I remember watching Live Aid being an event something to excited about. Live 8 on the other hand is huge nonevent. VH1 is sucking the life out it with its coverage. The presenters are as a dim as 25watt light bulb. None of them seem to have any idea what the event even about. Only bits and pieces of songs shown ugh. Apparently there wont be any kind of DVD the only to see stuff is to pay for streamed clips. Just how tragic was Richard Ashcroft with Coldplay….
Live what?
I agree with you completely. This show is Live 8, not an 8 hour version of TRL. It really pisses me off that the performers get to play one verse and one chorus and then are interrupted by a 19-year-old blondini saying things like "poverty is, like, totally not hot. To stop poverty go to mtv.com." christ, shut up.
Also, anybody notice the audience in Johannesburg acts like the average 9:30 audience? no moving whatsoever. Seeing it was like having an out-of-body experience.
Also, anybody notice the audience in Johannesburg acts like the average 9:30 audience? no moving whatsoever. Seeing it was like having an out-of-body experience.
yeah, i'm definitely egging the mtv and vh1 headquarters. what a joke. they cut off u2 to talk with russell simmons, and cut travis for kanye west. morons.
Agree w/Kosmo…I remember watching the original oh-so-many years ago and it was great. While I like that Geldof & co. are bringing attention to a serious set of issues, I'm not even going to bother watching Live 8.
I concur. I tried watching it on MTV, they were interviewing kids from the Philly audience. These guys were so stoked that Def Lepard and Bon Jovi were about to play. MTV then cut to Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer. Showed about half of the song and then cut to commercial. I think the Dead Kennedys had it right when Jello screamed "MTV get off the air, air, air…Get off the air, air, air!".
Originally posted by kosmo vinyl:I don't get it. You thought it was that bad?
Just how tragic was Richard Ashcroft with Coldplay….
Agree with the tv coverage, complete crap.
However, listening to the London show on BBC Radio
2 online has been great. Take my advice, turn off the tube and plug some headphones in to your computer.
However, listening to the London show on BBC Radio
2 online has been great. Take my advice, turn off the tube and plug some headphones in to your computer.
like 'em or not, cutting off a reunited pink floyd in the middle of comfortably numb is idiocy (ive missed most of the coverage, but if its been as bad as what ive seen, im glad im *cough* downloading somebodies XM rips)
well i was watching some of the "highlights" via the tivolite and Madonna's was the best performance by fadr. there again midway through "ray of light" they cut to ad… i do believe that a producers head exploded when dimthing one said some akin to "this is for the really crappy situation in africa"
The Cure played "One Hundred Years." And I saw a replay of U2's "One." Otherwise, Live 8 was forgettable.
I got home in time to catch the last three Pink Floyd songs…and even the interruptions by the moron commentators (WHO ARE THOSE PEOPLE???) couldn't take away the magic…they are SOOOO old, and still SOOOOO good…
Was I the only one that knew that the entirety of the Live 8 concerts in London, Paris, Berlin, and Philly were being shown live by AOL? To anyone, you didn't have to be a member of AOL to watch. There was not a single commentator to break things up. Which made for dull moments between acts, but you could just switch to a different city. I managed to get to a computer in time to see the last 2 hours or so of the London concert. Pink Floyd did pretty damn well, especially since I read somewhere that they hadn't even rehearsed all 4 together at all. What the biggest surprise of the night for me was that Robbie Williams put on an excellent show. He had massive stage presence, and had the entirety of Hyde Park ready to eat from his hand. btw…you can watch the concerts all over again here… http://music.channel.aol.com/live_8_concert/home/uk_main
Originally posted by Arthwys:was that what those airheads were babbling about? I thought it was just more self-promotion. shoot.
Was I the only one that knew that the entirety of the Live 8 concerts in London, Paris, Berlin, and Philly were being shown live by AOL? To anyone, you didn't have to be a member of AOL to watch. There was not a single commentator to break things up. Which made for dull moments between acts, but you could just switch to a different city. I managed to get to a computer in time to see the last 2 hours or so of the London concert. Pink Floyd did pretty damn well, especially since I read somewhere that they hadn't even rehearsed all 4 together at all. What the biggest surprise of the night for me was that Robbie Williams put on an excellent show. He had massive stage presence, and had the entirety of Hyde Park ready to eat from his hand. btw…you can watch the concerts all over again here… http://music.channel.aol.com/live_8_concert/home/uk_main
Gotta love the oink bit torrent tracker. I think every London set is up there in flac thanks to whoever was doing the xm rips.
Originally posted by stu47:
like 'em or not, cutting off a reunited pink floyd in the middle of comfortably numb is idiocy (ive missed most of the coverage, but if its been as bad as what ive seen, im glad im *cough* downloading somebodies XM rips)
July 13, 1985 was a day I will never forget - the music and the message created one of the greatest days of my life and its impact on me personally was immeasurable.
July 2, 2005 was a monumental day that marked the day the Internet has finally surpassed TV Networks as the vehicle of choice for delivering live events. AOL completely blew away MTV, who made a hash of the whole day with ridiculous uninformed interviews both by VJs and fans, and more commercials than actual performances or informational spot pieces. It's almost as if MTV wanted you to go to AOL to watch the concerts because of their clear lack of effort. AOL showed the live feeds from all countries, had a channel for highlighting performances you may have missed, and had better informational pieces on the African plight. MTV ran the same two info spot pieces onf Africa over and over again. The Live 8 folks had at least a dozen that I saw on AOL.
AOL (free to the public) is still replaying the concerts city by city and is planning to release a song by song on demand feature in the next few days.
On demand video over IP has a brighter future then I ever imagined after this weekend.
July 2, 2005 was a monumental day that marked the day the Internet has finally surpassed TV Networks as the vehicle of choice for delivering live events. AOL completely blew away MTV, who made a hash of the whole day with ridiculous uninformed interviews both by VJs and fans, and more commercials than actual performances or informational spot pieces. It's almost as if MTV wanted you to go to AOL to watch the concerts because of their clear lack of effort. AOL showed the live feeds from all countries, had a channel for highlighting performances you may have missed, and had better informational pieces on the African plight. MTV ran the same two info spot pieces onf Africa over and over again. The Live 8 folks had at least a dozen that I saw on AOL.
AOL (free to the public) is still replaying the concerts city by city and is planning to release a song by song on demand feature in the next few days.
On demand video over IP has a brighter future then I ever imagined after this weekend.
Originally posted by vansmack:i'd be interested to know the actual number of people on the planet, not the u.s. or the washington, dc nine-thirty club forum, but the entire planet, who knew that coverage was on mtv and vh-1 for most of saturday, versus people who knew it was on aol. i didn't find out about aol's awesome coverage until after the fact, while mtv and vh-i are daily/weekly/monthly television drug injections (depending on how often you watch, even if in two to five mintue intervals) that equals constant, subconscious reference. and that plus the people who still rely on dial-up connection for internet hookup, and a lot of those people know full well that you might as well not even bother with anything large scale on the computer, which might involve vast downloads of something horribly lengthly. the effort and time consumption just isn't there anymore in people. that's why so many of you bitch about no one dancing anymore at shows. that IS a weird trend i've come to notice as well, unless you're at a jam band show, where eveyone is dancing, but i'm getting of the subject. mtv's coverage was an easy, right there, less time consuming, switch on/switch off metabolism that we've all come to multi-taskingly know and accept as love. everybody expecting a dvd didn't help the matter, either. no one was pushing aol's performance other than aol, i'm sure . . . but i might be all wrong. what do i know anyway besides what i only think?
July 13, 1985 was a day I will never forget - the music and the message created one of the greatest days of my life and its impact on me personally was immeasurable.
July 2, 2005 was a monumental day that marked the day the Internet has finally surpassed TV Networks as the vehicle of choice for delivering live events. AOL completely blew away MTV, who made a hash of the whole day with ridiculous uninformed interviews both by VJs and fans, and more commercials than actual performances or informational spot pieces. It's almost as if MTV wanted you to go to AOL to watch the concerts because of their clear lack of effort. AOL showed the live feeds from all countries, had a channel for highlighting performances you may have missed, and had better informational pieces on the African plight. MTV ran the same two info spot pieces onf Africa over and over again. The Live 8 folks had at least a dozen that I saw on AOL.
AOL (free to the public) is still replaying the concerts city by city and is planning to release a song by song on demand feature in the next few days.
On demand video over IP has a brighter future then I ever imagined after this weekend.
July 4, 2005
Melding Gravity and Guilt at Live 8
By JON PARELES
Critic's Notebook
The New York Times
LONDON, July 3 - The symmetry was clear between the Group of 8 summit meeting, which begins in Scotland on Wednesday, and Saturday's Live 8 concerts, which were staged to pressure the G-8 leaders on policies affecting Africa. The concerts took place in the eight major industrial countries represented by the group (along with a concert belatedly added in South Africa). And like the G-8 meeting, they hinged on the privileged addressing the problems of the impoverished.
How immediately effective Live 8 was will be gauged after the summit. Skeptics could discount the concerts' gigantic audience, estimated to be in the billions live and electronically, as merely a reflection of the music's popularity. But viewers absorbed some persuasive messages, balancing grim statistics with promises of solutions. Those spots, as slickly produced as any political advertising, probably reached people who hadn't thought much about Africa since the Live Aid concert raised money for famine relief in 1985.
"By the time this concert ends this evening, 30,000 Africans will have died," Brad Pitt announced here in London, then urged that "we the fortunate" stand for change.
Endorsing the program of the organization Make Poverty History, Sir Bob Geldof - who organized Live Aid and the larger, technologically upgraded Live 8 - and many of the performers called for canceling third-world debt, doubling aid and changing trade regulations to open markets for African goods. At the Philadelphia concerts, performers invoked a "declaration of interdependence."
Live 8 was not about opening ears to African culture but about maximizing the audience. It's a shame that Africa's remarkable music was barely noticed during the Live 8 marathon. The Johannesburg concert - with musicians from South Africa, Senegal and Mali - was not cybercast by AOL; neither was a hastily organized concert of African music in Cornwall, far from London, although Angelina Jolie dropped by. Youssou N'Dour, the great Senegalese singer, sang with Dido in London and Cornwall, and led his own set at the concert at Versailles, near Paris. Yet even the background music in the video clips about Africa was largely Western. More Africans should have been heard, as well as pitied, during Live 8.
But in the global pop market, the biggest names are English-speaking pop stars whose privilege transcends language barriers. The Philadelphia concert had a strong American contingent, and a vital presence for the African-American rhythm-and-blues and hip-hop that is now fueling pop innovation; and the Canadian concert ended with Neil Young. But the others leaned toward musicians who live or record in Britain.
The Cure headlined in Versailles, the Pet Shop Boys in Moscow, Bjork (who is Icelandic) in Tokyo, Roxy Music in Berlin. Flashy production, on nearly identical stage sets, sought to hold viewers long enough so they would watch video spots about Africa between songs. One spot showed emaciated Africans holding Western consumer goods as it compared the amount of proposed aid with the billions spent on cosmetics, fashion accessories, weapons and discarded computers and cellphones. Meanwhile, Live 8's corporate sponsors included Nokia and AOL (which has reruns of some concerts at www.aolmusic.com).
Visions of the 1960's, and rock songs full of peace and love - along with Bob Marley's 1970's reggae songs - are always associated with pop benefits. Sir Paul McCartney started and ended the flagship London concert with Beatles songs: not "All You Need Is Love," however, but "Helter-Skelter." Yet there was little 60's-style protest beyond an occasional stretch of a rap: "Greed is a weapon of mass destruction," Faithless rapped in Berlin. While the G-8's decisions are ultimately political, the Live 8 concerts strove to appear more technocratic than ideological. Sir Bob brought Bill Gates of Microsoft on stage in London, where Mr. Gates gave a C.E.O.-style pep talk: "Success depends on knowing what works and bringing resources to the problem. We know what to do."
The 1960's didn't have the 21st-century gadgets that dominated Live 8. (Neither, for that matter, do the many Africans who live on less than $2 a day.) "Text us, call us," Bono said to a worldwide audience from Hyde Park on Saturday afternoon as U2 opened the Live 8 concert here. "These phones, they're dangerous little devices."
He was asking viewers to send their names - a painless contribution - for a list that grew past 25 million as the group of concerts was shown on television and the Internet. Of course, petition drives don't usually come with satellite-linked serenades from million-selling rockers.
It was high-tech coalition building. At one point the rapper and actor Will Smith in Philadelphia played host as audience members at simultaneous concerts roared video-screen greetings to one another. Then he had the viewers snap their fingers at three-second intervals; in Africa, he said, an impoverished child dies every three seconds.
Against statistics like that, rock hits can sound lightweight and narcissistic - overly concerned with the preening or the romantic mishaps of people making considerably more than $2 a day. It's a rare band - U2, to be precise - that can make big booming songs sound humble as well as rousing. A few performers, like Sting, also rewrote lines of familiar songs to address the G-8: "We'll be watching you," he sang in "Every Breath You Take."
Others hoped that their love songs would double as songs of empathy. And the rest kept it to themselves if they were worried about the context. Rappers boasted, rockers flailed at their guitars, country singers honky-tonked. Parochial, frivolous, raucous and more, the songs were hits nonetheless, and performing them drew attention. That is what stars are supposed to do, as well as providing fantasies of pleasure, success, rebellion or shared trauma. Whether it was Beyoncé of Destiny's Child boasting "I'm a survivor" because an album sold millions of copies, or the Cure's Robert Smith moaning about angst, the stars provided enough media leverage to put Live 8 on all those television and computer screens.
There was narcissism, too, in those 25 million names. When transmitted online or by cellphone text, there was a chance that a sender's name would be projected on the video screens behind the stars during the Live 8 broadcast, where the names became one more graphic element. It was not only an endorsement of Make Poverty History, but a chance at 15 milliseconds of fame, one more privilege of the connected.
Perhaps narcissism is underrated. It can be a great motivator. It may have added some percentage of names to that online petition for African relief; it definitely helped put stars onstage for Live 8. And as the Live 8 concerts sought to instruct the G-8, those who have economic privilege should use it well.
Melding Gravity and Guilt at Live 8
By JON PARELES
Critic's Notebook
The New York Times
LONDON, July 3 - The symmetry was clear between the Group of 8 summit meeting, which begins in Scotland on Wednesday, and Saturday's Live 8 concerts, which were staged to pressure the G-8 leaders on policies affecting Africa. The concerts took place in the eight major industrial countries represented by the group (along with a concert belatedly added in South Africa). And like the G-8 meeting, they hinged on the privileged addressing the problems of the impoverished.
How immediately effective Live 8 was will be gauged after the summit. Skeptics could discount the concerts' gigantic audience, estimated to be in the billions live and electronically, as merely a reflection of the music's popularity. But viewers absorbed some persuasive messages, balancing grim statistics with promises of solutions. Those spots, as slickly produced as any political advertising, probably reached people who hadn't thought much about Africa since the Live Aid concert raised money for famine relief in 1985.
"By the time this concert ends this evening, 30,000 Africans will have died," Brad Pitt announced here in London, then urged that "we the fortunate" stand for change.
Endorsing the program of the organization Make Poverty History, Sir Bob Geldof - who organized Live Aid and the larger, technologically upgraded Live 8 - and many of the performers called for canceling third-world debt, doubling aid and changing trade regulations to open markets for African goods. At the Philadelphia concerts, performers invoked a "declaration of interdependence."
Live 8 was not about opening ears to African culture but about maximizing the audience. It's a shame that Africa's remarkable music was barely noticed during the Live 8 marathon. The Johannesburg concert - with musicians from South Africa, Senegal and Mali - was not cybercast by AOL; neither was a hastily organized concert of African music in Cornwall, far from London, although Angelina Jolie dropped by. Youssou N'Dour, the great Senegalese singer, sang with Dido in London and Cornwall, and led his own set at the concert at Versailles, near Paris. Yet even the background music in the video clips about Africa was largely Western. More Africans should have been heard, as well as pitied, during Live 8.
But in the global pop market, the biggest names are English-speaking pop stars whose privilege transcends language barriers. The Philadelphia concert had a strong American contingent, and a vital presence for the African-American rhythm-and-blues and hip-hop that is now fueling pop innovation; and the Canadian concert ended with Neil Young. But the others leaned toward musicians who live or record in Britain.
The Cure headlined in Versailles, the Pet Shop Boys in Moscow, Bjork (who is Icelandic) in Tokyo, Roxy Music in Berlin. Flashy production, on nearly identical stage sets, sought to hold viewers long enough so they would watch video spots about Africa between songs. One spot showed emaciated Africans holding Western consumer goods as it compared the amount of proposed aid with the billions spent on cosmetics, fashion accessories, weapons and discarded computers and cellphones. Meanwhile, Live 8's corporate sponsors included Nokia and AOL (which has reruns of some concerts at www.aolmusic.com).
Visions of the 1960's, and rock songs full of peace and love - along with Bob Marley's 1970's reggae songs - are always associated with pop benefits. Sir Paul McCartney started and ended the flagship London concert with Beatles songs: not "All You Need Is Love," however, but "Helter-Skelter." Yet there was little 60's-style protest beyond an occasional stretch of a rap: "Greed is a weapon of mass destruction," Faithless rapped in Berlin. While the G-8's decisions are ultimately political, the Live 8 concerts strove to appear more technocratic than ideological. Sir Bob brought Bill Gates of Microsoft on stage in London, where Mr. Gates gave a C.E.O.-style pep talk: "Success depends on knowing what works and bringing resources to the problem. We know what to do."
The 1960's didn't have the 21st-century gadgets that dominated Live 8. (Neither, for that matter, do the many Africans who live on less than $2 a day.) "Text us, call us," Bono said to a worldwide audience from Hyde Park on Saturday afternoon as U2 opened the Live 8 concert here. "These phones, they're dangerous little devices."
He was asking viewers to send their names - a painless contribution - for a list that grew past 25 million as the group of concerts was shown on television and the Internet. Of course, petition drives don't usually come with satellite-linked serenades from million-selling rockers.
It was high-tech coalition building. At one point the rapper and actor Will Smith in Philadelphia played host as audience members at simultaneous concerts roared video-screen greetings to one another. Then he had the viewers snap their fingers at three-second intervals; in Africa, he said, an impoverished child dies every three seconds.
Against statistics like that, rock hits can sound lightweight and narcissistic - overly concerned with the preening or the romantic mishaps of people making considerably more than $2 a day. It's a rare band - U2, to be precise - that can make big booming songs sound humble as well as rousing. A few performers, like Sting, also rewrote lines of familiar songs to address the G-8: "We'll be watching you," he sang in "Every Breath You Take."
Others hoped that their love songs would double as songs of empathy. And the rest kept it to themselves if they were worried about the context. Rappers boasted, rockers flailed at their guitars, country singers honky-tonked. Parochial, frivolous, raucous and more, the songs were hits nonetheless, and performing them drew attention. That is what stars are supposed to do, as well as providing fantasies of pleasure, success, rebellion or shared trauma. Whether it was Beyoncé of Destiny's Child boasting "I'm a survivor" because an album sold millions of copies, or the Cure's Robert Smith moaning about angst, the stars provided enough media leverage to put Live 8 on all those television and computer screens.
There was narcissism, too, in those 25 million names. When transmitted online or by cellphone text, there was a chance that a sender's name would be projected on the video screens behind the stars during the Live 8 broadcast, where the names became one more graphic element. It was not only an endorsement of Make Poverty History, but a chance at 15 milliseconds of fame, one more privilege of the connected.
Perhaps narcissism is underrated. It can be a great motivator. It may have added some percentage of names to that online petition for African relief; it definitely helped put stars onstage for Live 8. And as the Live 8 concerts sought to instruct the G-8, those who have economic privilege should use it well.
From what I've read about the AOL broadcast, it seems that the merging of TV and Internet has much greater appeal than I ever thought about. I watched the broadcast mainly from a bar where they showed VH1/MTV. Why isn't there a service where they could have gotten the AOL (or other) feed directly to the TV - or some next generation medium - through cable or otherwise? Computers tend to be personal (i.e. the term PC), but where the content is "social" it seems some new evolutionary phase is ripe.
I think part of the appeal of an event like Live 8 or Live Aid is that everyone is watching it communally. That's part of what makes the event memorable - if not defining of an era, as I think Live Aid was - as opposed to just cool (or crap) performances. The world is watching, together. So a single unified broadcast adds to that one world feeling as opposed to watching from a computer. But technology could bridge the gap - to make the internet broadcast more communal - while relieving us from the broadcasting when it sucks or is taking away from the event.
I think part of the appeal of an event like Live 8 or Live Aid is that everyone is watching it communally. That's part of what makes the event memorable - if not defining of an era, as I think Live Aid was - as opposed to just cool (or crap) performances. The world is watching, together. So a single unified broadcast adds to that one world feeling as opposed to watching from a computer. But technology could bridge the gap - to make the internet broadcast more communal - while relieving us from the broadcasting when it sucks or is taking away from the event.
very sorry that the MTV broadcasts sucked, but could anyone have expected different? I went to the Toronto (Barrie) show and it was kick ass, but its too early to post a real review, so i will later…..
Originally posted by sonickteam4:there was a concert in Canada too? one would have never known based on VH-1's coverage….
very sorry that the MTV broadcasts sucked, but could anyone have expected different? I went to the Toronto (Barrie) show and it was kick ass, but its too early to post a real review, so i will later…..
i found the aolmusic streams via live8live.com site before the vh-1 coverage started, but the browser crashed when i tried to start the stream and decided just to check out to VH-1 instead of fussing with it.
watching streamed concerts on the internet just doesn't click with me, it lacks the vibe of watching in on tv. staring a computer screen watching a little box with choppy video not something i could do all day long. had there been media center pc hooked to the tv, the streams might have been a better option.
i may have misheard the deal with how aol is providing the streams post concert, i.e. are they charging to view them, etc.
nowadays mtv hires host on their ability to stand and look pretty while hosting shows aimed at teenagers. clearily being brainy isn't required anymore. in the past the hosts have been informed, etc… i think MTV misjudged the demographic that would tune into the coverage, and ended up insulting us older folk wanting to see the bands involved this "historic" event, instead of seeing audienece and artists inviewed by dimwits. does john norris have naked pictures of someone at mtv?