Saturday, July 07, 2007
Live Earth: Live - Hour Two: 15.45PM
Alan Carr is on stage not being very funny - just a normal gig for him, then - but the worst joke is yet to come as Snow Patrol are waiting in the wings. Singer Gary Lightbody is wearing a jumper. Well, he would, wouldn't he? They open with Open Your Eyes and Gary has his eyes closed for this, probably believing this to be showmanship. Despite it's clear awfulness, the audience are loving it while we start praying to a God we don't believe in for a flash flood to come and wipe them all off the face of the earth, live or otherwise.
Open Your Eyes is followed by Shut Your Eyes - Can't they make up their bloody minds - and Gary has his eyes closed for this one too. Clearly it's not a misguided attempt at stagecraft, merely Gary being, like most people in the world, unable to resist falling asleep while his own songs are being performed. We can sympathize. They round off their set with Crashing Cars - what a shame this isn't still the Diana Memorial Concert. Arf - to a backdrop of plants growing from seeds to full flowers. Not using a timelapse photography sense, but in real sodding time. Gary claimed they were "short and sweet". Never before has one man been so wrong in just three words.
We are 'treated' to Jack Johnson doing Good People in Sydney, although if people really were good we wouldn't be subjected to such unpleasantness.
And now, what fresh hell is this? Not one, not two, but three acoustic guitarists on stage! Ye gods, must we suffer so? It's Damien Rice, David Gray and Some Unknown Bloke at the Back, together at last. Quite why they're both on stage at the same time is beyond us, other than the possibility that they're trying to save a potential sniper a bullet, or that they realised the audience wouldn't want to sit through two sets of troubled acoustic troubadours so stuck them both on at the same time to stop the crowd getting restless. David does Babylon - seven years on and it's still the only song that people remember him for, bet that must be a pisser - while Damien leads the trip through Blower's Daughter, but his heart's not really in it. Mind you, he is doing Damien Rice songs, so this is only to be expected. They end with a cover of Que Sera Sera because, apparently, "It's three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon at Wembley". No, we have no idea why that's relevant, either. Nor why they felt that at a gig where the aim is to promote change and action against a climate of indifference, acceptance and ingrained attitudes performing a song whose chorus runs "Whatever will be, will be" was a good idea. "I'm kinda glad that's over", said Ross as we returned to the studio. He wasn't the only one.
Jonathan fills in a bit more time chatting to the slightly odd combination of Les Dennis and Jeremy Edwards, who are now presumably mates after appearing in a Fringe show together last year, during this probing interview we learnt that Jeremy wears a stupid hat and thinks that air miles should be used to offset the carbon costs of travelling and that Les Dennis has fed a baby rhino. Irrelevant as this was, it was still more entertaining than the next act on stage, Kasabian, one of the worst examples of the ladrock scene which refuses to die, despite the fact that it's main audience does eventually grow up. They opened with Empire, a word the band uses instead of 'brilliant', although you'd be hard pressed to work that out given the evidence presented there, they followed this with Clod Foot... Sorry, Club Foot. In the audience a young girl put her fingers in her ears, saying what we try and put into words far more succinctly than we ever could. They closed with LSF and Tom, to lazy to sing it himself, persuades the audience to take over the vocal run for the closing minutes, even splitting the crowd down the middle and generally acting like someone who's learnt the art of arena performances from a summer season at Butlins. Or Atomic Kitten.
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: An ant carrying an acorn back to it's home, trudging it's way through a muddy, boggy piece of track
Open Your Eyes is followed by Shut Your Eyes - Can't they make up their bloody minds - and Gary has his eyes closed for this one too. Clearly it's not a misguided attempt at stagecraft, merely Gary being, like most people in the world, unable to resist falling asleep while his own songs are being performed. We can sympathize. They round off their set with Crashing Cars - what a shame this isn't still the Diana Memorial Concert. Arf - to a backdrop of plants growing from seeds to full flowers. Not using a timelapse photography sense, but in real sodding time. Gary claimed they were "short and sweet". Never before has one man been so wrong in just three words.
We are 'treated' to Jack Johnson doing Good People in Sydney, although if people really were good we wouldn't be subjected to such unpleasantness.
And now, what fresh hell is this? Not one, not two, but three acoustic guitarists on stage! Ye gods, must we suffer so? It's Damien Rice, David Gray and Some Unknown Bloke at the Back, together at last. Quite why they're both on stage at the same time is beyond us, other than the possibility that they're trying to save a potential sniper a bullet, or that they realised the audience wouldn't want to sit through two sets of troubled acoustic troubadours so stuck them both on at the same time to stop the crowd getting restless. David does Babylon - seven years on and it's still the only song that people remember him for, bet that must be a pisser - while Damien leads the trip through Blower's Daughter, but his heart's not really in it. Mind you, he is doing Damien Rice songs, so this is only to be expected. They end with a cover of Que Sera Sera because, apparently, "It's three o'clock on a Saturday afternoon at Wembley". No, we have no idea why that's relevant, either. Nor why they felt that at a gig where the aim is to promote change and action against a climate of indifference, acceptance and ingrained attitudes performing a song whose chorus runs "Whatever will be, will be" was a good idea. "I'm kinda glad that's over", said Ross as we returned to the studio. He wasn't the only one.
Jonathan fills in a bit more time chatting to the slightly odd combination of Les Dennis and Jeremy Edwards, who are now presumably mates after appearing in a Fringe show together last year, during this probing interview we learnt that Jeremy wears a stupid hat and thinks that air miles should be used to offset the carbon costs of travelling and that Les Dennis has fed a baby rhino. Irrelevant as this was, it was still more entertaining than the next act on stage, Kasabian, one of the worst examples of the ladrock scene which refuses to die, despite the fact that it's main audience does eventually grow up. They opened with Empire, a word the band uses instead of 'brilliant', although you'd be hard pressed to work that out given the evidence presented there, they followed this with Clod Foot... Sorry, Club Foot. In the audience a young girl put her fingers in her ears, saying what we try and put into words far more succinctly than we ever could. They closed with LSF and Tom, to lazy to sing it himself, persuades the audience to take over the vocal run for the closing minutes, even splitting the crowd down the middle and generally acting like someone who's learnt the art of arena performances from a summer season at Butlins. Or Atomic Kitten.
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: An ant carrying an acorn back to it's home, trudging it's way through a muddy, boggy piece of track
Labels: Live, Live Earth, Live Earth: Live
