Just finished watching the Live Earth three-hour concert version that I taped from NBC last weekend. Performance highlights include: John Mayer's "We Keep Waiting for the World to Change", a reunited Genesis' "Land of Confusion", Alicia Keys' "Mercy, Mercy, Me" which blended into Corrine Bailey Rae's version in the middle of the song, Kelly Clarkson's "Since You've Been Gone", Roger Waters' version of his group Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" (though I was surprised at it's inclusion) and the recently reunited Police's "Message in a Bottle". There were also good performances from Madonna, Bon Jovi, Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks, The Dave Matthews Band, The Black-Eyed Peas, and Duran Duran. Additionally, they showed snippets of musical acts in China, Japan, and Australia (which showed an edited version of Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over" that I was disappointed with). All that plus hosts Ann Curry and Carson Daly interviewing public figures like Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Al Gore (Curry) and musicians like Keys and Matthews and actors like Rosario Dawson and Cameron Diaz (Daly). All in all, a mostly enjoyable concert with important pro-environmental messages spread throughout ending with a clip of James Blunt singing "What a Wonderful World".
3 Reviews
David Tennant should compere EVERYthing!
cassandra200620 October 2007
He introduced the Pussycat Dolls and was interviewed by Jonathon Ross and Graham Norton backstage. He is worth his weight in gold, is Tennant! In fact, he's worth twice, three times his weight in gold, titanium, the works. He showed such vitality and spirit, it was a joy to watch. He worked that crowd in the most engaging, ego-lite way imaginable and they appeared to love it, as did we at home. Watching it, I was again in awe of this man's ability. When interviewed afterwards, he proved to be refreshingly free of the barbed spikeyness that some Big Names can't resist displaying in similar circumstances. Probably they feel out of their element. Not him. He is totally at home in front of a crowd and has the charisma and showmanship to carry off the moment. Tennant can compere any program from now until the end of the galaxy, as far as my family and I are concerned.
Woodstock's Trust Funded Spoiled Kid.
velvoofell10 July 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Bob Geldof might be to blame. In the middle of the nineteen eighties, his weekly royalty cheques from 'Boomtown Rats' singles dwindling, he pounced upon the idea of a concert to save the woefully undernourished ego of he and a select group of other not-so-punk based relics of the 1970s.
Jump cut to 2005, amid Olympic winning bids and public transport bombings in London, he staged Live Aid's 20th anniversary concert. Swearwords replaced truly shocking sentiments, but most - whose daddies did not work in the Brtish media and therefore were not privy to free tickets and buckets of cocaine for the event - wondered just what in effing crikey an "awareness raising" concert was being staged for, when the fist shaking organizers' kids went to the same public schools as the civil servants and politicos at the G8 summit at whom watered down sixth form debating society anger was encouraged. It was also widely known that many of the policies the G8 were being asked to consider were on the cards anyway. Cutting a very long and ponderous story short and not nodding in the direction of Richard Curtis' or Bob Geldof's quest for beatification, 'Pink Floyd' sold a few more album units than they normally might.
Live 8 seemed part, in name, to be progeny of the Live Aid brand. It wasn't, Geldof publicly criticising the event. Anyone watching the coverage on BBC1 need not have worried that it would be above criticism.
Presenter Jonathan Ross seemed to be reading a hastily drafted script from autocue, was joined by other 'Off the Curb' comedy agency stablemates Allan Carr (the effeminate human Banana Split puppet who hideously died on his Harris - pretending to conduct booing he started receiving for reading his Eco-blah advice from a real idiot board) and Jimmy Carr (no relation) who was for once funny, outlining the ridiculously nebulous and contradictory advice Eco-warriors were giving at the event.
Most embarrassing was the speech made by an Helena Christensen lookalike whose name eludes me, introducing Al Gore - the famous wrong man, instigator of the parental advisory sticker on music recordings ('Genesis', dead centre of MOR, rocker Phil Collins having just worked the 'F' word into one of his songs two hours earlier.) and conspirator in his own demise. The woman hung on for a couple of dead minutes before ad-libbing that being at Live Earth made you sexy, was like being "hung like a warlord" or having real "these" (pointing at her chest).
An overlong, real mess, much like this review, Live Earth's most unforgivable crime was arranging Razorlight's sound system so that we could hear their music, but they could not - rather than the other way around...
Jump cut to 2005, amid Olympic winning bids and public transport bombings in London, he staged Live Aid's 20th anniversary concert. Swearwords replaced truly shocking sentiments, but most - whose daddies did not work in the Brtish media and therefore were not privy to free tickets and buckets of cocaine for the event - wondered just what in effing crikey an "awareness raising" concert was being staged for, when the fist shaking organizers' kids went to the same public schools as the civil servants and politicos at the G8 summit at whom watered down sixth form debating society anger was encouraged. It was also widely known that many of the policies the G8 were being asked to consider were on the cards anyway. Cutting a very long and ponderous story short and not nodding in the direction of Richard Curtis' or Bob Geldof's quest for beatification, 'Pink Floyd' sold a few more album units than they normally might.
Live 8 seemed part, in name, to be progeny of the Live Aid brand. It wasn't, Geldof publicly criticising the event. Anyone watching the coverage on BBC1 need not have worried that it would be above criticism.
Presenter Jonathan Ross seemed to be reading a hastily drafted script from autocue, was joined by other 'Off the Curb' comedy agency stablemates Allan Carr (the effeminate human Banana Split puppet who hideously died on his Harris - pretending to conduct booing he started receiving for reading his Eco-blah advice from a real idiot board) and Jimmy Carr (no relation) who was for once funny, outlining the ridiculously nebulous and contradictory advice Eco-warriors were giving at the event.
Most embarrassing was the speech made by an Helena Christensen lookalike whose name eludes me, introducing Al Gore - the famous wrong man, instigator of the parental advisory sticker on music recordings ('Genesis', dead centre of MOR, rocker Phil Collins having just worked the 'F' word into one of his songs two hours earlier.) and conspirator in his own demise. The woman hung on for a couple of dead minutes before ad-libbing that being at Live Earth made you sexy, was like being "hung like a warlord" or having real "these" (pointing at her chest).
An overlong, real mess, much like this review, Live Earth's most unforgivable crime was arranging Razorlight's sound system so that we could hear their music, but they could not - rather than the other way around...
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