Live 8 is Enough

AOL is offering a lot of footage from the recent crop of Live 8 concerts for free on their website. I checked out a few, including some songs from the Pink Floyd reunion set. It's amazingly cool to see Waters and Gilmour on stage together (after nearly 25 years!), but I have to say that Waters' voice isn't what it used to be. They still sound great, and if there's a Floyd reunited US tour, I'd certainly try to go, but it's obvious the guy can't lay down the songs like he once did. Still, the version of "Wish You Were Here" from the London show sounds pretty great, and his dedication to Syd Barrett at the beginning is kind of touching.

Which reminds me, the London show was way better than any of the others. I mean, granted, I can't vouch for the quality of a lot of the bands that played Berlin or Rome...Acts like Chris De Burgh, Nek and the "is it offensive or isn't it" Negrita.

But I do know that acts which would be solid mid-day highlights, like Duran Duran, Audioslave or A-Ha were headliners in Berlin and Rome.

Why be that way, Bob Geldof? Why schedule all the most notable acts for the same show, the show you happen to be attending and at which you will perform. And please don't say it was a travel issue, because Rome, Paris and Berlin are all quite reasonable destinations for popular international arena rock acts, and Toronto or Philadelphia ain't much farther.

Think I'm lying? Here are some of the featured London acts:

Coldplay
Elton John
Mariah Carey
Madonna
Paul McCartney
Pink Floyd (!)
R.E.M.
U2
Snoop Dogg
Sting
UB40

Are you kidding? UB40? Hells yeah!

But you see what I mean...They aren't all neccessarily my cup of tea, but that's a massive concert full of international superstars.

Now, here's the list for Toronto:

Barenaked Ladies
Bruce Cockburn (uh-huh....huh-huh-huh...uh...)
Bryan Adams (noooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!)
Bachman Cummings Band

At this point, I'd like to pause and note that I'm not making this up. Three acts with awkward sexual innuendos in their names, and Bryan Adams. What a line-up. Madonna Who?

But there's more...

Deep Purple
Gordon Lightfoot
Jet
Motley Crue
Simple Plan
Tragically Hip

Are you starting to notice some disparity here? Yes, yes, I know, Tragically Hip were, like, totally way bigger in Canada than here, and a lot of you drunken nostalgic weirdos still for some reason cling to the notion that Motley Crue was any good...But it ain't to U2 and Paul McCartney reuniting to play Sgt. Pepper and announce the reformation of Pink Floyd.

Just seems kind of janky to do a worldwide charity event and then schedule almost all the really great acts for one city. Oh well...

Some of the footage is pretty cool. For one, you get to see all the weird Live 8 slogans littering the stages. One particularly strange one above U2 reads "We Don't Want Your Money."

That's nice. Much better than the traditional banner under which U2 plays - "Fuck You, Pay Me."

There is other surreality in store. Paul McCartney oddly invites George Michael to join him on stage for The Beatles' classic "Drive My Car." I had thought Michael retired from show business (officially, not just in everyone's mind). Yet here he is, singing along with Sir Paul and looking like he just stepped off the "Faith" album cover. Most peculiar.

Also, you get to see Stevie Wonder's bizarre facial hair from the Philadelphia show. Now, I know Stevie can't see, and so he can't really style his facial hair in any specific way, but he has managed to shave all the hair off his face that doesn't physically border his mouth. So there's like a fuzzy moat surrounding his food hole. It's slightly disturbing. Someone get that man a fully-sighted barber immediately. Stevie has some weasely white douchebag I couldn't identify join him for "Higher Ground" for no reason, ruining what would otherwise been a fully serviceable version of the song. Boo.

Finally, Chris Martin from Coldplay introduces a cover of "Bittersweet Symphony" with the line: "This is probably the greatest song of all time." I mean, it's a pretty good song, but that's like saying "Apple is probably the greatest baby name of all time." Clearly an exaggeration.