Thursday, June 16, 2005
Upd 8
More news from the Live 8 front, as Bob Geldof changes the mission statement from "Raising the profile of African poverty" to "Getting every city in the world to simultaneously put on a bill consisting of largely mediocre acts, just for the hell of it.". In addition to the five gigs already announced, 4 more will now be carried out in Johannesburg, Tokyo, Toronto and The Eden Project in Cornwall. The line-ups for these have yet to be announced - although we'll put good money on both Alanis Morrisette and Avril Lavigne taking the call for the Toronto gig - but the Eden gig is being organised by Peter Gabriel and his WOMAD organisation and seems to be a sop to those who've been moaning, with some justification, that there's a distinct lack of African and, indeed, black artists in general amongst the line-up. Of course, quite how ghettoising them in a gig which will undoubtedly get little more than token nods throughout the coverage, rather than allowing them to be on the main stage where all the focus is, can be seen as a good thing is a question which will no doubt be ignored for the most part, but they're seen to be giving a shit, and that seems to be the overriding factor in everyone's involvement in this event.
Also announced is Edinburgh 50,000, which will take place on June 6th and will be the reward for the "million" people that Geldof genuinely expects will march on Scotland's capital. Some people have expressed concern that, with all the people arriving on mass in a city ill-equipped to cope with it, riots are pretty much an inevitability. With the shower of shit that consists of the line-up for the gig, we can only concur. If we'd traveled hundreds of miles only to be confronted with a Travis performance, we'd be rioting too. We'll have an in-depth look at the line-up for that as it currently stands in a moment, but first, let's have a look at a few additions to the other line-ups which have occurred since our original piece. We'll be adding these to the main article as well, but we figured we'd publish them separately so you don't have to rescour the article to find them, mainly because we don't reckon our jokes will stand up to a second reading. Hell, some of them didn't even stand-up to a first perusal. Anyway, here's what's new:-
Also announced is Edinburgh 50,000, which will take place on June 6th and will be the reward for the "million" people that Geldof genuinely expects will march on Scotland's capital. Some people have expressed concern that, with all the people arriving on mass in a city ill-equipped to cope with it, riots are pretty much an inevitability. With the shower of shit that consists of the line-up for the gig, we can only concur. If we'd traveled hundreds of miles only to be confronted with a Travis performance, we'd be rioting too. We'll have an in-depth look at the line-up for that as it currently stands in a moment, but first, let's have a look at a few additions to the other line-ups which have occurred since our original piece. We'll be adding these to the main article as well, but we figured we'd publish them separately so you don't have to rescour the article to find them, mainly because we don't reckon our jokes will stand up to a second reading. Hell, some of them didn't even stand-up to a first perusal. Anyway, here's what's new:-
- Hyde Park, London
- Ms Dynamite - Oh come on, you must remember her. She was briefly famous back in 2002. She won a couple of Brit Awards and the Mercury Music Panel gave her a prize for being "The most non-threatening black, and therefore Urban, artist since The Lighthouse Family", or something like that. She's kind of like a rubbish Estelle.
- Pink Floyd - Or the equivalent of the Spice Girls reunion for men of a certain age. We actually went through a bit of a Pink Floyd phase in our teenage years - Hey! Don't judge us! - so we're more interested in this than we really should be. Of course, it's not quite a true reunion, what with Syd Barrett still being firmly of the belief that the colours of his bedroom ceiling are really too amazing to leave behind and venture into the outside world, man, but it does mean that Roger Waters and Dave Gilmour will be on stage together for the first time in ages, and they may well even avoid lamping each other for the duration of the set. We wouldn't recommend putting a bet on them playing Learning to Fly or Keep Talking however.
- Razorlight - We read a piece in the NME the other week with lead singer Johnny Borrell where he discussed his involvement in the Make Poverty History campaign. We got bored half way through, but we think the gist of it is that every time Johnny clicks his fingers, which is every three seconds, a child in Africa dies. Perhaps someone should think about cutting his fingers off to help save the kids.
- Snoop Dogg - Wants to make poverty histizzle.
- Travis - Have been added to the bill after consultations on crowd safety. In the unlikely event of the crowd getting overly frisky due to the hugely exciting nature of the rest of the bill, Travis will be immediately be pushed on stage to sooth the crowd to sleep with their soporific songs of sedation.
- Ms Dynamite - Oh come on, you must remember her. She was briefly famous back in 2002. She won a couple of Brit Awards and the Mercury Music Panel gave her a prize for being "The most non-threatening black, and therefore Urban, artist since The Lighthouse Family", or something like that. She's kind of like a rubbish Estelle.
- Brandenburg Gate, Berlin
- Roxy Music - Not involving Brian Eno, though his theories regarding ambient music, chilling out, and, well, dullness and unexcitement in music will be very much evident throughout the Live 8 extravaganza.
- Green Day - By having an opinion on Bush - "he's a bit of a dummy" - Green Day are now considered political, which no doubt explains why they're on the bill as opposed to, say, Bowling for Soup or Alien Ant Farm. If you're lucky, Billie Joe might well call Bush an idiot... from the stage! Wow! How exciting. The inevitable version of Good Riddance (Time of Your Life) is guaranteed be used to soundtrack emotional footage of slums.
- Tracy Chapman - As she performs, many in the audience will begin wishing that they too had a Fast Car, one that could whisk them away from this godawful event as fast as possible.
- Chris de Burgh - As he performs, many in the audience will begin wishing that they too were on a Road to Hell, as no matter what nightmares await in the flame-ridden afterlife, it can be nothing compared to the experience of watching Chris de Burgh live. In both meanings of the word 'live'.
- Katherine Jenkins - Welsh opera type. She's not Charlotte Church, so we're not interested.
- Roxy Music - Not involving Brian Eno, though his theories regarding ambient music, chilling out, and, well, dullness and unexcitement in music will be very much evident throughout the Live 8 extravaganza.
- Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh
- Travis - Not content with 'entertaining' the London masses with half a dozen songs which are all variations on exactly the same uninteresting theme - comparisons with this article are not welcome, thank you - they turn up in Edinburgh for seemingly no better reason, as with many of the acts on the bill, than that they're Scottish.
- Texas - According to Popjustice.com, the new Texas material defies all expectations by actually being quite good. In the big long list of things which are unlikely to ever actually happen, this comes just above "Carrots developing sharp pointy teeth and biting back" and below "People being excited by the prospect of a Tribe of Toffs comeback". We'll be relearning the words of John Kettley is a Weatherman, just in case.
- Ronan Keating - You know, he really does say it best when he says nothing at all. The same goes for him singing. And actually doing stuff.
- Daniel Bedingfield - The masculine half of the Bedingfield family who generally acts as if he's just swallowed eight packets of space dust five minutes before turning up to do an interview. Gotta Get Thru This will become an unofficial anthem for anyone attempting to watch the live coverage in it's entirety.
- Natasha Bedingfield - Sigh. We still love the Lady Bedingfield.
- The Thrills - Surely even they now know that their previous success was nothing more than a momentary aberration which everyone is trying to pretend never happened and is hoping someone else will take responsibility for.
- Dido - Also doing both London and Edinburgh. And by 'doing' we mean 'embarrassing both herself and everyone who's watching'.
- McFly - McFly, of course, know that poverty is a bit rubbish, having experienced it first hand when they went to Africa as part of their Comic Relief single. They also know what being a bit rubbish is like, having experienced it first hand the first time they ever played together. And at every other performance since, for that matter.
- Damon Albarn - Was one of the people moaning about the lack of African artists on the bill, which did seem partly to be sour grapes due to him not actually being asked to play in the first place. This has since been rectified, and the organisers are presumably hoping that he'll keep his complaints to himself now. As he's down as a solo artist, Damon will presumably be doing stuff from his godawful solo album. That's as opposed to the godawful stuff he churned out in Blur, or the occasionally quite good stuff he does with Gorillaz, though a cartoon monkey would be a bit more entertaining.
- Embrace - Their weakness is none of your business, you know. But if you really want to know, it's the singer. And the band. And the songs.
- Snow Patrol - Nominally Scottish, by virtue of living in Glasgow for a bit - which presumably makes the Glaswegian homeless types found around Kings Cross nominally English - and again a band that are doing the London gig as well. They're so uninteresting we can't even be arsed thinking of a second joke about them.
- Wet Wet Wet - Marti Pellow feels it both in his fingers and in his toes. This isn't normally something worth singing about, but heroin addiction can lead to a loss of sensation in the extremities, so you can understand why he's quite chuffed to be able to touch things again.
- The Proclaimers - "Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba! And I would walk 500 miles! And I would walk 500 more!" - Right, you can fuck off after that.
- Jamie Cullum - Christ. We'll take on the combined debt of all the African countries, along with the crippling interest payments, just as long as it means Jamie 'Fucking' Cullum doesn't play.
- The Zutons - Abi Harding, the saxophonist - saxy-ophonist? No? Please yourself, then - still has the best legs in pop. Unfortunately, she is also in The Zutons, but then, nobody's perfect.
- Youssou N'Dour - Seems to be this year's Phil Collins, in the sense that he's planning on appearing here, Paris, London and the Eden gig, not that he's a bald twat with all the musical talent of a toothbrush.
- Annie Lennox - She doesn't even deserve one slot on the bill, let alone the two she's now somehow managed to acquire. What with DJ Sammy remaking her Why? in a dance stylee, we're beginning to fear an Annie comeback is on the way. Please, don't let it be so.
- Travis - Not content with 'entertaining' the London masses with half a dozen songs which are all variations on exactly the same uninteresting theme - comparisons with this article are not welcome, thank you - they turn up in Edinburgh for seemingly no better reason, as with many of the acts on the bill, than that they're Scottish.
