Live Earth
After a busy week that included having some relatives visit, I was quite happy to veg on the couch on Saturday. I had forgotten that the Live Earth concert was being staged that day, but found it while flicking through the channels. Luckily one of the high definition channels was broadcasting the Wembley and
However, the Live Earth broadcast, although filled with lots of filler (luckily I missed Snow Patrol or I would have turned the TV off), was filled with enough killer performances to make it worth watching. It was interesting the difference between the ages of the performers and the genres. The best acts were by far the older, seasoned hard rock bands. Big arenas are not the place for subtlety. The Chili Peppers and Linkin Park (and I HATE rap metal), were hugely impressive. Whereas Wembley stadium seemed to dwarf most, Metallica tore the place apart and made it feel small. Then again they are possibly the least subtle band ever. It was an awesome performance. Lars Ullrich could have held the audience all on his own. It always pisses me off at these events when the camera pans to some bored looking drummer. Fuck it, if you can't show some emotion while beating a pair of sticks off some drums on front of eighty thousand people, why bother? Ullrich was seriously punishing his kit, and looked like he could barely stop himself from attaining lift off in the process.
By all accounts the Foo Fighters were aces, which I unfortunately missed, and Madonna (someone who seriously gets on my tits normally), was great. She seems to have had a voice transplant - her singing was quite good, as opposed to sounding like a muppet hopped up on helium. Bon Jovi, despite the cheese, showed what it takes to hold a stadium in your hand. They also proved that
On the other hand, having Melissa Etheridge preach to me about global warming (a subject near and dear to me), almost makes me want to run out, join the Republican Party, buy truck loads of JCB tires, stick 'em in the back garden, cover them in gasoline, torch the lot, and start selling carbon onsets. She is abominable. Talk about giving middle-aged lesbian rockers a bad name.
One of the surprises was Cat Stevens in
Far and away the highlight was The Police. I am kicking myself I didn't get to see them when they played locally. Andy Summers was off the charts good. He has to be one of the most underrated guitarists out there. He played out of his skin, and barely broke a sweat in the process, and this guy is 65 years old! Stuart Copeland gave a master class in drumming and Sting looked great and sang even better. I loved that Kanye West got up and sang with them on "Message in a Bottle," he has a great air of unpredictability about him.
Message to Sting: If you record one new good album with The Police, you are forgiven for your all your musical sins over the last 20 years.
Of course the big question was: will the message get through? The broadcast in the U.S. was interspersed with short movies all around the topic of global warming. More than the music, this sparked my kids' imaginations, and several rounds of questions. Shane has been reminding me that I should turn off the lights and the TV when not using them. If they can get the message across to a five year old, I'm sure they can make inroads with the rest of us. There has been a sea change around this topic in the U.S. Last time I talked to my conservative businessman father-in-law, he was all excited about new green technologies - only a few short years ago, he was telling me how hybrid cars would never catch on in the U.S....
posted by John Mc at 2:48 PM
13 Comments:
It might, TLGK and her chumley warners were hugely impressed by the whole thing.
TLGK ?
The Little Goth Kid, sprightly young one who likes to borrow my clothes and go the cinema with me from time to time.
"sound of penny dropping"
My first-born went to Oxegen. Said twas muddy but fantabulous. Disappointed though that the Arctic Monkeys chose to go to Earth instead of Oxegen. He loves them. He is introducing me to all of this new crack too (well, I say introducing, I mean blaring it at all hours of the day and night!) He said Brian Wilson was just amazing though, fair play to him to be still at it! (Brian, not the first-born!)
Hey Mairead, ah blaring music at all hours of the night, and the auld fella buying me headphones after he gave up on telling me to turn it down. I remember it well.
How many borns do you have ?
I feel the sea-change in the US too. The people and private industry seem to be streets ahead of the government on this. At the moment I feel we're like a rudderless nation on all counts. Where is the leadership on global warming or health care or Iraq or anything - Congress and the Executive branch are bumbling round in the dark on almost every issue. I wish I was exaggerating.
Glad Yusuf's back on the circuit though.
Hey Sam
Welcome back. Hope you feel ok after your Grandmothers passing.
Actually I think it’s a good thing that everyone else is ahead of government - that means in the end they will have to actually heed the public’s desires, rather than create policy. When it's in the hands of the public, (rather like markets), ideas will get thrown around and tested and hopefully the best ones will survive. Otherwise based on some partisan politics and vested interests a given technology will be favored and funded, (as gasoline was), and all other ideas will wilt on the vine.
The internet is a great example what can happen when government, the public and private interests intersect. Although networks were initially a government idea, ultimately it was a creation of many private individual and public companies, as a result of its anarchic beginnings the government has never really control it, because ultimately public opinion won't allow it. We are vested in it being open and as free as possible, because this was how we were all introduced to it.
Three little darlings! 18, 16, 10. Boy, girl, boy. Each have their challenges and joys. I bought the earphones - about six pairs actually! He prefers the boom. He plays bass guitar and has a huge speaker thing up in his room and more in the garage where he booms the night away with his "band". All good, clean fun I s'pose - sure what's a vibrating ceiling.......
Good on ya Mairead. When I think of how much my folks put up with my guitar playing, (although my sister played the Cello, and I think the guitar was less painful in comparison!), it makes me eternally grateful. Not to mention wrecking the Da's LP collection when I was a little kid, but it created a great love of listening to music. To this day despite years of playing in rock bands, I love American folk music like the Da's favorite, "The Kingston Trio". Just typing the name sends my mind right back to sitting in the living room back in the 70's as a little kid, rifling through he aul fella's LP's.
Ah, I see what you mean, John. Great points. The open and free parts being key to the whole thing. That's why all the shape-shifting and obfuscating of information from the White House, particularly Cheney's office, is so frustrating. And so anti-American.
I missed the shittin thing due to attending another gig, played by my buddies, the Wrinkly Romeos, followed by getting shitfaced at Wrinkly Paddy's house, so there's some excuse, I suppose.
Andy Summers played with everyone and has to have the most cred in the business. He made it big at a time when he had every right to think he was looking at a day-job for the rest of his life. Good luck to him.
Cat Stevens seems to have shaken off the worst excesses of his old Kill-Salman-Rushdie days, for which I will never forgive him. Not that he's probably too worried what I think of him, but still.
Hey Bock
I must google the whole Cat Stevens Rushdie thing. I remember seeing him on TV ages ago, where he maintained he had been misinterpreted. He said he had been answering the question, would the Koran theoretically support Rushdies killing. He he answered in the affirmative, he maintained he was not stating his personal view.
Do the Wrinkly Romeos have a website? I couldn't find one. Being a Limerick muso way back, I'm wondering if I know any of the heads involved.
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