage, followed by New York's mayor, Ed Koch, who announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, Simon and Garfunkel!" The duo entered through a side stage door, took center stage amid audience applause, looked at each other and shook hands, and began the concert with their 1968
Benefit concert performers took part in concerts to raise donations charitable causes, it was also not unusual in the 18th and 19th centuries for musicians to stage performances to raise funds for their own professional work, such as Ludwig van Beethoven's 1808 "Akademie" concert. The modern understanding of a benefit concert is of a large-scale, popular event put on to support a charitable or political cause. In the modern era, the first benefit concert is generally held to be the Concert For Bangladesh, a programme of two events held at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1971, which were organized