Live 8 - What are you watching?

**Nano** · July 2nd, 2005, 06:47 PM

This Saturday the Live 8 festival is playing around the world, in thousands of radio and TV stations and also in the web (but I couldn't connect with AOL to see it live :evil: ). Anyway, it would be interesting for those in the forum who were watching it to share where are you, what are you doing, your opinion on the shows, etc.

Me, I just moved to a new apartment and was listening to it in a FM local station while going around with my stuff, disarming packages, etc. In around an hour a local TV station will offer a special 3 1/2 show live from the event. I guess they'll show the Pink Floyd reunion, and maybe Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger singing together (and Bono will probably be around). Seems nice for a Saturday night on the tube! :)
From what I heard while doing chores there were many old numbers tryin' to sing in tune (mostly had a hard time), like Duran Duran, A-ha and UB40. But the Pet Shop Boys sounded very good, and also some rock acts like Green Day and Linkin Park (these ones aren't my cup of coffee really, but at least they're young to run and shout at the same time).
Then in came Joss Stone from somewhere and I couldn't help thinking: where is Aretha when someone is singing her song? Apparently there are no soul legends invited, or they're not in the material selected by the media... :roll:
But sure we have plenty of Sting, Peter Gabriel and Bono praying for the poor African kids. I mean that's OK, but I saw them a million times and it's been 17 years since the Amnesty Tour.
Anyway, I still feel excited around the whole thing. And this time I can see it live!!! With Live Aid, in Argentina I had to wait for the rock mags to read about it.
Let's hear it for globalisation! :D

**olskinflint** · July 2nd, 2005, 11:43 PM

Since I'm already talking I guess I'll go first. Sure, the cause (eliminating poverty worldwide) was great, and many of the commentaries on the subject were truly moving. But you're aware that only snippets of the actual performances were shown on the broadcast, and I was QUITE disappointed that several songs were interrrupted by commercials (couldn't they have waited until the song was over?), and the hosts kept repeating themselves ad nauseum. It reminded me of one of PBS's shows interrupted by pledge breaks. The performances I saw were pretty good, but the only one that actually surprised me was when the singer from Maroon 5 duetted with Stevie Wonder and did the best Stevie imitation I ever heard. And as a rock fan, I waited with baited breath for the Pink Floyd reunion, but was totally baffled when they performed, because guitarist Dave Gilmore was singing lead on songs that bassist Roger Waters sang on record, and Waters was standing right next to him! I don't get it! But my favorite performance was the opening number, with Paul McCartney and U2 tearing through "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band". It was awesome. I'm looking forward to the show being released, hopefully in it's entirety, on DVD. Oh, and one last thing: 2 expletives made it through the filters: Snoop Dogg used "MF" and Pink Floyd's "Money" contained the word "s..t"

**Nano** · July 4th, 2005, 11:01 AM

Well, finally the TV show was a compilation of the whole event, with one or two songs each of the most "popular" (to their taste, anyway) artists on the 11 venues. So, no Stevie Wonder (I learned he had been there during a news briefing), no Björk, The Cure, etc., but plenty of Bon Jovi, A-ha, Maroon 5 (with a very thin-voiced singer) and Duranes. The PF reunion was merited with just two songs ("Breathe" and "Money"). U2 got three but hey, one of them with Mr. McCartney and they're the greatest band, etc. Then, Robbie Williams got 5 SONGS!!! :o Maaaaannn!!! It seemed it would go on forever.
The best thing of the broadcast, for me, was a bit of Annie Lennox doing "Sweet dreams". Hey, Annie has the same voice than 20 years ago! And she did great... Annie, go find a decent songwriter and do a good comeback record, please! :P

**markydefad** · July 4th, 2005, 03:42 PM

olskinflint,

I didn't see the whole broadcast so I certainly may have missed something--but the singer I saw singing with Stevie Wonder was Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20.