Spent much of the day watching the global marathon that was Live Earth - or at least what the BBC interactive service thought we should be watching. Saw much of the Wembley feed but really wanted to see the latter part of the Hamburg event however with one thing and another, I didn't get to see the sets by Reamonn/Mando Diao/Juli/Chris Cornell, which is a pity as I'd have liked to see all of them. Currently the BBC interactive feed is showing Yusuf, otherwise the artist-formerly-known-as-Cat-Stevens. Earlier, we had Roger Cicero, the undisputed German king of swing. He may not have won Eurovision, but he got to go to Live Earth. More than can be said for Marija Serifovic.....! Mia. was a bit too much for me, but I enjoyed Mr "El Temperamento" himself, Marquess. Honestly, if they show the Sydney highlights once more....OK we love Crowded House but hasn't "Weather With You" been on about at least 6 times by now?
Live Earth itself is a very nice concept, to raise awareness of climate change - a subject close to everyone's heart these days. But it could be argued that it is also rather dubious as there's a lot of energy being consumed across the world today by staging these massive concerts. That aside, it's a decent enough way to pass a summer Saturday. Thoughts on Wembley: I'm loving Kasabian more and more - but were that crowd dead?? Duran Duran were better than they were one week ago at the Diana concert. Black Eyed Peas - why? Corinne Bailey Rae - why? David Gray - good but why Damien Rice? Why were Metallica cut off just as "Enter Sandman" began? I've still to see the rest of it, so can't report on anything after 7.00 pm.
Fall Out Boy in New Jersey (not New York!): they have a way to go before I would consider them a truly great live act, but they're young. Give them time. "This Ain't A Scene" is a potential classic.
UB40 in Johannesburg: solid and dependable, giving the performance you'd expect from a band with all their years of experience.
Enrique Iglesias in Hamburg: talk about interacting with the crowd eh! Well, he needed something to detract from his bizarre live vocal performance....
Anyway it's all been too much for me...so I'm off to compile this week's playlist, among other things! :-)
