Live8

Being confined to base with a stinking cold, I sat through the whole lot (UK stuff anyway).

Best bits for me were: the Floyd (of course), the 'Oo, the always fabulous Scissor Sisters and Macca's storming closing set.

Low point was definitely Mariah Carey (someone should melt her down for glue); although Madogga's highly objectionable attempts at scene-stealing came quite close. I rather thought the two worst acts would be these two monstrously egotistical Yankee primadonnas, and I was right. A pity, as Mrs Ritchie peformed the three songs of hers which are actually worth hearing, but that stomach-churning hand-grabbing of the Ethiopian girl made me wanna puke.

Although I don't like them particularly, I thought Robbie W and Coldplay also did a good job of getting everyone going.

Anyone else got any thoughts?

Kevin

Just about everything I heard at the Eden Project grooved in a way that the other venues rarely matched, IMO. Tinariwen was a very impressive group that I've never heard of before. I'm not very good at musical categories but "trancy North African blues" seems about right... They sounded as if they were from a slightly different universe from everyone else. Maybe it was just their outfits that suggested it but their music seemed to make me think of freezing desert nights - frighteningly intense!

At London, I thought Velvet Revolver's sound was as terrific as their look was repulsive.

I thought Sting was surprisingly good - I've heard little but "turgid" performances of Police songs since The Police split but these were the real things again - not recreations but worthwhile interpretations [IMO, of course].

quote:

Low point was definitely Mariah Carey (someone should melt her down for glue); although Madogga's highly objectionable attempts at scene-stealing came quite close. I rather thought the two worst acts would be these two monstrously egotistical Yankee primadonnas, and I was right. A pity, as Mrs Ritchie peformed the three songs of hers which are actually worth hearing, but that stomach-churning hand-grabbing of the Ethiopian girl made me wanna puke.

Absolutely agree, Madonna's performance (and the interview afterwards) showed her to be a cold cynical bitch. One of the highlights of Live 8 was to so many acts being a bit more human than normal (self-deprecating, showing thier nervousness, checking their ego's) but Madonna had clearly decided she was going to be better than anyone else - no matter what. Agreed, her set was the best performace I've seen from her, but her frosty persona and cynical style reeked.

Yeuch!

Doug

I have seen Tinariwen on BBC4 a couple of times. Very tight and interesting music.
There was some good stuff at the Eden project gig.

Howard

Agree with Kevin-W and Dougann and others about Madge's interview - except that I thought her set mediocre - the songs I feel were too weak to stand the test of the time. Perhaps, I just prefer good female singers like Shirley Collins and Mary Black who can deliver a song while standing still.

However, there was a lot of great stuff and it ended on a high with the Who, Floyd and Macca. What a storming performance of Helter Skelter.

So who would you have liked to have seen who wasn't there, apart from Half-Man Half Biscuit, of course (and Albert Hammond)?

ROTF

Tinariwen were the high-point for me - blues riffs behind fantastic Tuareg vocals. High point would have been seeing Angelina Jolie on stage but I was off getting a beer at that point and only found out she'd been there when I looked at the articles on the web an hour ago

Highly commended: Thomas Mapfumo; Youssou N/dour with the African singing sensation... erm, Dido; Modou Diouf and his amazing drummers; and Maryam Mursal on a small stage inside one of the domes.

PG joined a few of the artists to do vocals but kept a fairly low profile - apart from introducing the acts of course. At the end he seemed almost to be hiding and trying to keep out of the limelight.

I know that filling the Hyde Park stage with a load of African artists wouldn't have got the event the attention it did, but can't help thinking that they missed out in a big way. Eden never felt like an afterthought to the HP event and Mrs Steve and I were glad to have been able to be a part of it.

Next stop for my summer of music, the Larmer Tree Festival

S.

It was a great (but very long) day. We (wife) have been to many outdoor concerts and festivals over the years, but the scale of this was almost beyond belief.

Most of the acts had clearly made the effort to get it right, and many were much better than expected. The exceptions were few. The performance of the day for us were the Scissor Sisters, although Robbie won the crowd. Maria Carey was almost booed off, but I don't know if you would have heard that on the broadcast?

The sound system wasn't just better than anything I've previously heard, but in a different league. The clever electronics meant that the delay feeds to the PA towers were pefectly timed, so there was no echo anywhere in the park (although the lips were obviously out of sync.) Still can't get over the clarity and resolution of the PA. Well worth 14 hours on the same patch of grass, just to hear that alone. Quite a lot of compression was being used though and this robbed the Velvet Revolver set of some (much needed) dynamics.

By some sneaky manouvering we got pretty near the front of the crowd, and centre stage, BUT the VIP area was so huge (and half empty) that we were still a long way from the stage. The VIP area could have been half the size. Needed binoculars to see expressions on their faces, unless we looked at the big tellys.

All in all a great day, we managed to be there for the last "na na na na" of Hey Jude, and still catch the last train.