Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Garden Savaged?
We went to see Darren Hayes on the first night of his tour yesterday. Here’s a pic:-
We are, of course, joking, although the potentially racist pop star probably genuinely is regretting his decision to have “fascist uniforms as designed by Mondrian” as the costumes for this tour. Mind you, the “When I say ‘heil’ you see ‘Hitler’” call and response section was probably a little misjudged, and the less said about the duet with Jo O’Meara, the better.
Potentially libellous jokes aside, it was, all things considered - and we include the fact that we were seemingly never more than two songs away from another ballad - a pretty good gig. Darren has a fair set of pipes on him and his newer, more electro poppy stuff is really rather ace and most of the Savage Garden stuff hasn’t dated too badly. Certainly age hasn’t dimmed the passion of much of the audience for him, many of whom took every opportunity possible to declare their love for the man by the not exactly verbose form of unintelligible screaming. This was probably for the best though, as when it did become intelligible, well, ‘intelligible’ doesn’t really cover it. One girl seemed convinced that by informing Darren that “I want to have your babies”, he would readily acquiesce. Perhaps she never got the memo.
Despite being a relatively small scale tour, the stage show was quite impressive, although in most arena settings there aren’t usually problems where the set gets snagged awkwardly as the roadies attempt to move it by hand, but there were lots of pseudo deep images flashing behind him, including a bookcase - we looked but couldn’t see if a copy of Mein Kampf was lurking there - and lots of images of origami birds, which were presumably there to represent, childhood, innocence and the simple desire to fly away from the stresses and strains of modern life. Either that or he just really likes folding paper. Most of these stemmed from the ‘theme’ of the show, the Time Machine tour, although theme is perhaps putting it a bit strongly, as it mainly consisted of two brief speeches to the audience, one where Darren told us that he’d quite like to have a time machine so he could sort out all the mistakes in his life, and the other where he told us “The thing they don’t tell you about time travel, is that it’s all the mistakes you make that make you who you are, and if you undo them you unravel your self”. Darren has clearly never ever seen a single film about time travel as everyone knows that by changing the past you screw up your present. It’s the only plot time travel films have! Someone going back to the past, having a pleasant time and then going back to an undisturbed present doesn’t really provide a lot of dramatic tension and ticking plot style plot driving.
Anyway, it was all good fun and, after a storming discofied version of Pop!ular - the lyrics of which may or may not have been changed to “My friends are all Caucasian”, we could be wrong, we could be right. Arf - the whole thing came to an end and the audience all goose-stepped out. In summary then, electropopness good, ballady nonsense bad. And all Animal Songs are equal, although some are more equal than others.
We are, of course, joking, although the potentially racist pop star probably genuinely is regretting his decision to have “fascist uniforms as designed by Mondrian” as the costumes for this tour. Mind you, the “When I say ‘heil’ you see ‘Hitler’” call and response section was probably a little misjudged, and the less said about the duet with Jo O’Meara, the better.
Potentially libellous jokes aside, it was, all things considered - and we include the fact that we were seemingly never more than two songs away from another ballad - a pretty good gig. Darren has a fair set of pipes on him and his newer, more electro poppy stuff is really rather ace and most of the Savage Garden stuff hasn’t dated too badly. Certainly age hasn’t dimmed the passion of much of the audience for him, many of whom took every opportunity possible to declare their love for the man by the not exactly verbose form of unintelligible screaming. This was probably for the best though, as when it did become intelligible, well, ‘intelligible’ doesn’t really cover it. One girl seemed convinced that by informing Darren that “I want to have your babies”, he would readily acquiesce. Perhaps she never got the memo.
Despite being a relatively small scale tour, the stage show was quite impressive, although in most arena settings there aren’t usually problems where the set gets snagged awkwardly as the roadies attempt to move it by hand, but there were lots of pseudo deep images flashing behind him, including a bookcase - we looked but couldn’t see if a copy of Mein Kampf was lurking there - and lots of images of origami birds, which were presumably there to represent, childhood, innocence and the simple desire to fly away from the stresses and strains of modern life. Either that or he just really likes folding paper. Most of these stemmed from the ‘theme’ of the show, the Time Machine tour, although theme is perhaps putting it a bit strongly, as it mainly consisted of two brief speeches to the audience, one where Darren told us that he’d quite like to have a time machine so he could sort out all the mistakes in his life, and the other where he told us “The thing they don’t tell you about time travel, is that it’s all the mistakes you make that make you who you are, and if you undo them you unravel your self”. Darren has clearly never ever seen a single film about time travel as everyone knows that by changing the past you screw up your present. It’s the only plot time travel films have! Someone going back to the past, having a pleasant time and then going back to an undisturbed present doesn’t really provide a lot of dramatic tension and ticking plot style plot driving.
Anyway, it was all good fun and, after a storming discofied version of Pop!ular - the lyrics of which may or may not have been changed to “My friends are all Caucasian”, we could be wrong, we could be right. Arf - the whole thing came to an end and the audience all goose-stepped out. In summary then, electropopness good, ballady nonsense bad. And all Animal Songs are equal, although some are more equal than others.
Labels: Darren Hayes, Live, Reviews, Savage Garden
Monday, September 10, 2007
MTV VMA LIV(e)
9.00: Hello and welcome to our almost live coverage of the MTV VMAs, live from Las Vegas. And tonight's ceremony certainly promises to be a unique experience. If only because this the first time in living memory that MTV has broadcast a programme that actually involves music.
9.02: Opening the show is Britney Spears. Except rather than actually getting Britney they've got a poor quality waxwork which lip synchs about as well as a dog eating toffee.
9.03: She's dressed in a sparkly bikini which serves mainly to make her look like she works at a cheap brothel which is trying to look a bit higher class.
9.04: "I just want some more", she ends. Unlike the rest of the audience who look like they would rather see anything but.
9.05: Host for the evening is Sarah Silverman. No, us neither.
9.06: She appears to be a rubbish stand-up comedian who's trying desperately to be controversial. We thought that Britney was going to be the biggest embarrassment of the night, but it turns out we were wrong.
9.08: It's like watching someone who's read about comedy in a book, didn't really understand it, but liked the idea of it and thought she'd give it a shot anyway.
9.12: Adverts. From this we can surmise that MTV's target audience is thirsty, spotty and doesn't have the brain power to realise that paying £4.50 a week for a ringtone service is the act of only the truly moronic.
9.14: Alesha Keys, who some people may remember from her ridiculously successful yet charmisa free albums is doing some hosting duties. She's equally lacking in the ability to connect with the audience when speaking.
9.15: Kanye West and Justin Timberlake are hosting various parties that are going on at the same time as the award. Quite why they're showing this given that they look a lot more fun and entertaining than what we're having to watch is unclear.
9.16:: Nicole Pussycat Doll and Eve are presenting the Monster Single of the Year award. Our money's on Mothra. Or Mika, who's pretty monstrous.
9.18:: It's Rihanna for Umbrella! And it looks like she's been poured into her dress. Arf?
9.19:: She thanks a lot of people, none of whom we actually care about.
9.20: Kanye is still partying away, with all the joy and enthusiasm of someone who hasn't had to sit through Sarah Silverman's soul sapping attempt at comedy.
9.21: There's a lot of filler in this show, isn't there?
9.22: And a lot of non-entities as well. Who the hell are these people presenting the Quadruple Threat Award.
9.22: This award goes to people who have more than one string to their bow, but given the constant use of 'Clothing Line' as examples, we're not entirely convinced of the veracity of this prize.
9.23: It goes to Justin Timberlake, who takes advantage of the opportunity to challenge MTV to play for videos. He has a point.
9.23: There's a Fall Out Boy party as well, so it's not all goodness outside of the main awards arena.
9.24: They sound even more awful than normal, more like a bunch of enthusiastic yet talentless twelve year old FOB fans - is there any other kind? - rather than the actual band.
9.25: The Foo Fighters are having a party as well. With all this constant cutting and flipping between various things, we're beginning to understand what it must be like to have ADHD.
9.27: The award for Earth Shattering Collaboration is being presented by 50 Cent and someone we don't recognise, but is apparently an earth shattering collaboration itself, according to the announcer anyway, and we're sure she wouldn't lie to us. They stared at each other for a bit, that was it. The earth doesn't feel particularly shattered from our point of view.
9.28: It goes to Beyonce and Shakira for Beautiful Lie, a song whihc only sounds good in its remixed form.
9.29: Shakira's not there, but Beyonce thanks her for doing the song with her. She'd been waiting for that day, apparently, which seems unlikely.
9.30: Mark Ronson is the house band for the night, so far he's had Akon and Maroon 5 Blokey singing with him. Working with even Lily Allen must seem like a more glittering and fulfilling experience in comparison.
9.32: More adverts. Jamster seems to consider the prospect of having the full version of Sean Kingston's Beautiful Girls on your mobile as an enticement, rather than another one of the many good reasons to avoid the service like the plague.
9.35: Justin's party features a lot of gyrating girls and not much else. Who says feminism is dead?
9.37: Chris Brown. He appears to be auditioning for a role in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
9.38: More miming. The dance routine involves a lot of leaping between tables, this is presumably supposed to look edgy, but more has the air of a hyperactive child who's had too much cake at his birthday party.
9.40: And here's Rihanna, who spent so long getting the seams on her tights straight that she didn't have time to actually put her skirt on.
9.41: And now Chris is aping Michael Jackson's Billie Jean moves. Does no-one have an original idea any more? Even Jackson himself wouldn't do those moves, if only because he's worried parts of his body would fall off.
9.43:: And yes we are aware of the irony of moaning about unoriginality while doing Michael Jackson plastic surgery jokes, thank you very much.
9.44:: "The most talked about women on TV, the stars of The Hills". We've never heard of the Hills, let alone talked about it.
9.45: Best Male, although they never indicate exactly how they demonstrate their masculinity. Do they put up shelves really quickly, or have to talk in the lowest register possible?
9.45: As the winner is Justin Timberlake, clearly not.
9.46: Justin is worried about getting older. His aging is evident in the fact that he's almost ready to start shaving. Bless.
9.47: The camera follows him backstage for no apparent reason and we go back to the Foo Fighters party, for equally unapparent reasons. Cee-Lo is now singing with them though.
9.48: Fiddy is now singing at Justin's party, to which Justin has now returned and is further cementing the view that he's getting older by dancing like your dad.
9.50: It's the bloke from Transformers! It'd be better if it was Optimus Prime though. He apprently reveals the title of the new Indiana Jones movie. No-one particularly cares.
9.51: Best female. Again, is this decided by giving the prize to someone who can demonstrate that they are the ultimate in femininity?
9.52: It goes to Fergie, so again, clearly not.
9.52: Ludacris is supposed to be picking up her award as she's not here, but no-one seems to have told him and he stays rooted to his seat. We can understand his reluctance to be associated with the Big Girls singer. Although people standing up when Fergie is mentioned is not an unusual occurrence. Although this is normally so they can scan the room, looking for exits.
9.55: Adverts. We're eating cookies.
9.57: Pamela Anderson. She's being wolf whistled at by Tommy Lee. This is presumably before he got into the fight.
9.58: Back to Kanye's party, and what is with those glasses he insists on wearing these days. It makes him look like the hip-hop Timmy Mallet.
10.01: More from the Fall Out Boy party, apparently the worst place in the world to be. It's not so much a party, more a recruiting video for the War Against Emo.
10.02: And now it's the girl from Transformers! Where's Megatron?
10.03: "Warning: This performance contains flashing images which may trigger photosensitive seizures." We wish we had epilepsy, it'd give us an excuse to switch off.
10.04: Linkin Park. Whose new single's chorus is annoying catchy, but we refuse to actually like it on a point of principle. They are Linkin Park, after all.
10.06: Chester is remarkably enthusiastic for a man who is not only in Linkin Park, but whose job description simply reads "Shouting".
10.07: Some people from Entourage are presenting the award for Best Group. They reference groupies, apparently under the impression that they're in Almost Famous.
10.08: The list of nominations for Best Group is the most soul destroying we've seen in a long time. Gym Class Heroes!?
10.09: The prize goes to Fall Out Boy, which at least has the benefit of stopping them playing at their party for a bit.
10.09: They dedicate to all the real fans of music, who they describe as "the kids picking up guitars". The cocks.
10.14: More ads. We've moved on from cookies to eating Frosties straight out the packet. We are nothing if not classy.
10.15: Rihanna has now put a dress on. Unfortunately she spoils this by performing with Fall Out Boy. Their's is not an umbrella you want to be under.
10.16: Wow, Nelly is still around. He's introducing Alicia Keys, with far more enthusiasm than you'd expect from someone who has, to all intents and purposes, just announced a toilet break for the entire auditorium.
10.21: She segues into a cover of George Michael's Freedom, demonstrating that even a upbeat song becomes soporific in her hands.
10.22: Kanye's still performing. Although for all we know he stops the minute the camera's off of him.
10.23: And just when you thought it couldn't get worse at the FOB party, they've now been joined by Gym Class Heroes. See, two wrongs don't make a right.
10.23: Jamie Foxx wants us to make some noise. He also wants to know who won the Kid Rock/Tommy Lee fight, but did anyone really win in such an ugly situation. Apart from the MTV PR department, that is.
10.24: And the Best New Artist is... Gym Class Heroes? We'd even be dubious about using the word 'New' to describe them, let alone the other two words in that title.
10.27: Fiddy is partying like it's his birthday. Again.
10.28: Mark's still up on his podium, but he's cut short for Mary J Blige, who seems to command a remarkable amount of respect for someone of such dullness.
10.29: She's introducing Dre. Fortunately the organisers remembered to put him on the bill this time around. Last year they forgot about Dre. Arf!
10.30: Dre is wearing a blue jumper and sweat pants. You'd think he'd have got a bit dressed up, this is on telly after all.
10.31: He's announcing the award for best video, we don't think you need us to point out the irony of MTV having this award. It goes to Rihanna, who's back in her pink part dress/part scaffolding outfit.
10.33: P Diddy is worryied about the problem of rock 'n' roll violence. We're more worried about P Diddy to be honest.
10.36: Even more ads. Although as this is the best chance to see music on MTV, albeit in snippets, we probably shouldn't complain.
10.39: "The biggest performance of the night", it's Timbaland, Timberlake and, umm, Timbertardo.
10.41: It probably is the best performance of the night. But bearing in mind what's gone before, this doesn't necessamean it's actually any good.
10.42: Although once we get onto The Way I Are it all improves dramatically, which is often the case in real life as well.
10.44: And here's Justin, flirting with the audience and doing the jumpy footwork thing which has seen him acclaimed as a great dancer, rather than someone who suffers from restless legs syndrome as is clearly the case.
10.45: He's doing something with hankies, so if this pop lark dries up for him then he'll be able to work as a children's entertainer, which is something at least.
10.46: Nelly Furtardo songs are always a lot better on record than in the flesh, mainly because you don't see how awkward and uncomfortable she looks with her new, focus group enforced image.
10.47: And, umm, that appears to be it. That really was the big finish. Even the Brits manages to have more of a climax than this. Hell, even the TV Quick awards end with a better sense of closure.
10.48: And what have we learnt? As usual nothing that we couldn't have gleaned by watching the highlights on YouTube instead. Oh well.
9.02: Opening the show is Britney Spears. Except rather than actually getting Britney they've got a poor quality waxwork which lip synchs about as well as a dog eating toffee.
9.03: She's dressed in a sparkly bikini which serves mainly to make her look like she works at a cheap brothel which is trying to look a bit higher class.
9.04: "I just want some more", she ends. Unlike the rest of the audience who look like they would rather see anything but.
9.05: Host for the evening is Sarah Silverman. No, us neither.
9.06: She appears to be a rubbish stand-up comedian who's trying desperately to be controversial. We thought that Britney was going to be the biggest embarrassment of the night, but it turns out we were wrong.
9.08: It's like watching someone who's read about comedy in a book, didn't really understand it, but liked the idea of it and thought she'd give it a shot anyway.
9.12: Adverts. From this we can surmise that MTV's target audience is thirsty, spotty and doesn't have the brain power to realise that paying £4.50 a week for a ringtone service is the act of only the truly moronic.
9.14: Alesha Keys, who some people may remember from her ridiculously successful yet charmisa free albums is doing some hosting duties. She's equally lacking in the ability to connect with the audience when speaking.
9.15: Kanye West and Justin Timberlake are hosting various parties that are going on at the same time as the award. Quite why they're showing this given that they look a lot more fun and entertaining than what we're having to watch is unclear.
9.16:: Nicole Pussycat Doll and Eve are presenting the Monster Single of the Year award. Our money's on Mothra. Or Mika, who's pretty monstrous.
9.18:: It's Rihanna for Umbrella! And it looks like she's been poured into her dress. Arf?
9.19:: She thanks a lot of people, none of whom we actually care about.
9.20: Kanye is still partying away, with all the joy and enthusiasm of someone who hasn't had to sit through Sarah Silverman's soul sapping attempt at comedy.
9.21: There's a lot of filler in this show, isn't there?
9.22: And a lot of non-entities as well. Who the hell are these people presenting the Quadruple Threat Award.
9.22: This award goes to people who have more than one string to their bow, but given the constant use of 'Clothing Line' as examples, we're not entirely convinced of the veracity of this prize.
9.23: It goes to Justin Timberlake, who takes advantage of the opportunity to challenge MTV to play for videos. He has a point.
9.23: There's a Fall Out Boy party as well, so it's not all goodness outside of the main awards arena.
9.24: They sound even more awful than normal, more like a bunch of enthusiastic yet talentless twelve year old FOB fans - is there any other kind? - rather than the actual band.
9.25: The Foo Fighters are having a party as well. With all this constant cutting and flipping between various things, we're beginning to understand what it must be like to have ADHD.
9.27: The award for Earth Shattering Collaboration is being presented by 50 Cent and someone we don't recognise, but is apparently an earth shattering collaboration itself, according to the announcer anyway, and we're sure she wouldn't lie to us. They stared at each other for a bit, that was it. The earth doesn't feel particularly shattered from our point of view.
9.28: It goes to Beyonce and Shakira for Beautiful Lie, a song whihc only sounds good in its remixed form.
9.29: Shakira's not there, but Beyonce thanks her for doing the song with her. She'd been waiting for that day, apparently, which seems unlikely.
9.30: Mark Ronson is the house band for the night, so far he's had Akon and Maroon 5 Blokey singing with him. Working with even Lily Allen must seem like a more glittering and fulfilling experience in comparison.
9.32: More adverts. Jamster seems to consider the prospect of having the full version of Sean Kingston's Beautiful Girls on your mobile as an enticement, rather than another one of the many good reasons to avoid the service like the plague.
9.35: Justin's party features a lot of gyrating girls and not much else. Who says feminism is dead?
9.37: Chris Brown. He appears to be auditioning for a role in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
9.38: More miming. The dance routine involves a lot of leaping between tables, this is presumably supposed to look edgy, but more has the air of a hyperactive child who's had too much cake at his birthday party.
9.40: And here's Rihanna, who spent so long getting the seams on her tights straight that she didn't have time to actually put her skirt on.
9.41: And now Chris is aping Michael Jackson's Billie Jean moves. Does no-one have an original idea any more? Even Jackson himself wouldn't do those moves, if only because he's worried parts of his body would fall off.
9.43:: And yes we are aware of the irony of moaning about unoriginality while doing Michael Jackson plastic surgery jokes, thank you very much.
9.44:: "The most talked about women on TV, the stars of The Hills". We've never heard of the Hills, let alone talked about it.
9.45: Best Male, although they never indicate exactly how they demonstrate their masculinity. Do they put up shelves really quickly, or have to talk in the lowest register possible?
9.45: As the winner is Justin Timberlake, clearly not.
9.46: Justin is worried about getting older. His aging is evident in the fact that he's almost ready to start shaving. Bless.
9.47: The camera follows him backstage for no apparent reason and we go back to the Foo Fighters party, for equally unapparent reasons. Cee-Lo is now singing with them though.
9.48: Fiddy is now singing at Justin's party, to which Justin has now returned and is further cementing the view that he's getting older by dancing like your dad.
9.50: It's the bloke from Transformers! It'd be better if it was Optimus Prime though. He apprently reveals the title of the new Indiana Jones movie. No-one particularly cares.
9.51: Best female. Again, is this decided by giving the prize to someone who can demonstrate that they are the ultimate in femininity?
9.52: It goes to Fergie, so again, clearly not.
9.52: Ludacris is supposed to be picking up her award as she's not here, but no-one seems to have told him and he stays rooted to his seat. We can understand his reluctance to be associated with the Big Girls singer. Although people standing up when Fergie is mentioned is not an unusual occurrence. Although this is normally so they can scan the room, looking for exits.
9.55: Adverts. We're eating cookies.
9.57: Pamela Anderson. She's being wolf whistled at by Tommy Lee. This is presumably before he got into the fight.
9.58: Back to Kanye's party, and what is with those glasses he insists on wearing these days. It makes him look like the hip-hop Timmy Mallet.
10.01: More from the Fall Out Boy party, apparently the worst place in the world to be. It's not so much a party, more a recruiting video for the War Against Emo.
10.02: And now it's the girl from Transformers! Where's Megatron?
10.03: "Warning: This performance contains flashing images which may trigger photosensitive seizures." We wish we had epilepsy, it'd give us an excuse to switch off.
10.04: Linkin Park. Whose new single's chorus is annoying catchy, but we refuse to actually like it on a point of principle. They are Linkin Park, after all.
10.06: Chester is remarkably enthusiastic for a man who is not only in Linkin Park, but whose job description simply reads "Shouting".
10.07: Some people from Entourage are presenting the award for Best Group. They reference groupies, apparently under the impression that they're in Almost Famous.
10.08: The list of nominations for Best Group is the most soul destroying we've seen in a long time. Gym Class Heroes!?
10.09: The prize goes to Fall Out Boy, which at least has the benefit of stopping them playing at their party for a bit.
10.09: They dedicate to all the real fans of music, who they describe as "the kids picking up guitars". The cocks.
10.14: More ads. We've moved on from cookies to eating Frosties straight out the packet. We are nothing if not classy.
10.15: Rihanna has now put a dress on. Unfortunately she spoils this by performing with Fall Out Boy. Their's is not an umbrella you want to be under.
10.16: Wow, Nelly is still around. He's introducing Alicia Keys, with far more enthusiasm than you'd expect from someone who has, to all intents and purposes, just announced a toilet break for the entire auditorium.
10.21: She segues into a cover of George Michael's Freedom, demonstrating that even a upbeat song becomes soporific in her hands.
10.22: Kanye's still performing. Although for all we know he stops the minute the camera's off of him.
10.23: And just when you thought it couldn't get worse at the FOB party, they've now been joined by Gym Class Heroes. See, two wrongs don't make a right.
10.23: Jamie Foxx wants us to make some noise. He also wants to know who won the Kid Rock/Tommy Lee fight, but did anyone really win in such an ugly situation. Apart from the MTV PR department, that is.
10.24: And the Best New Artist is... Gym Class Heroes? We'd even be dubious about using the word 'New' to describe them, let alone the other two words in that title.
10.27: Fiddy is partying like it's his birthday. Again.
10.28: Mark's still up on his podium, but he's cut short for Mary J Blige, who seems to command a remarkable amount of respect for someone of such dullness.
10.29: She's introducing Dre. Fortunately the organisers remembered to put him on the bill this time around. Last year they forgot about Dre. Arf!
10.30: Dre is wearing a blue jumper and sweat pants. You'd think he'd have got a bit dressed up, this is on telly after all.
10.31: He's announcing the award for best video, we don't think you need us to point out the irony of MTV having this award. It goes to Rihanna, who's back in her pink part dress/part scaffolding outfit.
10.33: P Diddy is worryied about the problem of rock 'n' roll violence. We're more worried about P Diddy to be honest.
10.36: Even more ads. Although as this is the best chance to see music on MTV, albeit in snippets, we probably shouldn't complain.
10.39: "The biggest performance of the night", it's Timbaland, Timberlake and, umm, Timbertardo.
10.41: It probably is the best performance of the night. But bearing in mind what's gone before, this doesn't necessamean it's actually any good.
10.42: Although once we get onto The Way I Are it all improves dramatically, which is often the case in real life as well.
10.44: And here's Justin, flirting with the audience and doing the jumpy footwork thing which has seen him acclaimed as a great dancer, rather than someone who suffers from restless legs syndrome as is clearly the case.
10.45: He's doing something with hankies, so if this pop lark dries up for him then he'll be able to work as a children's entertainer, which is something at least.
10.46: Nelly Furtardo songs are always a lot better on record than in the flesh, mainly because you don't see how awkward and uncomfortable she looks with her new, focus group enforced image.
10.47: And, umm, that appears to be it. That really was the big finish. Even the Brits manages to have more of a climax than this. Hell, even the TV Quick awards end with a better sense of closure.
10.48: And what have we learnt? As usual nothing that we couldn't have gleaned by watching the highlights on YouTube instead. Oh well.
Labels: Awards, Live, MTV, VMA
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Mercury Music Live
8.59: Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the Mercury Music Prize! Exciting stuff we're sure you'll agree. The bookies certainly do, although their interest has shifted from taking bets on whose going to win the prize to exactly how sozzled Amy Winehouse will be and exactly how many wineglasses she'll smash when she collapses in a spectacular heap over her table.
9.01: Jamie T reckons that "Everyone's a winner". Jamie obviously went to one of those special schools that don't believe in competition and gave everyone a prize for competing in the egg and spoon race, no matter whether their egg ended up smashed into the ground or not.
9.02: Jools Holland and Jo Whiley are hosting. It might only be ninety minutes but it's going to be a long night.
9.03: Opening the show are "The truly fabulous View", according to the lying Jo Whiley. If their album wins then you might as well give the prize to an indie anthems compilation album, such is the nature of their work. Even calling it derivative would be kind given that they so blatantly rip off the work of other bands, but without even managing to give their hooks the justice they deserve.
9.07: "A fantastic start to the evening, we've just enjoyed The View", announced Jools, from atop the stage, proving that lying isn't confined to Jo.
9.08: A run down of the nominated albums, along with some spectacularly trite observations from Jo follows. The audience, consisting mainly of record industry types who have an eye on the bottom line and little else, are encouraged to make some noise where they deem it necessary. If this has any baring on the result, Amy Winehouse or Jamie T are likely to claim the prize.
9.11: Maps doing It Will Find You. We have yet to investigate Maps properly yet, which may explain why we spend a large part of our life getting lost. Arf, etc. We like what we've heard, but there's about as much chance of this winning as there is of Maps blokey turning up in the Heat Spotted section.
9.15: They have let him come up on stage, however, to get his award for his nomination. Bless.
9.16: It's Jamie T. Lahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhn-daaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhn!
9.17: Oh well, he's not doing that one, plumpuing for Salvador instead. Which is perhaps just as well, given his current fondness for ruining Sheila whenever he performs it live these days. Jamie's probably in with a shout, and we should consider ourselves thankful that the shortlist came out when it did. Had they waited a month or so later then his slot would likely have been taken by Kate Nash. Shudder.
9.19: Jamie gives a speech when he receives his nomination award. Thanking the fans who had no input in his nomination whatsoever.
9.20: It's New Young Pony Club, who are still our tip for the prize, despite the bookies and, indeed, the public's lack of enthusiasm for them. And their belief that they can carve out a career simply by releasing Ice Cream over and over again. Here they show a bit of variety by doing The Bomb instead, with some slightly poor vocals. Presumably they think this is going out on a commercial network and Ice Cream'll turn up soundtracking half the adverts in the break anyway.
9.22: But she does have good hair. Not that the watching industry types look too impressed. The main thought thst appears to be crossing their minds is "Hmm, I wonder what's for desert?"
9.23: Ice Cream? No, please yourselves then.
9.24: Jo is joined by Charles Hazlewood, who does conducting, apparently, and is one of the judges, and Adrian Edmondson, who is there for no reason whatsoever, particularly as his appearance on Celebrity Fame Academy clearly makes him ineligible to have any opinion on music whatsoever.
9.26: Fortunately he doesn't get to say a lot as Jo is more interested in getting the inside skinny from the judge. "We haven't made any decisions yet". Hooray for insightful journalism!
9.27: Just like this. Ahem.
9.28: Ade wants to perform with either Young Knives or Bat for Lashes. We are finding out these exciting nuggets of information as Jo desperately fills by asking the first questions that come into her head, no matter how inane or dull.
9.29: The new Young Knives single sounds like Carter: The Unstoppable Sex Machine, the one they're performing her, The Decision, sounds like British Sea Power performed by people who don't really like British Sea Power that much.
9.31: If the judges have a desperate urge to appear quirky they might go for this, but it seems more likely they'll want the watching world to consider them a group of people who can actually get girl/boyfriends.
9.33: Bat for Lashes, who is lazily described by journalists as a cross between Kate Bush and Bjork, mainly because she sounds like a cross between Kate Bush and Bjork, is the sort of artist it's easier to admire than love. We saw her do a gig earlier this year and, while we appreciated it, we're not sure we actually enjoyed it that much.
9.35: She's dressed like a peacock. It's hard to know how such a blatant display of tail prowess will affect the judges decisions.
9.36: She's probably got a good chance, as it is a good album. Just not one that you'd actually want to listen to very often.
9.37: The Arctic Monkeys are speaking from Tokyo. They are being Northern. The crazy, one trick, pointless wags.
9.38: As they can't be there to perform, rather than blessing us with not seeing them do a track, we get Teddy Picker from their Glastonbury set. Apparently the sound was so awful at the festival that only those right down the front could actually hear them. We doubt the rest of the audience realised how lucky they were.
9.40: And surely any song that references Duran Duran's Save a Prayer which isn't actually Save a Prayer is awful by definition?
9.41: Ffion Regan is up next. Until now we thought he was a girl. This is why we should bother our arse and actually do some research.
9.42: It's pleasant enough. If you like being bored to tears by acoustic guitar dullness, that is.
9.43: His hair is providing some entertainment, looking much like the Winehouse's would if she was too lazy to actually put it up. A male version of Amy's do... Would that be a He-hive then?
9.45: Seriously! It's like he's got a loaf of bread on his head!
9.45: He thanked them for providing him with a drawbridge. The award is small, he must have a tiny moat.
9.46: Jo is with The Young Knives and Natasha Bat for Lashes. There's always a good reason why musicians sing and play rather than speak.
9.48: One of Young Knives is debunking the celebrity experience. This would be more interesting if it was coming from someone who had actually experienced the celebrity experience.
9.49: Nat reckons that Ffion was really brave for going on stage with just a guitar. She must have a high cowardness threshold.
9.50: Dizzee Rascal is doing Flex with a badly moustachioed horn section. Of course, calling it a badly moustachioed horn section implies there's such a thing as a well moustachioed horn section
9.51: There isn't, of course.
9.52: Could Dizzee do the double? Probably not, but the Mercury organisers do like to make a vague nod towards being street each year and the Lethal Bizzle album came out to late to be included. It's a shame that his inclusion does smack of tokenism, though, as the album is ace. Even the track with Lily Allen on. We know! What are the chances!
9.53: Although for some reason tracks that involve Lily Allen are always better than those by Lily Allen. Probably her lack of creative input.
9.54: But we digress, Lily wasn't nominated. Thankfully.
9.55: It's Amy! And she's actually performing! Or fiddling with her micstand at least.
9.55: And looking slightly terrified. Unsurprisingly.
9.56: Although it's hard to tell as she's so emaciated she's practically hidden by the stand.
9.57: But she's performing Love is a Losing Game with a delicate touch and a voice that reminds you why she sold records before she became a car-crash.
9.57: The room is so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Or a popstar collapse.
9.58: She did seem unsure what to do after she was given her award though.
9.59: Basquiat Strings. Jazz. Urgh. More impressive hair though. We thought these awards were sponspored by Nationwide these days, not V05.
10.01: It's still going on.
10.02: And on.
10.03: Finally!
10.04: We love the Klaxons more in principle than in practice, but Golden Skans is still all kinds of aceness. And you have to admire anyone who'll go on telly dressed like they're on their way to a Star Trek convention but who can't afford to buy official replica uniforms and have had to make their own versions using their mums' old dresses.
10.05: We bet they'll be hopping mad if they don't win though! Arf!
10.06: Because, umm, Jamie's broken his foot and is wearing a cast. Just in case you didn't know.
10.07: Jo is back with Ade and Neil McCormack who writes about music for the Telegraph and once attempted to release a single called People I Don't Know Are Trying To Kill Me shortly after the 7/7 attacks in London, thus making him even less qualified to discuss music than Ade.
10.08: And he's happily proving that point every time he opens his mouth.
10.09: Although, of course, as a Telegraph journalist he does represent the target audience of the prize a lot better than we do. Because we actually like music.
10.10: A look back at past winners of the prize. Yes, they did give it to M People one year. We'd skip over that particular decision if we were them.
10.11: We'd forgotten that Gomez won in 1998. Or, indeed, that they'd even existed.
10.13: We have more sympathy for Neil's song now. We don't know him but we'd really like to kill him, a feeling which grows more and more with each utterance that drops from his mouth.
10.15: Rupert, who knows the odds, looks exactly like you'd expect a Rupert to look like.
10.16: He claims that Bat for Lashes are the favourite, with Amy, Jamie and the Klaxons following closely behind.
10.17: And we're back with Jools, ready for the big announcement.
10.18: And we're reminded, again, of the nominated albums. Do they think we're goldfish?
10.19: Well, there always is something a bit fishy about these awards.
10.20: And the winner is... Klaxons!
10.20: Good thing we never actually put a bet on NYPC then.
10.21: "This really is too much!". They look extremely happy to have won the prize. How MDMA-zing.
10.22: One of them is wearing a phone on his head, and they've resorted to whooing into the microphone in lieu of making a speech.
10.22: Jo has just used the word 'fierce'. Oh dear.
10.23: They're cheering on the steps, successfully drowning out the nonsense spilling from Neil's mouth. Truly they deserve an award for that alone!
10.23: Judge Lauren Laverne attempts to explain why they won, but was disturbed by a Klaxon, who merrily pushed her out of the way, despite being a bit pregnant.
10.24: Lauren, that is, not the Klaxon.
10.25: They still seem overwhelmed by the whole thing, and are unable to hold a microphone properly, let alone string a coherent speech together.
10.26: And another chance to see them do Golden Skans. From earlier, it seems unlikely they could hold an instrument right now, let alone hold it together.
10.28: And apparently Amy Winehouse won the Popjustice Music Prize for Rehab. She'll probably pop down to their party later and put the twenty quid straight behind the bar. And why not.
10.29: And that's that. We're happy with their choice. Which is something of a first.
9.01: Jamie T reckons that "Everyone's a winner". Jamie obviously went to one of those special schools that don't believe in competition and gave everyone a prize for competing in the egg and spoon race, no matter whether their egg ended up smashed into the ground or not.
9.02: Jools Holland and Jo Whiley are hosting. It might only be ninety minutes but it's going to be a long night.
9.03: Opening the show are "The truly fabulous View", according to the lying Jo Whiley. If their album wins then you might as well give the prize to an indie anthems compilation album, such is the nature of their work. Even calling it derivative would be kind given that they so blatantly rip off the work of other bands, but without even managing to give their hooks the justice they deserve.
9.07: "A fantastic start to the evening, we've just enjoyed The View", announced Jools, from atop the stage, proving that lying isn't confined to Jo.
9.08: A run down of the nominated albums, along with some spectacularly trite observations from Jo follows. The audience, consisting mainly of record industry types who have an eye on the bottom line and little else, are encouraged to make some noise where they deem it necessary. If this has any baring on the result, Amy Winehouse or Jamie T are likely to claim the prize.
9.11: Maps doing It Will Find You. We have yet to investigate Maps properly yet, which may explain why we spend a large part of our life getting lost. Arf, etc. We like what we've heard, but there's about as much chance of this winning as there is of Maps blokey turning up in the Heat Spotted section.
9.15: They have let him come up on stage, however, to get his award for his nomination. Bless.
9.16: It's Jamie T. Lahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhn-daaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhn!
9.17: Oh well, he's not doing that one, plumpuing for Salvador instead. Which is perhaps just as well, given his current fondness for ruining Sheila whenever he performs it live these days. Jamie's probably in with a shout, and we should consider ourselves thankful that the shortlist came out when it did. Had they waited a month or so later then his slot would likely have been taken by Kate Nash. Shudder.
9.19: Jamie gives a speech when he receives his nomination award. Thanking the fans who had no input in his nomination whatsoever.
9.20: It's New Young Pony Club, who are still our tip for the prize, despite the bookies and, indeed, the public's lack of enthusiasm for them. And their belief that they can carve out a career simply by releasing Ice Cream over and over again. Here they show a bit of variety by doing The Bomb instead, with some slightly poor vocals. Presumably they think this is going out on a commercial network and Ice Cream'll turn up soundtracking half the adverts in the break anyway.
9.22: But she does have good hair. Not that the watching industry types look too impressed. The main thought thst appears to be crossing their minds is "Hmm, I wonder what's for desert?"
9.23: Ice Cream? No, please yourselves then.
9.24: Jo is joined by Charles Hazlewood, who does conducting, apparently, and is one of the judges, and Adrian Edmondson, who is there for no reason whatsoever, particularly as his appearance on Celebrity Fame Academy clearly makes him ineligible to have any opinion on music whatsoever.
9.26: Fortunately he doesn't get to say a lot as Jo is more interested in getting the inside skinny from the judge. "We haven't made any decisions yet". Hooray for insightful journalism!
9.27: Just like this. Ahem.
9.28: Ade wants to perform with either Young Knives or Bat for Lashes. We are finding out these exciting nuggets of information as Jo desperately fills by asking the first questions that come into her head, no matter how inane or dull.
9.29: The new Young Knives single sounds like Carter: The Unstoppable Sex Machine, the one they're performing her, The Decision, sounds like British Sea Power performed by people who don't really like British Sea Power that much.
9.31: If the judges have a desperate urge to appear quirky they might go for this, but it seems more likely they'll want the watching world to consider them a group of people who can actually get girl/boyfriends.
9.33: Bat for Lashes, who is lazily described by journalists as a cross between Kate Bush and Bjork, mainly because she sounds like a cross between Kate Bush and Bjork, is the sort of artist it's easier to admire than love. We saw her do a gig earlier this year and, while we appreciated it, we're not sure we actually enjoyed it that much.
9.35: She's dressed like a peacock. It's hard to know how such a blatant display of tail prowess will affect the judges decisions.
9.36: She's probably got a good chance, as it is a good album. Just not one that you'd actually want to listen to very often.
9.37: The Arctic Monkeys are speaking from Tokyo. They are being Northern. The crazy, one trick, pointless wags.
9.38: As they can't be there to perform, rather than blessing us with not seeing them do a track, we get Teddy Picker from their Glastonbury set. Apparently the sound was so awful at the festival that only those right down the front could actually hear them. We doubt the rest of the audience realised how lucky they were.
9.40: And surely any song that references Duran Duran's Save a Prayer which isn't actually Save a Prayer is awful by definition?
9.41: Ffion Regan is up next. Until now we thought he was a girl. This is why we should bother our arse and actually do some research.
9.42: It's pleasant enough. If you like being bored to tears by acoustic guitar dullness, that is.
9.43: His hair is providing some entertainment, looking much like the Winehouse's would if she was too lazy to actually put it up. A male version of Amy's do... Would that be a He-hive then?
9.45: Seriously! It's like he's got a loaf of bread on his head!
9.45: He thanked them for providing him with a drawbridge. The award is small, he must have a tiny moat.
9.46: Jo is with The Young Knives and Natasha Bat for Lashes. There's always a good reason why musicians sing and play rather than speak.
9.48: One of Young Knives is debunking the celebrity experience. This would be more interesting if it was coming from someone who had actually experienced the celebrity experience.
9.49: Nat reckons that Ffion was really brave for going on stage with just a guitar. She must have a high cowardness threshold.
9.50: Dizzee Rascal is doing Flex with a badly moustachioed horn section. Of course, calling it a badly moustachioed horn section implies there's such a thing as a well moustachioed horn section
9.51: There isn't, of course.
9.52: Could Dizzee do the double? Probably not, but the Mercury organisers do like to make a vague nod towards being street each year and the Lethal Bizzle album came out to late to be included. It's a shame that his inclusion does smack of tokenism, though, as the album is ace. Even the track with Lily Allen on. We know! What are the chances!
9.53: Although for some reason tracks that involve Lily Allen are always better than those by Lily Allen. Probably her lack of creative input.
9.54: But we digress, Lily wasn't nominated. Thankfully.
9.55: It's Amy! And she's actually performing! Or fiddling with her micstand at least.
9.55: And looking slightly terrified. Unsurprisingly.
9.56: Although it's hard to tell as she's so emaciated she's practically hidden by the stand.
9.57: But she's performing Love is a Losing Game with a delicate touch and a voice that reminds you why she sold records before she became a car-crash.
9.57: The room is so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Or a popstar collapse.
9.58: She did seem unsure what to do after she was given her award though.
9.59: Basquiat Strings. Jazz. Urgh. More impressive hair though. We thought these awards were sponspored by Nationwide these days, not V05.
10.01: It's still going on.
10.02: And on.
10.03: Finally!
10.04: We love the Klaxons more in principle than in practice, but Golden Skans is still all kinds of aceness. And you have to admire anyone who'll go on telly dressed like they're on their way to a Star Trek convention but who can't afford to buy official replica uniforms and have had to make their own versions using their mums' old dresses.
10.05: We bet they'll be hopping mad if they don't win though! Arf!
10.06: Because, umm, Jamie's broken his foot and is wearing a cast. Just in case you didn't know.
10.07: Jo is back with Ade and Neil McCormack who writes about music for the Telegraph and once attempted to release a single called People I Don't Know Are Trying To Kill Me shortly after the 7/7 attacks in London, thus making him even less qualified to discuss music than Ade.
10.08: And he's happily proving that point every time he opens his mouth.
10.09: Although, of course, as a Telegraph journalist he does represent the target audience of the prize a lot better than we do. Because we actually like music.
10.10: A look back at past winners of the prize. Yes, they did give it to M People one year. We'd skip over that particular decision if we were them.
10.11: We'd forgotten that Gomez won in 1998. Or, indeed, that they'd even existed.
10.13: We have more sympathy for Neil's song now. We don't know him but we'd really like to kill him, a feeling which grows more and more with each utterance that drops from his mouth.
10.15: Rupert, who knows the odds, looks exactly like you'd expect a Rupert to look like.
10.16: He claims that Bat for Lashes are the favourite, with Amy, Jamie and the Klaxons following closely behind.
10.17: And we're back with Jools, ready for the big announcement.
10.18: And we're reminded, again, of the nominated albums. Do they think we're goldfish?
10.19: Well, there always is something a bit fishy about these awards.
10.20: And the winner is... Klaxons!
10.20: Good thing we never actually put a bet on NYPC then.
10.21: "This really is too much!". They look extremely happy to have won the prize. How MDMA-zing.
10.22: One of them is wearing a phone on his head, and they've resorted to whooing into the microphone in lieu of making a speech.
10.22: Jo has just used the word 'fierce'. Oh dear.
10.23: They're cheering on the steps, successfully drowning out the nonsense spilling from Neil's mouth. Truly they deserve an award for that alone!
10.23: Judge Lauren Laverne attempts to explain why they won, but was disturbed by a Klaxon, who merrily pushed her out of the way, despite being a bit pregnant.
10.24: Lauren, that is, not the Klaxon.
10.25: They still seem overwhelmed by the whole thing, and are unable to hold a microphone properly, let alone string a coherent speech together.
10.26: And another chance to see them do Golden Skans. From earlier, it seems unlikely they could hold an instrument right now, let alone hold it together.
10.28: And apparently Amy Winehouse won the Popjustice Music Prize for Rehab. She'll probably pop down to their party later and put the twenty quid straight behind the bar. And why not.
10.29: And that's that. We're happy with their choice. Which is something of a first.
Labels: Amy Winehouse, Arctic Monkeys, Awards, Basquiat Strings, Bat For Lashes, Ffion Regan, Jamie T, Klaxons, Live, Maps, Mercury Music Prize, New Young Pony Club, View, Young Knives
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Live Earth: Live - Hour Nine: 22:33PM
It's All My Life and the Foo Fighters as we hit the penultimate act on the days long, long trek through the somewhat random world of globally aware acts. We're not quite sure when they achieved 'national treasure' status, but when even our parents are going to see them live they must be doing something to get mainstream acceptance with out actually sounding like a mainstream band. Although certainly Dave Grohl's reluctance to go for more than a month without dressing up in women's clothes would undoubtedly endear him to the lazy comedy section of British society - Little Britain, we're looking at you here - but while you could almost expect the BBC to have cut Metallica's set short, it seems unthinkable that they'd do the same to the Foos, even though they don't exactly have many more tunes than the hairy ones - well, hairier - and so it was. From All my Life they launch straight into My Hero - perhaps this was the point that the Brits took them to their hurt, their theme song for the 'hilarious' Ardal O'Hanlon sitcom - before Times Like These gets dedicated to Al Gore, with Dave reading out the lyrics like they're a work of great poetry, rather than a slightly banal collection of cliches which really don't work without the music. Best of You and Everlong close the set, along with a bit of spitting from Dave. "Should we just play all night??", asks Dave. The crowd roar their approval and you almost begin to think it might be a good idea.
And so, like Planet Earth itself, this whole thing must eventually come to an end, but not before Terence Stamp makes one of the the more awkward on stage appearances we've ever had the misfortune to witness. There to introduce Madonna, he also attempts to get across a number of environmental messages, but for an actor he's remarkably uncomfortable with the act of public speaking, coming across embarrassingly stilted and awkward. Eventually he gets to the point of his appearance, introducing the big switch off, where Wembley turns off all of its non-essential lights as a symbolic gesture, although given that all these lights had been burning solidly for the last ten hours a thirty second switch off couldn't have been anything but. Interestingly, along with emergency lighting, fire exit signs and similar, Terence's spotlight counted as essential lighting. Whodve thought? But with all that out of the way, it's time for the headline act, Madonna.
She opens with Hey You, her song written especially for the event and dear god, it was bad. We'd heard all the rumours but even they hadn't prepared us for exactly how awful it was going to be, she even roped in a school choir to provide backing vocals FFS. The lyrics to the song flashed up behind her, with all the S's replaced by dollar signs. She thinks she's being subversive, bless. Although frankly, if we'd written those lyrics we'd be doing our best to distract attention from them, rather than highlight them.
Still, with that out of her system, Madonna can now actually entertain. "Motherfuckers", she declares, somewhat rudely, "I want the whole place bouncing". Despite her lack of manners the crowd complies as she launches into a guitarry, thrashy, really rather ace version of Ray of Light, about a million times better than the original, which about as bouncy as a gravel pit. Her dancers are also dancing like we tend to do in clubs, only they actually look good doing it. This is probably because, unlike us, they're actually doing it in time.
Her "Romany friends", Gogol Bordello to the rest of us, are roped in for La Isla Bonita, but while Ray of Light's reworking was ace, La Isla Bonita ends up sounding more like a holiday band attempting a not very good Madonna cover. This segues into Hung Up for which a now skirtless Madonna, looking like the mum of the slutty Sandy in Grease, dances inside a disco cake stand, humps a boombox and does some bad breakdancing before her set and, indeed, the show itself comes to an end. She thanks London, hands over to New York and buggers off, leaving Wembley to try and work out exactly whether what they've just seen was actually worth splashing out on.
So, we've just spent nine hours of our life watching the Live Earth concert and, on first impressions at any rate, the world does not appear to be saved. We're beginning to think we might have wasted our time...
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: Unicorn, the giant planet eating robot from Transformers: The Movie, possibly the finest ninety minute commercial ever to grace cinema screens..
And so, like Planet Earth itself, this whole thing must eventually come to an end, but not before Terence Stamp makes one of the the more awkward on stage appearances we've ever had the misfortune to witness. There to introduce Madonna, he also attempts to get across a number of environmental messages, but for an actor he's remarkably uncomfortable with the act of public speaking, coming across embarrassingly stilted and awkward. Eventually he gets to the point of his appearance, introducing the big switch off, where Wembley turns off all of its non-essential lights as a symbolic gesture, although given that all these lights had been burning solidly for the last ten hours a thirty second switch off couldn't have been anything but. Interestingly, along with emergency lighting, fire exit signs and similar, Terence's spotlight counted as essential lighting. Whodve thought? But with all that out of the way, it's time for the headline act, Madonna.
She opens with Hey You, her song written especially for the event and dear god, it was bad. We'd heard all the rumours but even they hadn't prepared us for exactly how awful it was going to be, she even roped in a school choir to provide backing vocals FFS. The lyrics to the song flashed up behind her, with all the S's replaced by dollar signs. She thinks she's being subversive, bless. Although frankly, if we'd written those lyrics we'd be doing our best to distract attention from them, rather than highlight them.
Still, with that out of her system, Madonna can now actually entertain. "Motherfuckers", she declares, somewhat rudely, "I want the whole place bouncing". Despite her lack of manners the crowd complies as she launches into a guitarry, thrashy, really rather ace version of Ray of Light, about a million times better than the original, which about as bouncy as a gravel pit. Her dancers are also dancing like we tend to do in clubs, only they actually look good doing it. This is probably because, unlike us, they're actually doing it in time.
Her "Romany friends", Gogol Bordello to the rest of us, are roped in for La Isla Bonita, but while Ray of Light's reworking was ace, La Isla Bonita ends up sounding more like a holiday band attempting a not very good Madonna cover. This segues into Hung Up for which a now skirtless Madonna, looking like the mum of the slutty Sandy in Grease, dances inside a disco cake stand, humps a boombox and does some bad breakdancing before her set and, indeed, the show itself comes to an end. She thanks London, hands over to New York and buggers off, leaving Wembley to try and work out exactly whether what they've just seen was actually worth splashing out on.
So, we've just spent nine hours of our life watching the Live Earth concert and, on first impressions at any rate, the world does not appear to be saved. We're beginning to think we might have wasted our time...
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: Unicorn, the giant planet eating robot from Transformers: The Movie, possibly the finest ninety minute commercial ever to grace cinema screens..
Labels: Live, Live Earth, Live Earth: Live
Live Earth: Live - Hour Eight: 21:20PM
It's the Beastie Boys, fighting for our right to recyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyycle! Or something. Dressed in matching green suits as they kick off with Sure Shot the Beasties are definitely beginning to wear the 'Boys' tag somewhat loosely. They're beginning to resemble the scene in a bodyswap comedy where the teenage son, now in his dad's body, attempts to do a bit of hip-hop. Fortunately looks aren't everything and they still have 'it', something more than evidenced as they give us Intergalactic, and the rest of their set might have been equally ace, but we don't know as the BBC once again cut away from it - during the false ending as well - to show us something else! Now, they were showing us Shakira in Hamburg and we rarely moan about the appearance of Shakira, but still! Does the BBc really feel that anything outside the narrow remit of standard indie rock and self-obsessed acoustica is going to immediately turn off the audience? No matter, Shakira was doing Hips Don't Lie and, frankly, it doesn't take a working knowledge of the highway code to read the signs of her body.
Keeping the body count high, next up is Pussycat Dolls, doing their bit for global warming by writhing around in their pants, doing their best to get everyone in the room all het up as they exhort us to loosen their and, indeed, our own Buttons. Good advice as global temperatures rise. They follow this with the dull, whiny and insipid Stickwitu, a song which doesn't really tie in with the feisty, empowered, man-eating image they like to get across. And it's hard to look convincingly soppy and romantic when you've got a camel toe. They end with Don't Cha and, as we've said before, when they ask if they wish our girlfriend was hot like them, the answer is invariably a definite No! They're a bit too skanky, a bit too try hard and a lot too desperate to really be girlfriend material. And the whole desperate to break up a relationship thing doesn't really bode too well for the whole long term thing. But a good one night stand though. Both that performance and in general.
A trip to Sydney to see Toni Collette and the Finish doing a cover of Children of the Revolution. She's got a decent voice and it's a good enough cover, but it's not really much better than what you'd expect to see in the early rounds of the X Factor.
Live to Rio to see Xuxa in action, who not only is surrounded by a million drummers, but also gets one hell of a score in Scrabble. Children are throwing some street moves behind her, there's a rainbow bridge, majorettes, someone swinging on a trapeze and it all looks a bit like watching a foreign kids TV programme. Certainly it looks like a lot more fun than anything else we've seen so far.
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: That odd four toed statue from Lost, clomping around the Island, frightening polar bears and crushing mysterious hatches..
Keeping the body count high, next up is Pussycat Dolls, doing their bit for global warming by writhing around in their pants, doing their best to get everyone in the room all het up as they exhort us to loosen their and, indeed, our own Buttons. Good advice as global temperatures rise. They follow this with the dull, whiny and insipid Stickwitu, a song which doesn't really tie in with the feisty, empowered, man-eating image they like to get across. And it's hard to look convincingly soppy and romantic when you've got a camel toe. They end with Don't Cha and, as we've said before, when they ask if they wish our girlfriend was hot like them, the answer is invariably a definite No! They're a bit too skanky, a bit too try hard and a lot too desperate to really be girlfriend material. And the whole desperate to break up a relationship thing doesn't really bode too well for the whole long term thing. But a good one night stand though. Both that performance and in general.
A trip to Sydney to see Toni Collette and the Finish doing a cover of Children of the Revolution. She's got a decent voice and it's a good enough cover, but it's not really much better than what you'd expect to see in the early rounds of the X Factor.
Live to Rio to see Xuxa in action, who not only is surrounded by a million drummers, but also gets one hell of a score in Scrabble. Children are throwing some street moves behind her, there's a rainbow bridge, majorettes, someone swinging on a trapeze and it all looks a bit like watching a foreign kids TV programme. Certainly it looks like a lot more fun than anything else we've seen so far.
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: That odd four toed statue from Lost, clomping around the Island, frightening polar bears and crushing mysterious hatches..
Labels: Live, Live Earth, Live Earth: Live
Live Earth: Live - Hour Seven: 20:28PM
Ricky Gervais is on stage to introduce Rob Reiner - in his Marti DiBerg guise - who is there to introduce Spinal Tap who are there to, well, we're not quite sure really. Spinal Tap is genuinely an ace movie, but it works because it's played entirely straight. In a live environment, however, there's a tendency towards painting with broad strokes, to signpost the jokes and generally miss the point of what made the whole thing successful in the first place, and so it was with the Tap's reunion. Opening with Stonehenge, along with a rehash of the Stonehenge joke from the film which didn't really work, although it's always nice to see dwarves dancing, we then got a new song, Warmer Than Hell, written specially for the show, which didn't really work, before then, presumably, going on to Big Bottom, with virtually all the bass players who could be found backstage. This may or may not have worked, we may never know as the BBC decided to cut away at this point to show Rhianna in Tokyo not, as you might expect, doing Umbrella, promoting the de rigour tool should the weather continue to go tits up , but doing SOS which does, at least, fit in with the slogan. Now, much as we love Rhianna, and we do, we don't quite see the point in cutting from something live to something which was recorded hours ago and could be shown at any point in the evening. But what do we know? We don't work in television, something which is surely television's loss. Or is it their gain? Probably the latter, come to think of it.
And so, because they've asked him and he's got to appear somewhere and all the jobs selling t-shirts have already been taken, James Blunt is, alas, next, although we do have one - one! - good thing to say about his set. It's been a while, thankfully, since we've seen him, but he's been spending his time constructively, stockpiling enough testosterone to grow a halfway passable beard. Bless. He opens with Wise Men while owls appear on the backdrop - do you see what they've done there? - followed by Wild World. This was a somewhat odd choice of song for him to cover, given that even going to a Spongebob Squarepants theme park would be putting him outside his comfort zone. Wild for James is putting in the milk before the water. He does look absolutely terrified as he performs this song, perhaps because he's aware that every minute he spends in the public eye puts him one step closer to that beating he fully deserves. He closes with Same Mistake, but given that his mistake is 'being' James Blunt, it's one he can't help but keep making. And the good thing? He didn't do You're Beautiful, so we guess we should be vaguely grateful.
KT Tunstall turns up doing The Other Side of the World which, coincidentally enough, is exactly where we want her to be. Preferably in the watery part. She's also wearing a gold catsuit under her shorts and t-shirt, a bit like CSS' Lovefoxxx. Only rubbish. And entirely lacking sex appeal.
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: Godzilla angrily stomping down on his foot after the humans foolish attempt to bring an end to his reign of terror using nothing more than conventional weapons..
And so, because they've asked him and he's got to appear somewhere and all the jobs selling t-shirts have already been taken, James Blunt is, alas, next, although we do have one - one! - good thing to say about his set. It's been a while, thankfully, since we've seen him, but he's been spending his time constructively, stockpiling enough testosterone to grow a halfway passable beard. Bless. He opens with Wise Men while owls appear on the backdrop - do you see what they've done there? - followed by Wild World. This was a somewhat odd choice of song for him to cover, given that even going to a Spongebob Squarepants theme park would be putting him outside his comfort zone. Wild for James is putting in the milk before the water. He does look absolutely terrified as he performs this song, perhaps because he's aware that every minute he spends in the public eye puts him one step closer to that beating he fully deserves. He closes with Same Mistake, but given that his mistake is 'being' James Blunt, it's one he can't help but keep making. And the good thing? He didn't do You're Beautiful, so we guess we should be vaguely grateful.
KT Tunstall turns up doing The Other Side of the World which, coincidentally enough, is exactly where we want her to be. Preferably in the watery part. She's also wearing a gold catsuit under her shorts and t-shirt, a bit like CSS' Lovefoxxx. Only rubbish. And entirely lacking sex appeal.
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: Godzilla angrily stomping down on his foot after the humans foolish attempt to bring an end to his reign of terror using nothing more than conventional weapons..
Labels: Live, Live Earth, Live Earth: Live
Live Earth: Live - Hour Six: 19.36PM
And from the sublime to the ridiculous. Or Corrine Bailey Rae, as she's otherwise known, who opens with I'd Like To. Well, it is nearly tea time and the burger van operators were no doubt informed well in advance of her stage times so that they could prepare for the rush. As she performed the Live Earth pledges were scrolling along the screen behind her and it's a testament to how boring she is that we were actually trying to read them. Next up is a cover of Marvin Gaye's Mercy Mercy Me, for which she is joined by John Legend. Have we not suffered enough? Unsurprisingly, with the two of them involved the song because aural wallpaper, or a typical Corrine Bailey Rae song to put it another way. "Here's a song which hopefully you'll all know", is her somewhat threatening introduction to her last song, Put Your Records On and yes, we do all know it. Given it was played in every single shop we went into last summer we'd be hard pushed not to. But just remember there's a huge difference between knowing a song and liking it, Miss Rae. We'd rather have seen Linkin Park in Tokyo again, to be honest, that's how bad this was.
Terra Naomi doing Don't Say it's Possible is up next. We don't want to go all Nikki on you, but Who is she? Who is she?!? Is this really the best place to be breaking the new KT Tunstall/Melua hybrid who has all the presence of an unloved orphan at Christmas time? Apparently Al Gore booked her. Perhaps he's trying to get into her pants.
"We need your help for the next song", cried out the blokey, looking slightly sweaty in a manner reminiscent of withdrawal symptoms, "I don't care if you don't know the words, or the song, or you can't sing. I just want to fill this stadium with the sound of people singing as loud as they can". A dangerous proposition, asking the audience to sing any song they like, even more so if you happen to be Keane, but that's what Tom did as they opened with Somewhere Only We Know, the song that made us briefly think the band might actually be quite good,before bitter, bitter experience taught us otherwise. He stayed true to his word though, optimistically thrusting his microphone towards various sections of the crowd, each time being met with a deathly silence. "One more time!" he cried at the end. Just once would surely have been enough for him.
The keyboard blokey threw some rock shapes as they started up Is It Any Wonder, and they closed with Bedshaped, but as our Chinese turned up at this point we weren't paying much attention so we've got no idea what it was like. Alright, probably.
In Hamburg, Enrqiue Iglesias has been doing Bailamos, much to the delight of the crowd, who aren't even phased by the fact he's only wearing a hoodie and jeans and hasn't even made even the merest hint of effort for such a big event. He takes photos of himself using fans cameras, although it's not immediately obvious whether he actually gives them back.
The BBC aren't too sure about broadcasting Metallica, so we join them part of the way through Sad But True as the hairy rockers, sporting facial hair that would shame even the most ardent of their teenage fans, do 'heavy' for the crowd. If Bloc Party seemed out of place then these guys are like waking up to find penguins in Hull. The do Nothing Else Matters, AKA the one that your average punter might actually have heard of which even sparks a sing-a-long, but the BBC decide that that's more than enough metal for one night and shows us Crowded House in Sydney and Katie Melua in Hamburg. We think we'd have preferred Metallica.
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: An elephant lumbering despondently towards the elephant's graveyard. It's gait weighed down by the knowledge this is the last trip it'll ever make.
Terra Naomi doing Don't Say it's Possible is up next. We don't want to go all Nikki on you, but Who is she? Who is she?!? Is this really the best place to be breaking the new KT Tunstall/Melua hybrid who has all the presence of an unloved orphan at Christmas time? Apparently Al Gore booked her. Perhaps he's trying to get into her pants.
"We need your help for the next song", cried out the blokey, looking slightly sweaty in a manner reminiscent of withdrawal symptoms, "I don't care if you don't know the words, or the song, or you can't sing. I just want to fill this stadium with the sound of people singing as loud as they can". A dangerous proposition, asking the audience to sing any song they like, even more so if you happen to be Keane, but that's what Tom did as they opened with Somewhere Only We Know, the song that made us briefly think the band might actually be quite good,before bitter, bitter experience taught us otherwise. He stayed true to his word though, optimistically thrusting his microphone towards various sections of the crowd, each time being met with a deathly silence. "One more time!" he cried at the end. Just once would surely have been enough for him.
The keyboard blokey threw some rock shapes as they started up Is It Any Wonder, and they closed with Bedshaped, but as our Chinese turned up at this point we weren't paying much attention so we've got no idea what it was like. Alright, probably.
In Hamburg, Enrqiue Iglesias has been doing Bailamos, much to the delight of the crowd, who aren't even phased by the fact he's only wearing a hoodie and jeans and hasn't even made even the merest hint of effort for such a big event. He takes photos of himself using fans cameras, although it's not immediately obvious whether he actually gives them back.
The BBC aren't too sure about broadcasting Metallica, so we join them part of the way through Sad But True as the hairy rockers, sporting facial hair that would shame even the most ardent of their teenage fans, do 'heavy' for the crowd. If Bloc Party seemed out of place then these guys are like waking up to find penguins in Hull. The do Nothing Else Matters, AKA the one that your average punter might actually have heard of which even sparks a sing-a-long, but the BBC decide that that's more than enough metal for one night and shows us Crowded House in Sydney and Katie Melua in Hamburg. We think we'd have preferred Metallica.
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: An elephant lumbering despondently towards the elephant's graveyard. It's gait weighed down by the knowledge this is the last trip it'll ever make.
Labels: Live, Live Earth, Live Earth: Live
Live Earth: Live - Hour Five: 18.22PM
Chris Rock is given the task of both filling, then introducing the Red Hot Chili Peppers as they try and sort out some sound difficulties. Unfortunately the first thing he does, after telling the audience a lame Paris Hilton joke which the crowd doesn't react to quite as enthusiastically as he might have liked is to call them all "motherfuckers", which leads to the BBC quickly cutting back to Jonathan, who is now joined in his studio by Russell Brand and Alan Carr. Not that Ross is too bothered by the swearing, seemingly unaware that it happened and even asking his producer exactly what it was he said. The producer, perhaps wisely, doesn't enlighten him. Either way, the Beeb don't cut back to the stage until RHCP are safely ensconced upon it.
Opening with the sort of thing you'll love if you're a fan of instrumental masturbation and hate if you're actually, y'know, normal, Anthony eventually bounces on after the rest of the band have already been in a holding pattern for the last few minutes, looking a bit like a boxer in a hooded top with a picture of a pair of breasts on it - what a tit, etc - and some neon fingerless gloves, possibly in a nod to The Klaxons, or perhaps just a desperate attempt to appear interesting. They start with Don't Stop, before going into Dani California, and we've never been more thankful that the BBC are putting captions up naming the songs as all Red Hot Chili Pepper songs sound the same to us, which might be because we're getting old, but is probably more down to the fact that they're a band who've had one idea in their entire career which they've hammered into the ground at every occasion, refusing to vary their palette for anyone. After Flea speaks in tongues, and he's a man who still refuses to wear a shirt, protesting against something he no longer remembers - Possibly cotton - So Much I is next, a song which we've never heard before and we've never realised how truly blessed we must have been up until now. They close with By The Way. We actually like that one! Who'da thought!
Next up are the worthy, though still pretty entertaining Bloc Party, who open with Banquet with Kele in a Save the World t-shirt. That should make a difference. They seem slightly out of place on the bill, perhaps because they do actually appear to have a political conscience and are there before they believe in the message, rather than just seeing it as an advertising window. "The power is in our hands", he declares, talking about change, rather than a recent purchase of Duracell batteries. He looks very chuffed with himself as they launch into So Here We Are, a song whose entire existence is justified by the euphoric, life-affirming "I figured it out!" declaration at the end of the song. Despite them clearly being A Good Thing, the BBC promptly decides to cut away from them to show us Linkin Park doing What I've Done in Tokyo. No, we don't understand why, either.
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: A big cat. A tiger, perhaps, or possibly a puma, running through the wilderness as it chases after a gazelle, leaving a frightened selection of jungle creatures in its wake.
Opening with the sort of thing you'll love if you're a fan of instrumental masturbation and hate if you're actually, y'know, normal, Anthony eventually bounces on after the rest of the band have already been in a holding pattern for the last few minutes, looking a bit like a boxer in a hooded top with a picture of a pair of breasts on it - what a tit, etc - and some neon fingerless gloves, possibly in a nod to The Klaxons, or perhaps just a desperate attempt to appear interesting. They start with Don't Stop, before going into Dani California, and we've never been more thankful that the BBC are putting captions up naming the songs as all Red Hot Chili Pepper songs sound the same to us, which might be because we're getting old, but is probably more down to the fact that they're a band who've had one idea in their entire career which they've hammered into the ground at every occasion, refusing to vary their palette for anyone. After Flea speaks in tongues, and he's a man who still refuses to wear a shirt, protesting against something he no longer remembers - Possibly cotton - So Much I is next, a song which we've never heard before and we've never realised how truly blessed we must have been up until now. They close with By The Way. We actually like that one! Who'da thought!
Next up are the worthy, though still pretty entertaining Bloc Party, who open with Banquet with Kele in a Save the World t-shirt. That should make a difference. They seem slightly out of place on the bill, perhaps because they do actually appear to have a political conscience and are there before they believe in the message, rather than just seeing it as an advertising window. "The power is in our hands", he declares, talking about change, rather than a recent purchase of Duracell batteries. He looks very chuffed with himself as they launch into So Here We Are, a song whose entire existence is justified by the euphoric, life-affirming "I figured it out!" declaration at the end of the song. Despite them clearly being A Good Thing, the BBC promptly decides to cut away from them to show us Linkin Park doing What I've Done in Tokyo. No, we don't understand why, either.
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: A big cat. A tiger, perhaps, or possibly a puma, running through the wilderness as it chases after a gazelle, leaving a frightened selection of jungle creatures in its wake.
Labels: Live, Live Earth, Live Earth: Live
Live Earth: Live - Hour Four: 17.27PM
It's Fergie and The Others, or The Black Eyed Peas as they're otherwise known and, like Pink, they're determined to get the party started, launching into Pump It and acting like the own the stage which, given that they're the first act to demonstrate even a vague bit of life so far, and that Fergie seems to be on speed dial for these sorts of events, they might as well do. Will I Am demands that the crowd say "What's Up" to a variety of countries hosting Live Earth gigs, happily ignoring the fact that this is the sort of crowd who is more likely to say "What ho" than "What's up", he later attempts to get various parts of the crowd to "Make some noise", but given that he only holds out the microphone to them for a nanosecond you can tell he's not really too interested in what they've got to say. Fergie is wearing hotpants, both stylish and practical, particularly in a potential flood situation. Will steals a Brazilian flag from some in the crowd and wraps it around himself. He then says "motherfucking" during their performance of Let's Get It Started, although we imagine more people will complain about their demands to "Get retarded" in the same song. Oh well!
Fergie takes centre stage for a performance of Big Girls Don't Cry, which is a blatant lie. They do. Especially if you make fun of their weight. Not to be outdone, Will takes over to perform his own solo effort, a brand new song - possibly called Help us Out - which he's written about global warming. It is, to be blunt, no Where is the Love. Fortunately the next song is, and there's a hell of a lot of it pointing in the general direction of the band. The first highlight of the day.
John Legend turns up to perform Ordinary People on the piano. It's not immediately obvious why, it's hard to think of anything that people would want less. We can only assume asking the audience a badly worded question has caused this.
Duran Duran, also a regular at these sorts of gigs, are introduced by Geri Halliwell, who manages to shoehorn in a reference to the Spice Girls reunion. They open, unsurprisingly, with Planet Earth, after asking everyone in the crowd who didn't arrive by private jet to put their hands in the air. Fortunately all other forms of travel are entirely carbon neutral so everyone else is justified by feeling smug. Ahem. The sound, however, is terrible and ruins the start of Ordinary World, a song which we still think is rather heart-achingly lovely. The crowd at the arena may or may not agree, but they do wave their arms in the air, vaguely aware that this is the sort of thing you're supposed to do at gigs. Notorious is next, one of the more embarrassing selections from their back catalogue, even more so now that they're a bit, well, paunchy. It's hard to be notorious when you look like you'd rather be hanging around the garden centre at B & Q, and the fact they look like they're going through the motions isn't really helped by the knowledge that they were here doing much the same thing less than a week ago. They close with Girls on Film - we prefer the Girls Aloud version - and a vague exhortation to the crowd to make a difference. They tried, we guess, which is something.
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: A St Bernard, plodding dutifully through the snow covered mountain landscape, searching obediently, though not hopefully, for a stranded mountain climber.
Fergie takes centre stage for a performance of Big Girls Don't Cry, which is a blatant lie. They do. Especially if you make fun of their weight. Not to be outdone, Will takes over to perform his own solo effort, a brand new song - possibly called Help us Out - which he's written about global warming. It is, to be blunt, no Where is the Love. Fortunately the next song is, and there's a hell of a lot of it pointing in the general direction of the band. The first highlight of the day.
John Legend turns up to perform Ordinary People on the piano. It's not immediately obvious why, it's hard to think of anything that people would want less. We can only assume asking the audience a badly worded question has caused this.
Duran Duran, also a regular at these sorts of gigs, are introduced by Geri Halliwell, who manages to shoehorn in a reference to the Spice Girls reunion. They open, unsurprisingly, with Planet Earth, after asking everyone in the crowd who didn't arrive by private jet to put their hands in the air. Fortunately all other forms of travel are entirely carbon neutral so everyone else is justified by feeling smug. Ahem. The sound, however, is terrible and ruins the start of Ordinary World, a song which we still think is rather heart-achingly lovely. The crowd at the arena may or may not agree, but they do wave their arms in the air, vaguely aware that this is the sort of thing you're supposed to do at gigs. Notorious is next, one of the more embarrassing selections from their back catalogue, even more so now that they're a bit, well, paunchy. It's hard to be notorious when you look like you'd rather be hanging around the garden centre at B & Q, and the fact they look like they're going through the motions isn't really helped by the knowledge that they were here doing much the same thing less than a week ago. They close with Girls on Film - we prefer the Girls Aloud version - and a vague exhortation to the crowd to make a difference. They tried, we guess, which is something.
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: A St Bernard, plodding dutifully through the snow covered mountain landscape, searching obediently, though not hopefully, for a stranded mountain climber.
Labels: Live, Live Earth, Live Earth: Live
Live Earth: Live - Hour Three: 16.30PM
Thandie Newton is wheeled on to introduce Al Gore, who's going to be speaking to us live from Washington - What? Is it really that much hassle for him to get a transatlantic flight to say a quick hello - and bigs him up in the sort of manner which would make even a professional lickspittle feel might be going a bit too far. Unfortunately for Thandie, however, she gets to the end of her spiel only to discover that Al's not actually ready yet and she is forced to fill. "I have nothing whatsoever to say", she informs the crowd, before going on to prove this by going on to some ill thought out tangent about how everyone who's at the concerts or is vaguely environmental in some way is 200% more attractive than anyone else in the world. She namedrops George Clooney and eventually resorts to telling Knock Knock jokes before some kind soul takes pity on her and decides to show a film instead.
Al himself eventually gets onto the Washington stage and reads out the Live Earth pledge and encourages us all to sign up for it. We'd tell you what it was, but it's seven points of worthy yet unwieldy rhetoric and we lost interest after point one. Make Poverty History may have been a simplistic and poorly thought out campaign, but at least it's slogan and concept was easy to remember. Al then introduces Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks, before Jonathan rescues us. "I don't think we need to see that", he suggests, rightly, before going on to introduce Paolo Nutini on the Wembley stage instead. Out of the fire...
At least, we assume it's Paolo, it could quite easily be a drunken tramp from King's Cross Station who has somehow managed to wangle his way on stage. He opens with Allouway Grove, holding on to the mic stand for dear life and generally looking like he should be standing outside your local newsagents, fighting with the bins. He's not much of a chatter, his between song banter being limited to thanks, naming the songs and inquiring whether anyone in the audience might have 10p so he could have a cup of tea.
Last Request is next, apparently performed by Paolo in an offensive attempt at a stereotypical Indian accent, something which seems to amuse him no end, before he launches into a cover of It's a Wonderful Life. Impressively, and unlike most tramps who attempt this song, he knows all the words. Most don't even get beyond the first verse before they wet themselves and throw their empty cider cans at something. He closes with Jenny Don't be Hasty, for which he briefly lets go of the mic stand, the better to waggle his finger and admonish some unknown figure who only he can see. Finished, he quickly runs off. Possibly to be sick in a corner somewhere.
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: A small dog, the sort which is normally carried around by Paris Hilton, etc, who has been placed on the ground for the first time in its life and is unsure of how best to distribute its weight evenly.
Al himself eventually gets onto the Washington stage and reads out the Live Earth pledge and encourages us all to sign up for it. We'd tell you what it was, but it's seven points of worthy yet unwieldy rhetoric and we lost interest after point one. Make Poverty History may have been a simplistic and poorly thought out campaign, but at least it's slogan and concept was easy to remember. Al then introduces Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks, before Jonathan rescues us. "I don't think we need to see that", he suggests, rightly, before going on to introduce Paolo Nutini on the Wembley stage instead. Out of the fire...
At least, we assume it's Paolo, it could quite easily be a drunken tramp from King's Cross Station who has somehow managed to wangle his way on stage. He opens with Allouway Grove, holding on to the mic stand for dear life and generally looking like he should be standing outside your local newsagents, fighting with the bins. He's not much of a chatter, his between song banter being limited to thanks, naming the songs and inquiring whether anyone in the audience might have 10p so he could have a cup of tea.
Last Request is next, apparently performed by Paolo in an offensive attempt at a stereotypical Indian accent, something which seems to amuse him no end, before he launches into a cover of It's a Wonderful Life. Impressively, and unlike most tramps who attempt this song, he knows all the words. Most don't even get beyond the first verse before they wet themselves and throw their empty cider cans at something. He closes with Jenny Don't be Hasty, for which he briefly lets go of the mic stand, the better to waggle his finger and admonish some unknown figure who only he can see. Finished, he quickly runs off. Possibly to be sick in a corner somewhere.
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: A small dog, the sort which is normally carried around by Paris Hilton, etc, who has been placed on the ground for the first time in its life and is unsure of how best to distribute its weight evenly.
Labels: Live, Live Earth, Live Earth: Live
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
Live Earth: Live - Hour One: 14.35PM
SO, live from a somewhat empty looking Wembley stadium is the Beeb's coverage, fronted by, as always, Jonathan Ross, along with his backstage pixies Graham Norton, who plans on getting drunk - we don't blame him - and Edith Bowman. Where on earth is Fearne? Backstage work on these gigs is her main source of income! There'll be a cat fight later on, you mark our words. As always with these things, there's a lot of filler before the main event, with Ross having a chat to Jimmy Carr - "I'm mainly here to see the bands" and Razorlight - "I phoned up Friends of the Earth and said 'Hi, I'm Jonny Borell from a band called Razorlight'". We can only assume their response was something unbroadcastable. A brief run through some of the highlights of the other gigs - Wolfmother in Sydney, who seem bizarrely popular there. It must be something to do with the sun addling their brains; Rize in Tokyo, and if they show that clip again we're so going to do a Public Image Ltd joke; and some girl in Shanghai who we didn't recognise. Either the BBC are assuming the audience for this is massively culturally aware and so doesn't need captions or they're just being lazy. We assume the latter.
After some environmental chat in which it's revealed that environmental peril or not Ross will not be getting rid of his plasma TV and some words with the audience filing into Wembley - never a good idea as they all rush to demonstrate their ignorance - we have to endure some banter between Graham and Alan, while Edith chats to a couple of PR girls from Three who are keen not only to promote their product on a non-commercial network, but also to demonstrate their idiocy by not only telling her how desperate they were to see Snow Patrol and Genesis, but not actually being able to name any of their songs. Unfortunately this proves to be more entertaining than the actual opening of the show, which is Queen's Roger Taylor, Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Chad Smith and the Foo Fighters' Taylor Hawkins on stage together. That's right, three sodding drummers, who join the SOS All Stars who are, you've guessed it, even more bloody drummers. Yes, what is apparently "The greatest show on the planet, for the planet" considers the best way of opening a global megagig to be with the sound of drums. And not the Rogue Traders version. The interminable tattoo goes on for what feels like hours, but must only be about five minutes. It metamorphoses into SOS in morse code, before turning into the drum riff from We Will Rock You before finally grinding to a halt just as it threatens to get interesting.
Before the first actual band takes to the stage, Ross and Carr fill for a bit with some awkward chat and another chance to see some of the other acts around the world - Shakira, looking remarkably unlike Shakira it has to be said, in Hamburg, fellating a microphone as she performs Don't Bother with a sparkly pink guitar and some some random types in Sydney wearing "Say no to Nuclear Power" t-shirts. We soon, however, cut to Chris Moyles who is introducing the first act, which is surely a bad idea. After all, if ever there was an argument for giving up, letting the icecaps melt, the flood waters rise and the drowning of all of humanity then Chris is clearly it. He makes way for Genesis, fronted by, of course, Phil Collins, more testicle than man and someone so obnoxious that the world invented the drum machine with the sole purpose of giving him no reason to exist. Now, Genesis do have some good intros in their back catalogue - well, one, Invisible Touch - but a five minute long meandering stroll into Turn It On Again certainly isn't it, although a lot of wrinkled fans down the front seem to be very happy. And surely "Turn It Off" is the message they should be trying to get across?
Turn It On Again is followed by Land of Confusion, "Mildly appropriate for today", suggests Phil. Although we weren't aware that the lyrics pertained to unit shifting and profile raising by already established artists, but what do we know. It just made us pine for Alcazar.
Finally, they give us Invisible Touch, with Phil declaring "She will fuck up your life" in the first sweary moment of the day. He's just like Snoop Dogg, only white, unpopular, and allowed into the country for some unknown reason. He takes a trip down the catwalk and people cheer, presumably because his proximity to them makes him easier to hit.
After some filler - we have no idea what, we were writing this. Well not actually this part, but an earlier piece - Razorlight arrive on stage and their involvement demonstrates why Wembley has been kept partially empty: a lot of space is required for Jonny's ego. He's not wearing his usual all white look - you can't clean white's at 30 degrees so it'd be very off message - and is instead in black, sporting a lowcut top to show off his man boobs which he's inordinately proud of. They run through In The Morning, America and Los Angeles Waltz, with the sound irritatingly slightly out of synch with the pictures, which we assume is a technical fault as otherwise Jonny is really bad at miming, even when talking. He also swears, aren't they rebellious?
Finally for this hour, Nanutek - we think? - were performing some derivative indie with violins in the cold in Antartica. The penguins looked pissed off, as you would.
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: An unladen ant skipping through a forest glade with carefree abandon.
After some environmental chat in which it's revealed that environmental peril or not Ross will not be getting rid of his plasma TV and some words with the audience filing into Wembley - never a good idea as they all rush to demonstrate their ignorance - we have to endure some banter between Graham and Alan, while Edith chats to a couple of PR girls from Three who are keen not only to promote their product on a non-commercial network, but also to demonstrate their idiocy by not only telling her how desperate they were to see Snow Patrol and Genesis, but not actually being able to name any of their songs. Unfortunately this proves to be more entertaining than the actual opening of the show, which is Queen's Roger Taylor, Red Hot Chilli Peppers' Chad Smith and the Foo Fighters' Taylor Hawkins on stage together. That's right, three sodding drummers, who join the SOS All Stars who are, you've guessed it, even more bloody drummers. Yes, what is apparently "The greatest show on the planet, for the planet" considers the best way of opening a global megagig to be with the sound of drums. And not the Rogue Traders version. The interminable tattoo goes on for what feels like hours, but must only be about five minutes. It metamorphoses into SOS in morse code, before turning into the drum riff from We Will Rock You before finally grinding to a halt just as it threatens to get interesting.
Before the first actual band takes to the stage, Ross and Carr fill for a bit with some awkward chat and another chance to see some of the other acts around the world - Shakira, looking remarkably unlike Shakira it has to be said, in Hamburg, fellating a microphone as she performs Don't Bother with a sparkly pink guitar and some some random types in Sydney wearing "Say no to Nuclear Power" t-shirts. We soon, however, cut to Chris Moyles who is introducing the first act, which is surely a bad idea. After all, if ever there was an argument for giving up, letting the icecaps melt, the flood waters rise and the drowning of all of humanity then Chris is clearly it. He makes way for Genesis, fronted by, of course, Phil Collins, more testicle than man and someone so obnoxious that the world invented the drum machine with the sole purpose of giving him no reason to exist. Now, Genesis do have some good intros in their back catalogue - well, one, Invisible Touch - but a five minute long meandering stroll into Turn It On Again certainly isn't it, although a lot of wrinkled fans down the front seem to be very happy. And surely "Turn It Off" is the message they should be trying to get across?
Turn It On Again is followed by Land of Confusion, "Mildly appropriate for today", suggests Phil. Although we weren't aware that the lyrics pertained to unit shifting and profile raising by already established artists, but what do we know. It just made us pine for Alcazar.
Finally, they give us Invisible Touch, with Phil declaring "She will fuck up your life" in the first sweary moment of the day. He's just like Snoop Dogg, only white, unpopular, and allowed into the country for some unknown reason. He takes a trip down the catwalk and people cheer, presumably because his proximity to them makes him easier to hit.
After some filler - we have no idea what, we were writing this. Well not actually this part, but an earlier piece - Razorlight arrive on stage and their involvement demonstrates why Wembley has been kept partially empty: a lot of space is required for Jonny's ego. He's not wearing his usual all white look - you can't clean white's at 30 degrees so it'd be very off message - and is instead in black, sporting a lowcut top to show off his man boobs which he's inordinately proud of. They run through In The Morning, America and Los Angeles Waltz, with the sound irritatingly slightly out of synch with the pictures, which we assume is a technical fault as otherwise Jonny is really bad at miming, even when talking. He also swears, aren't they rebellious?
Finally for this hour, Nanutek - we think? - were performing some derivative indie with violins in the cold in Antartica. The penguins looked pissed off, as you would.
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: An unladen ant skipping through a forest glade with carefree abandon.
Labels: Live, Live Earth, Live Earth: Live
Live Earth: Live - Hour Zero: 12.13PM
Except, of course, it's not Hour Zero as the Australian and Japanese legs of Live Earth have already been gone, but the BBC haven't shown them and, frankly, if it's not televised then as far as we're concerned it hasn't happened. But in just over an hour's time, the British leg of Live Earth will kick off at Wembley as part of an event which already has about as much buzz about it as a recently fumigated beehive. Even Live 8, which was clearly an even more pointless and irrelevant effort than this, managed to create a genuine feeling that something, just maybe, could actually happen and change could be achieved. This, however, is beginning to feel so much like a nonevent that we won't be hugely surprised if we tune in to discover the testcard being broadcast for 12 solid hours, something which would probably have more of an effect on the public consciousness than a selection of hardly relevant bands banging on about something they don't really have much interest in. Certainly it'd boost the take up of noughts and crosses which would, at least, be something.
Anyway, despite this we now, having covered all the line-ups - apart from the Washington DC gig which they snuck in at the last moment, although given that Garth Brooks is the main draw we can see why they weren't hugely keen to announce it in advance - feel committed to seeing this sorry event through to the end so why not keep visiting the site to follow our hour by hour coverage of the event. BBC coverage begins at 1, the show itself begins at 1.30 and our first update should appear at around about 2.30, depending on how the running order shapes up. If we're going to put ourselves through this torture then the least you lot can do is watch us suffer.
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: Amoeba floating through the air attached to a helium balloon
Anyway, despite this we now, having covered all the line-ups - apart from the Washington DC gig which they snuck in at the last moment, although given that Garth Brooks is the main draw we can see why they weren't hugely keen to announce it in advance - feel committed to seeing this sorry event through to the end so why not keep visiting the site to follow our hour by hour coverage of the event. BBC coverage begins at 1, the show itself begins at 1.30 and our first update should appear at around about 2.30, depending on how the running order shapes up. If we're going to put ourselves through this torture then the least you lot can do is watch us suffer.
CURRENT CARBON FOOTPRINT: Amoeba floating through the air attached to a helium balloon
Labels: Live, Live Earth, Live Earth: Live
Thursday, July 05, 2007
The Latest Show on Earth: China
Right. Live Earth on Saturday and we've decided that while we're not going to offer minute by minute coverage, we are going to provide hour by hour commentary on all the exciting goings on of the day's events. And we'll also provide commentary on all the mundane, dull, predictable and uninspiring goings on as well. Somehow we feel there's going to be a lot more of the latter than the former but, with the recycling spirit of the event, we'll do our best to make a silk purse out of the undoubted sow's ear of the event. Or at least make some cheap jokes like we normally do. Bear in mind, however, that this plan is subject to change should we find ourselves hungover on Saturday, decide to go out and get drunk instead or make a spirited attempt to tackle the mountain of DVD's which we've had for ages but have still to get round of watching. For example, we have Lindsay Lohan's Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen to watch and we fully expect it to be an arthouse classic on a par with La Belle Noiseuse.
Anyway, that's for Saturday, for now we have our final look at the Live Earth line-ups, as revealed to us by the terrible official website, which not only gives us that info, but also tells us that their on-line coverage is sponsored by car manufacturers Chevy. They may be missing the point somewhat. Anyway, last but not least, here's China's offering:-
Anyway, that's for Saturday, for now we have our final look at the Live Earth line-ups, as revealed to us by the terrible official website, which not only gives us that info, but also tells us that their on-line coverage is sponsored by car manufacturers Chevy. They may be missing the point somewhat. Anyway, last but not least, here's China's offering:-
- 12 Girls Band - Despite having what is clearly the world's greatest band name, the 12 Girls Band appear to be a bit dull, playing traditional Chinese instruments and not looking like they have much in the way of dance routines. Boo.
- Anthony Wong - The only Anthony Wong we can find a reference to on Google is an actor best known for playing the dregs of society and sociopaths, which clearly isn't the "pioneer in alternative Cantonese pop" that the official site reckons is playing. Not, admittedly, that that stopped them originally posting up this profile. The twats. Still, twoWongs don't make a right. Arf!
- Eason Chan - Chan has released over twenty records since 1996, which is the sort of prolific workrate that would make even ants think that he should maybe take a break.
- Evonne Hsu - Her most recent hit was Poem Water Snake Mountain Temple. If she's not the Chinese Shakira we'll eat our hat. Not that we wear a hat, but we're so convinced that we're prepared to go out and buy a hat, just so we have one to eat if need be. Admittedly we're going to buy it from the Chocolate Hat Shop, but the point is still there.
- Huang Xiao Ming - Apparently he is just an actor, although he has done a couple of theme tunes. The Chinese Dennis Waterman?
- Joey - Matt le Blanc makes a final, desperate attempt to kickstart his career. With hilarious consequences.
- Sarah Brightman - Let's hope she plays last so we can make a "Time to say goodnight" joke. And because we'd probably have given up long before then so won't actually have to sit through her set.
- Soler - A duo, one of them holds an acoustic guitar. A warning sign in any language.
- Winnie Hsin - The localised version of Winnie the Pooh. In their version Winnie demonstrates curiosity, philosophical questioning, fondness for honey and unswerving devotion to the leaders of the forest. Tigger is part of the secret police and has no hesitation in reporting Eeyore for crimes against the state and conduct unbecoming of a member of the Communist Party.
Labels: China, Line Up, Live, Live Earth
Thursday, June 14, 2007
The Latest Show On Earth: South Africa
Live Earth. Al Gore. Global Warming. Not tremendously well thought out idea. Etc. Sorry, we're in a bit of a rush. Something which will be amply demonstrated by the following piece. Here's the line-up for the South African gig:-
- Will be performing their cod reggae as an ironic response to complete lack of actual cod in the world's waters these days.
- Joss Stone - Joss was one of the highlights of Live 8 for us. Mainly because she wore a very nice dress and we, as point out on a regular basis, are very shallow. In stark contrast to the sea levels around the polar icecaps.
- Angelique Kidjo - After the band's Wayne's World inspired success, the lead singer of Ugly Kid Joe used his money to undergo expensive gender reassignment surgery. He's now revealing the new him or, indeed, her to the world.
- Baaba Maal - His dad was a fisherman. Given the aforementioned depletion of the world's fish stocks, it's fortunate that Baaba himself has developed alternative skills. For him, anyway, not necessarily for us.
- Danny K - Not only does he provide a mix of uptempo grooves and massive ballads - it says here - but 2 bowls a day, as part of a healthy diet, will help you achieve a swimsuit ready figure, just in time for the summer.
- The Parlotones - You just know they think that's a really clever name, don't you?
- The Soweto Gospel Choir - Do we really need some biblical nonsense underpinning the event? We mean, what does the bible know about sea levels rising, and massive floods of, umm, biblical proport... oh, never mind.
- Vusi Mahlasela - He's toured with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, who also played with B*Witched. This is worth noting as generally playing Six Degrees of Separation with B*Witched is an exercise in futility.
- Zola - This is just going to run and run, isn't it? Arf.
Labels: Live, Live Earth, South Africa
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
The Latest Show on Earth: Germany
Next up on Al Gore's Live Earth ego trip is Germany, whose Hamburg gig will, along with the acts listed below, will also feature the gold medal winning figure skater Katarina Witt speaking from the stage and, given that the only people whose careers are more in jeopardy by the impending lack of ice tend to be those whose main focus is in polar bear welfare her support is understandable. Here's who our Teutonic friends will be listening to as they try and assuage their environmental guilt. It does not include Nena, but we're sure they'll rectify that oversight.:-
- Chris Cornell - Of Soundgarden 'fame' and the sort of act who your older brother probably likes. If your older brother is a tone deaf moron who sees listening to music as being an equivalent experience to sticking your entire head into a vibrating bucket of mud for an hour.
- Jan Delay - A hip hop act and not a traffic update.
- Juli - Despite being purveyors of forgettable mid-ranking alternative music, these guys - and girl - are one of Germany's top acts. It's at this point that we'd like to make the lazy, cliched, but still worth mentioning observation that another top act in Germany is David Hasselhoff.
- Katie Melua - Although we know, thanks to Katie's in depth research and definitely not plucking a figure out of mid air, that there are exactly nine million bicycles in Beijing, we have no idea how many there are in Hamburg. What we do know, however, is that every single one of them will be employed to get the cyclist as far away from the venue the minute Katie starts with the yawnsome, pointless, godawful affair that she chooses to call 'performing'.
- Lotto King Karl - We couldn't find a webpage in English about Lotto King Karl, but our limited German knowledge has allowed us to ascertain that he isn't a real King, nor has he won the lottery. He is really called Karl, though.
- Maná - This is Maná:
It's safe to say that they're not exactly a party band. Nor is it likely that they'll be taking over Girls Aloud's role as Sunsilk ambassadors any time in the near future. - Micheal Mittermeier - Some sort of German comedian, though again our poor grasp of the language makes this difficult to confirm. We can ask for directions to the Town Hall though, something which would be marginally more useful if we could understand the answer. Or, indeed, had any sort of burning desire to visit the town hall.
- Reamonn - When we covered his appearance on the Live 8 line up we made an excellent, if we do say so ourselves, Scooby Doo related joke, which we don't think we can top so we're not even going to bother trying.
- Roger Cicero 'Did' Eurovision, in much the same way as your dog might 'do' the toilet. Imagine an older, yet equally irritating, Ray Quinn and you have Roger.
- Sasha - We're assuming this is the German singer and not the DJ - and not, for that matter, the Bratz character - in which case we feel we should point out that for three years he performed as his alter ego Dick Brave. Feel free to make your own jokes up here.
- Silbermond - Goths. They did Live 8 as well, but we didn't write a very good joke about them. Some things never change.
- Snoop Dogg - And Snoop was also on Live 8. He went on stage at 6.30PM and said more swearwords in the first five minutes than most people manage in a lifetime. We imagine that the Germans have put him in a later slot this time around, if only in the hope that the tiredness will make him a bit less sweary and that having to go on stage in his pyjamas and bunny slippers will calm him down a tad.
Labels: Germany, Lists, Live, Live Earth
Thursday, May 31, 2007
The Latest Show on Earth: Japan
The Live Earth juggernaut has made it's way to Japan, a country which is less concerned about having a carbon footprint the size of Godzilla as it is about, well, Godzilla. They're being a bit greedy about things and having not one but two concerts, thus doubling the amount of natural resources used and, if our maths is correct, hastening the onset of irreversible destruction of the polar ice caps by twenty years. Our maths may not be correct. Anyway, here's who's lined up for the gigs at Tokyo and at Kyoto:-
- AI - Like everything in Japan, this band is made up entirely of robots who craft a beautiful electronica soundscape inbetween enslaving the human race and requiring rebooting every thirty minutes.
- Ai Otsuka - She's a purveyor of bubblegum J-Pop par excellence - or whatever the equivalent, slightly more appropriate Japanese phrase is - and she's called her Best of compilation Ai Am Best. What's not to love?
- Ayaka - She gained her fame when her debut I Believe was used as the closing theme to the top rated Japanese drama Rondo, which we reckon makes her the Japanese equivalent of Robson and Jerome.
- Cocco - Will be enthralling concertgoers when she makes her entrance by appearing out of an inkwell.
- Genki Rockets - They are, in our always correct view, a Japanese
- Buggles, which we're sure you'll agree is a very good thing to be indeed.
- Kumi Koda - We, frankly, could make head nor tail of her website, but we have ascertained that she's got both a credit card in her honour and has designed a kimono collection. In your face Lily Allen!
- Linkin Park - Hang on! We know them, they're not Japanese! They're just, well, shit.
- Rihanna - And so's she! Not Japanese that is. Rihanna is pretty good, actually, even if she can't spell her own name properly.
- Rize - Rize appear to be a Japanese rock band fusing reggae, rock and rap. In other words they're the Japanese Linkin Park. Or, to put it another way, not really worth wasting your time over.
- Michael Nyman - Orchestral blokey, we once saw him do a gig with The Divine Comedy as part of the Edinburgh Fringe. This piece of information may not be interesting but it is 100% true, so is worth treasuring for that reason alone.
- RIP Slyme - Here's what we said about their Hot Chocolate single on Stylus about a year or so ago: "Horn stabs! There’s not enough horn stabs in music these days. Or melodicas, either, but that’s a debate for another day. Depending on your frame of reference, Hot Chocolate is either a drink that gains popularity as middle age arrives thanks to its sleepiness properties or Errol Brown’s pension fund. This takes its inspiration from neither of those things, instead being an upbeat slice of J-Hop which isn’t recommended for pre-bedtime listening as the restless legs it causes will have you kicking your covers about all night long.". It's safe to say that we liked them.
- Yellow Magic Orchestra - Early Japanese electropop who were a major influence on Towa Tei of Deee-Lite fame. It's safe to say they're probably quite good as well.
Labels: Japan, Lists, Live, Live Earth
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Something Kinda Phew
So! The Girls Aloud gig then. As always this is definitely not the place to turn to for objective, unbiased coverage. Despite leaving it a week to write this, when it comes to GA our critical faculties completely desert us and we can muster up little more than an "OMG Girls Aloud are sooooo ace" style reporting, but hey, we're allowed to get a little bit over enthusiastic every now and again and besides, going to see the Girls live is a bit of a religious experience for us. Although it's safe to say that, outside the pages of the more scandal ridden Sunday tabloids, it's unlikely that you'll see many vicars and priests dressed in the sort of thing that Nicola and friends were wearing on stage. Anyway, here's what happened:-
Many things in life revolve around their entrances. Revolving doors spring immediately to mind, as do bouncers on roundabouts, but it's pop concerts where they truly matter. Well, that and being in a burning building, in which case the entrances and exits have never been so important, but that's not hugely relevant right now. Having employed both the curtain drop and the understage rise in previous years, the Girls take full advantage of the budgetary increase and this time around appear from above the stage suspended in a giant hydraulic cradle like five window cleaners, ready to shake their chamois like there's no tomorrow. At the current rate of spectacle expansion, this means that for their next tour they'll enter the arena by being fired in from a massive cannon at the back of the arena, but for now we'll just have to make do with them standing slightly awkwardly as the cradle slowly inches it's way down to stage level.
Never believing in saving the best til last, the Girls launch straight into Something Kinda Ooooh dressed in a sort of Sexy American Cop Style outfit, complete with GA baseball caps and gynaecologically tight trousers. All except Nicola, who appeared not to have got the same memo as the rest of them and has interpreted the American theme in her own way by wearing a cheerleading skirt designed for a girl at least a foot shorter than herself. Sigh. We, if we perhaps have not made this clear in the past, love Nicola. Once they got off of their cradle - and the only other time you'll see people distancing themselves from a Cradle with more speed is when Atomic Kitten get together and start discussing their back catalogue - the Girls strutted and preened and did generally did everything you could ever want Girls Aloud to do in the space of a three minute pop song, although whether this included 'singing every single note live' is something which is open to debate but equally is something which we think is largely irrelevant. The budget also didn't stretch to having tutu's on stage for the Girls to jump on. This was a Disappointment.
At the end of the song the Girls removed their hats and threw them into the crowd. Except that because the hats are no doubt a bit on the pricey side and also because each Girl is, of course, a girl and so throws like one, they carefully made sure they fell no further than the crash barrier at the front, ready to be collected and worn another day, leading, over time, to a fine dusting of, umm, dust, collecting around the top of their heads like a set of halos. Unpleasant, unhygienic and potentially allergy inflaming halos, admittedly, but halos none the less.
Having kicked off with a song whose video featured them arsing around in cars and treating the highway code with the same sort of reverence you might give to a book written by Piers Morgan or Richard Littlejohn, they then turned their attentions to Wake Me Up, a song whose video featured them treating motorcycles as if they were children's toys, rather than the metallic killing machines they actually are. On the basis of this evidence, we don't think Girls Aloud should be allowed on any motorised vehicle more powerful than a Segway, and even then we'd still feel a bit dubious if we were to see them coming towards us on a push bike. Anyway, they didn't have any bikes to ride for the performance and no-one, to the best of our knowledge died, so we consider the whole affair to be a success
Despite each of the Sugababes being far too busy getting arrested, hating the other members and being smilily oblivious to any sort of dischord respectively, the Girls still felt the need to perform Walk This Way even though it seems unlikely that it's omission from the setlist would have caused mass riots in the auditorium or, indeed, even been noticed. Without another band to rail against, the Girls instead stood on one side of the stage, directing their ire and anger towards the male dancers on the other side. As the dancers do not sing and, for a large part of the time, can barely dance, their response was limited to some awkward "Who us?" style gestures and some vaguely aggressive posturing. The main effect was to make the Girls look like they were hanging around outside the local Deaf and Dumb school, bullying the pupils as they tried to go about their business in the playground. It was not, it's safe to say, a success.
Finally, in this section at least, although it normally does close the tour, leading to some brief concern that the Girls had had enough of this performing lark and fancied making an early night of it, Jump made it's usual appearance and we all did which, in our unthinking mob following of orders, has much in common with how Hitler got in power. Perhaps they're wearing their authoritative, almost fascistic costumes for reasons other than mild titillation. Who knows? But it matters not as, with a blast of fireworks, they're off for their first costume change of the night. With the amount of hairspray present on the stage, however, we're not entirely convinced that the use of fireworks is a good idea. One stray spark and they could all go up.
Section two and the Girls are all rocking the Teeny Tiny Hotpants look. All, that is, except for Kimberley, who in some misguided sense of decorum has wrapped a dancer's skirt around herself, and Nicola who, having already rocked the Teeny Tiny Hotpants look on previous tours, has decided to go on stage in just her knickers. This is probably down to Nadine hiding her shorts in a cruel prank and, like the old PE punishment of old, is being forced to perform in her vest and pants, but it's not something we're going to complain about.
No Good Advice is the opening gambit here, sweariness fully intact, and is swiftly followed by Long Hot Summer, with its airiness fully intact. For no other reason than to provide a distraction while the stage hands prep the cradle with red cushions in preparation for Whole Lotta History, the Girls decide to lead the audience in a Mexican Wave, which is more the sort of thing you'd expect from a desperate compere at a Butlins resort who's beginning to lose the audience, rather than from a 21st century pop concert, but as this was one of the longest conversations they had with the crowd - the rest of the chat being limited to "How are you doing!" and "We love playing in (Insert name of city here) you're always such a great crowd" - we should perhaps be grateful for the attention and lap it up like the celeb-obsessed hordes that we are. Which, to be fair, we did.
Whole Lotta History was performed with, as hinted at above, the Girls lounging in the cradle which was now transformed into, depending on your point of view, a luxury boudoir or a soft furnishings sales pitch. They were raised slightly above the ground and softly swung back and forth as they sang this tender tale of lost love and painful memories. Of course, the fact the Girls were barely wearing enough material to make one complete outfit between them did somewhat detract from the effect they were trying to get at here, and may have led to the casual observer believing that, after the relationship came to an end, the girl was so broken by the heartache that she ended up falling into a career in the high class prostitution market, but we digress.
This year's 'surprise' cover was a Dirty Dancing medley, and while the screens didn't quite start flashing "WE ARE BEING INCREDIBLY LAZY AND UNIMAGINATIVE", they might as well have done. We only watched Dirty Dancing for the first time a couple of weeks ago and while we were very drunk the plot to us seemed to consist mainly of Patrick Swayzee taking pity on a mute girl who spends the entire film looking confused at what everybody says. This may well have been what she called 'acting'. Either way it was the worst film we've ever seen, and bear in mind that we've seen Species 2. As for the medley itself, well, if you've ever seen a Hen night in a karaoke bar then you'll pretty much know what to expect. Although if you have seen a hen night in a karaoke bar it's likely that you've already torn out your eyes and ears and self-performed a lobotomy in a bid to try and remove that painful memory from your mind.
Section three and pinstripes are the name of the game as the Girls rock a Gangster look, kicking off with Sound of the Underground, performed in the old school way with both Mic Stands and Nicola barely getting a word in edgeways. Also performed in an old school way, although in an entirely different sense of the word, is Life Got Cold, which is performed in a ska-stylee, coming across like The Specials woke up one morning and found they'd been turned into a girl band. It was, well, interesting if nothing else and does at least breathe a bit of life into Life Got Cold, a track we've never really warmed to. Arf.
N-N-N-N-N-N-N-Next was Graffiti My Soul, as the Girls, not content with mocking the mute decide to turn their bullying attentions towards those with stutters. But forget their claims that Real Life, the next song on the set list, was a song they really wanted to release as a single, this should have been sent hurtling chartwards instead of their pisspoor charity croon-a-long of I'll Stand By You. Still sounding a million times fresher than most of what makes up the chart, the skintight rhythms and spiky melody walks all over most of what passes for pop, what has passed for pop and even what will pass for pop. And it encourages the spraypainting of a fish, an act we can only condone.
A roulette wheel, giant dollar sign and big red dice are brought onto the stage as we prepare for the next movement in the Girls Aloud symphony. The costume change here is clearly quite a complicated one as the dancers, who have previously just been content with vaguely moving in time to the extended workout that the band perform while the Girls are off stage now appear to be attempting to act out some sort of routine which involves a plot. We have no idea what it was about, nor, frankly, do we care.
Finally, the Girls arrive, all glammed up in sparkly, Vegas style showgirl dresses, appropriate for the stage setting, if not the less than Vegas like weather of Glasgow, as the band begins a swing version of I Think We're Alone Now with Nadine taking, and when does she not, the lions share of the vocal. There's more chance of Pete Doherty giving up The Drugs as there is for Nadine to give up the limelight. We just hope that the stylistic choice doesn't portend a Robbie style swing album, even we would have trouble finding something good to say about that.
Things then move onto Money which seems to leave most of the audience nonplussed, although given that most of the audience seemed to love the Dirty Dancing medley, this leads us to the conclusion that most of the audience had their polarities crossed. From the sublime to the ridiculous as the Girls troop to the top of the stairs and perform I'll Stand By You on a spinning podium. Nicola holds onto Kim's hand as she does so, which is both sweet and indicative of vertigo. And at least it wasn't See The Day, something which we find to be a good point about most songs.
Closing this section and, indeed, the main set it's the old favourite Love Machine, a song which has rapidly become the Girls Aloud song, in the sense that it's the one most closely associated with the band, rather than being the definitive example of their oeuvre, and gets a predictably wild reaction. Half way through Cheryl yells "STOP!", clomps across the stage, sounding, although certainly not looking, like a baby elephant, downs a bottle of champagne before burping heavily and allowing the band to carry on. Surely Cheryl, better than any other member of the band, knows the dangers of binge drinking. Tsk!
And with that, it all comes to an end. Or does it? Of course not! We've all been to gigs, we all know how the encore thing works. Or least you'd think we did, anyway. The people in charge of the screens, however, were less sure, and insisted on putting up big messages encouraging us to scream, shout, make some noise and generally give ourselves laryngitis if we wanted to see some more, despite the fact the Girls would be contractually obliged to perform the full set and would have to return to the stage even if the arena gave them nothing more than a half hearted shrug and some polite applause. Either way, our enthusiasm was eventually deemed to be enough as the curtain was pulled back to reveal the Girls in bed doing The Show and dancing as best you can when you have a heavy duvet restricting your movements. The problems of the high tog rating were soon dealt with, as the Girls threw back the duvets revealing not only that they were all wearing rather ace silk GA bathrobes, but that they were each in bed with a young gentleman. This, we believe, is what the Daily Mail were referring to as youth-corrupting raunchy scenes, despite the fact it was about as raunchy as a Benny Hill show and as corruptive as a Bugs Bunny cartoon where he attempts to seduce Elmer Fudd. It was, however, incredibly ace, as pretty much all performance of The Show are, when you get right down to it.
Finally, and it really is finally this time around, the Girls whip off their robes to reveal they have their Biology-esque dresses on underneath. "What song can we perform dressed like this then?" they ask, and before the crowd even have time to reach a consensus they launch into, well, Biology, the single greatest song released in the last five years. It purrs, it thrills, it still sounds like a million songs rolled into one and it's still as thrilling as covering yourself in tinfoil before sticking a fork in the plug socket.
And then it was over. Just like Mika, it was so over. No more songs, no more dancing, no more teeny tiny hotpants, just the dark of the night and the excited chatter of thousands upon thousands of Girls Aloud fans left. "We'll see you again soon", was the excited cry from the stage as they vanished from view. Let's hope they're right, although given that the quality of our GA Live review has noticeably decreased this time around, perhaps it's for the best if they're wrong. Let's wait and see, shall we?
Many things in life revolve around their entrances. Revolving doors spring immediately to mind, as do bouncers on roundabouts, but it's pop concerts where they truly matter. Well, that and being in a burning building, in which case the entrances and exits have never been so important, but that's not hugely relevant right now. Having employed both the curtain drop and the understage rise in previous years, the Girls take full advantage of the budgetary increase and this time around appear from above the stage suspended in a giant hydraulic cradle like five window cleaners, ready to shake their chamois like there's no tomorrow. At the current rate of spectacle expansion, this means that for their next tour they'll enter the arena by being fired in from a massive cannon at the back of the arena, but for now we'll just have to make do with them standing slightly awkwardly as the cradle slowly inches it's way down to stage level.
Never believing in saving the best til last, the Girls launch straight into Something Kinda Ooooh dressed in a sort of Sexy American Cop Style outfit, complete with GA baseball caps and gynaecologically tight trousers. All except Nicola, who appeared not to have got the same memo as the rest of them and has interpreted the American theme in her own way by wearing a cheerleading skirt designed for a girl at least a foot shorter than herself. Sigh. We, if we perhaps have not made this clear in the past, love Nicola. Once they got off of their cradle - and the only other time you'll see people distancing themselves from a Cradle with more speed is when Atomic Kitten get together and start discussing their back catalogue - the Girls strutted and preened and did generally did everything you could ever want Girls Aloud to do in the space of a three minute pop song, although whether this included 'singing every single note live' is something which is open to debate but equally is something which we think is largely irrelevant. The budget also didn't stretch to having tutu's on stage for the Girls to jump on. This was a Disappointment.
At the end of the song the Girls removed their hats and threw them into the crowd. Except that because the hats are no doubt a bit on the pricey side and also because each Girl is, of course, a girl and so throws like one, they carefully made sure they fell no further than the crash barrier at the front, ready to be collected and worn another day, leading, over time, to a fine dusting of, umm, dust, collecting around the top of their heads like a set of halos. Unpleasant, unhygienic and potentially allergy inflaming halos, admittedly, but halos none the less.
Having kicked off with a song whose video featured them arsing around in cars and treating the highway code with the same sort of reverence you might give to a book written by Piers Morgan or Richard Littlejohn, they then turned their attentions to Wake Me Up, a song whose video featured them treating motorcycles as if they were children's toys, rather than the metallic killing machines they actually are. On the basis of this evidence, we don't think Girls Aloud should be allowed on any motorised vehicle more powerful than a Segway, and even then we'd still feel a bit dubious if we were to see them coming towards us on a push bike. Anyway, they didn't have any bikes to ride for the performance and no-one, to the best of our knowledge died, so we consider the whole affair to be a success
Despite each of the Sugababes being far too busy getting arrested, hating the other members and being smilily oblivious to any sort of dischord respectively, the Girls still felt the need to perform Walk This Way even though it seems unlikely that it's omission from the setlist would have caused mass riots in the auditorium or, indeed, even been noticed. Without another band to rail against, the Girls instead stood on one side of the stage, directing their ire and anger towards the male dancers on the other side. As the dancers do not sing and, for a large part of the time, can barely dance, their response was limited to some awkward "Who us?" style gestures and some vaguely aggressive posturing. The main effect was to make the Girls look like they were hanging around outside the local Deaf and Dumb school, bullying the pupils as they tried to go about their business in the playground. It was not, it's safe to say, a success.
Finally, in this section at least, although it normally does close the tour, leading to some brief concern that the Girls had had enough of this performing lark and fancied making an early night of it, Jump made it's usual appearance and we all did which, in our unthinking mob following of orders, has much in common with how Hitler got in power. Perhaps they're wearing their authoritative, almost fascistic costumes for reasons other than mild titillation. Who knows? But it matters not as, with a blast of fireworks, they're off for their first costume change of the night. With the amount of hairspray present on the stage, however, we're not entirely convinced that the use of fireworks is a good idea. One stray spark and they could all go up.
Section two and the Girls are all rocking the Teeny Tiny Hotpants look. All, that is, except for Kimberley, who in some misguided sense of decorum has wrapped a dancer's skirt around herself, and Nicola who, having already rocked the Teeny Tiny Hotpants look on previous tours, has decided to go on stage in just her knickers. This is probably down to Nadine hiding her shorts in a cruel prank and, like the old PE punishment of old, is being forced to perform in her vest and pants, but it's not something we're going to complain about.
No Good Advice is the opening gambit here, sweariness fully intact, and is swiftly followed by Long Hot Summer, with its airiness fully intact. For no other reason than to provide a distraction while the stage hands prep the cradle with red cushions in preparation for Whole Lotta History, the Girls decide to lead the audience in a Mexican Wave, which is more the sort of thing you'd expect from a desperate compere at a Butlins resort who's beginning to lose the audience, rather than from a 21st century pop concert, but as this was one of the longest conversations they had with the crowd - the rest of the chat being limited to "How are you doing!" and "We love playing in (Insert name of city here) you're always such a great crowd" - we should perhaps be grateful for the attention and lap it up like the celeb-obsessed hordes that we are. Which, to be fair, we did.
Whole Lotta History was performed with, as hinted at above, the Girls lounging in the cradle which was now transformed into, depending on your point of view, a luxury boudoir or a soft furnishings sales pitch. They were raised slightly above the ground and softly swung back and forth as they sang this tender tale of lost love and painful memories. Of course, the fact the Girls were barely wearing enough material to make one complete outfit between them did somewhat detract from the effect they were trying to get at here, and may have led to the casual observer believing that, after the relationship came to an end, the girl was so broken by the heartache that she ended up falling into a career in the high class prostitution market, but we digress.
This year's 'surprise' cover was a Dirty Dancing medley, and while the screens didn't quite start flashing "WE ARE BEING INCREDIBLY LAZY AND UNIMAGINATIVE", they might as well have done. We only watched Dirty Dancing for the first time a couple of weeks ago and while we were very drunk the plot to us seemed to consist mainly of Patrick Swayzee taking pity on a mute girl who spends the entire film looking confused at what everybody says. This may well have been what she called 'acting'. Either way it was the worst film we've ever seen, and bear in mind that we've seen Species 2. As for the medley itself, well, if you've ever seen a Hen night in a karaoke bar then you'll pretty much know what to expect. Although if you have seen a hen night in a karaoke bar it's likely that you've already torn out your eyes and ears and self-performed a lobotomy in a bid to try and remove that painful memory from your mind.
Section three and pinstripes are the name of the game as the Girls rock a Gangster look, kicking off with Sound of the Underground, performed in the old school way with both Mic Stands and Nicola barely getting a word in edgeways. Also performed in an old school way, although in an entirely different sense of the word, is Life Got Cold, which is performed in a ska-stylee, coming across like The Specials woke up one morning and found they'd been turned into a girl band. It was, well, interesting if nothing else and does at least breathe a bit of life into Life Got Cold, a track we've never really warmed to. Arf.
N-N-N-N-N-N-N-Next was Graffiti My Soul, as the Girls, not content with mocking the mute decide to turn their bullying attentions towards those with stutters. But forget their claims that Real Life, the next song on the set list, was a song they really wanted to release as a single, this should have been sent hurtling chartwards instead of their pisspoor charity croon-a-long of I'll Stand By You. Still sounding a million times fresher than most of what makes up the chart, the skintight rhythms and spiky melody walks all over most of what passes for pop, what has passed for pop and even what will pass for pop. And it encourages the spraypainting of a fish, an act we can only condone.
A roulette wheel, giant dollar sign and big red dice are brought onto the stage as we prepare for the next movement in the Girls Aloud symphony. The costume change here is clearly quite a complicated one as the dancers, who have previously just been content with vaguely moving in time to the extended workout that the band perform while the Girls are off stage now appear to be attempting to act out some sort of routine which involves a plot. We have no idea what it was about, nor, frankly, do we care.
Finally, the Girls arrive, all glammed up in sparkly, Vegas style showgirl dresses, appropriate for the stage setting, if not the less than Vegas like weather of Glasgow, as the band begins a swing version of I Think We're Alone Now with Nadine taking, and when does she not, the lions share of the vocal. There's more chance of Pete Doherty giving up The Drugs as there is for Nadine to give up the limelight. We just hope that the stylistic choice doesn't portend a Robbie style swing album, even we would have trouble finding something good to say about that.
Things then move onto Money which seems to leave most of the audience nonplussed, although given that most of the audience seemed to love the Dirty Dancing medley, this leads us to the conclusion that most of the audience had their polarities crossed. From the sublime to the ridiculous as the Girls troop to the top of the stairs and perform I'll Stand By You on a spinning podium. Nicola holds onto Kim's hand as she does so, which is both sweet and indicative of vertigo. And at least it wasn't See The Day, something which we find to be a good point about most songs.
Closing this section and, indeed, the main set it's the old favourite Love Machine, a song which has rapidly become the Girls Aloud song, in the sense that it's the one most closely associated with the band, rather than being the definitive example of their oeuvre, and gets a predictably wild reaction. Half way through Cheryl yells "STOP!", clomps across the stage, sounding, although certainly not looking, like a baby elephant, downs a bottle of champagne before burping heavily and allowing the band to carry on. Surely Cheryl, better than any other member of the band, knows the dangers of binge drinking. Tsk!
And with that, it all comes to an end. Or does it? Of course not! We've all been to gigs, we all know how the encore thing works. Or least you'd think we did, anyway. The people in charge of the screens, however, were less sure, and insisted on putting up big messages encouraging us to scream, shout, make some noise and generally give ourselves laryngitis if we wanted to see some more, despite the fact the Girls would be contractually obliged to perform the full set and would have to return to the stage even if the arena gave them nothing more than a half hearted shrug and some polite applause. Either way, our enthusiasm was eventually deemed to be enough as the curtain was pulled back to reveal the Girls in bed doing The Show and dancing as best you can when you have a heavy duvet restricting your movements. The problems of the high tog rating were soon dealt with, as the Girls threw back the duvets revealing not only that they were all wearing rather ace silk GA bathrobes, but that they were each in bed with a young gentleman. This, we believe, is what the Daily Mail were referring to as youth-corrupting raunchy scenes, despite the fact it was about as raunchy as a Benny Hill show and as corruptive as a Bugs Bunny cartoon where he attempts to seduce Elmer Fudd. It was, however, incredibly ace, as pretty much all performance of The Show are, when you get right down to it.
Finally, and it really is finally this time around, the Girls whip off their robes to reveal they have their Biology-esque dresses on underneath. "What song can we perform dressed like this then?" they ask, and before the crowd even have time to reach a consensus they launch into, well, Biology, the single greatest song released in the last five years. It purrs, it thrills, it still sounds like a million songs rolled into one and it's still as thrilling as covering yourself in tinfoil before sticking a fork in the plug socket.
And then it was over. Just like Mika, it was so over. No more songs, no more dancing, no more teeny tiny hotpants, just the dark of the night and the excited chatter of thousands upon thousands of Girls Aloud fans left. "We'll see you again soon", was the excited cry from the stage as they vanished from view. Let's hope they're right, although given that the quality of our GA Live review has noticeably decreased this time around, perhaps it's for the best if they're wrong. Let's wait and see, shall we?
Labels: Girls Aloud, Live
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
The Latest Show on Earth: Australia
The giant, carbon spewing juggernaut that is Al Gore's Live Earth's gigs continues on apace. The latest addition to the series of concerts which appeal mainly to those who'd like to be seen to be making a difference, rather than those who might actually make a difference is the line up for the Sydney gig in Australia. Given our ignorance of much of the line-up we can only assume that the artists are at the cutting edge of Australian music as otherwise it contains about as many stars as can be seen in the night skies of the more smog-ridden parts of London. Still, just because we haven't heard of them doesn't mean we're not going to make jokes about them. After all, our lack of knowledge has never stopped us in the past. Here's the skinny:-
- Crowded House - Surely taking our weather with us is the last thing we need in these days of global warming. Our weather should be staying exactly where it is, not leaping from winter to summer with only a minor tornado to indicate where spring should have been.
- Jack Johnson - A singer songwriter whose very name indicates exactly how dull he is.
- Wolfmother - Like watching Led Zeppelin perform at the bottom of a muddy pool. Only without the joyous possibility of eventual drowning.
- The John Butler Trio - To his family, John Butler is "a much loved husband, father, brother, and son.". To his fanbase he is, it says here anyway, "purely about the musical journey, the groove of the Trio, the soul of the guitar and the honesty and integrity of John’s lyrics" and to emerging independent artists John is "an inspiration and patron to young acts struggling to establish themselves in an increasingly difficult and diluted marketplace.". To us, however, it's a bit like listening to the Spindoctors if they didn't know their way around an electric guitar and not the sort of thing we ever want to experience again. Truly the John Butler Trio is a broad church, even if most members appear not to have a clue.
- Missy Higgins - She's a bit like her name sake Missy Eliot. In much the same way 'chalk' is a bit like 'cheese'.
- Eskimo Joe - Appear to contain neither Eskimos nor Joes. We are currently putting in a complaint to the Australian equivalent of trading standards and hope to cease the bands activities within a matter of weeks.
- Sneaky Sound System - Despite having supported Jamiroquai, they seem, from a quick look at their MySpace at any rate, to be none too shabby indeed. Even if this is the first time the word "Sneaky" has been used outside of the Beano in about 17 years.
- Paul Kelly - The original inspiration for Mika's Grace Kelly. Fact.
- Ghostwriters - If there's something strange in the neighbourhood, who you gonna call? Not these guys, that's for sure. Indeed, it's hard to know exactly why you ever would call them. Not unless you have a burning desire to hear some embarrassingly derivative bluesy rock, that is. Which seems remarkably unlikely.
- Toni Collette & the Finish - Yes, that Toni Collette. What are they like? They're terrible, Muriel.
- Blue King Brown - Natasha Bedingfield goes reggae. Jah Wanna Have Your Babies, perhaps? Please yourselves.
Labels: Australia, Lists, Live, Live Earth
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
The Latest Show On Earth: USA
Our look at the Live Earth line up continues, although if they don't get round to announcing who's appearing at the other venues sharpish it's going to come grinding to a halt pretty quickly. You know, with such a delay between announcing the concerts and actually announcing who's going to be appearing at them, it's almost like they're having problems filling up the bill. Still, we're sure that can't be the case. Here's the line up for the American leg of the gig, highlighting the fact that organisation is somewhat lacking in this whole affair is that this gig will be taken place at an as yet unknown venue. It was originally planned to take place in Washington DC, but some people complained that this would be a bit too political. And besides, it would interrupt George W Bush's afternoon nap, and if he doesn't get enough sleep he gets really cranky:
- Kanye West - Kanye, who's not averse to the odd political statement - and the slightly more frequent bouts of swearing - is doing both this gig and the Diana memorial concert. We hope no-one makes a connection between global warming and the vast swathes of vegetation which were destroyed in 1997, only to be wrapped in cellophane and placed outside Buckingham palace to provide a carpet of rotten flowers in time for Diana's funeral procession otherwise Mr West is going to look mighty stupid. There is a similar danger if he decides to turn up dressed in his majorette's outfit again.
- AFI - While it's possible you may give much of a monkey's about AFI, the chances of this decrease exponentially the further away you get from being a 14yo boy who's just been told to tidy his room for the third time this year.
Kelly Clarkson - Will sing Since You've Been Gone to a backdrop depicting pollution vanishing from suburban cityscapes which will suddenly become clean and sparkling as a result. Kelly will presume that this is actual documentary footage of the results of her performance and will be confused and disappointed when she returns to LA, steps out of the plane, takes a deep breath and nearly dies as she ingests 2 cubic tonnes of pure toxicity. - Akon - Akon can currently be heard every five bloody minutes on commercial radio, "Wooo-ooh!"-ing his way through Gwen Stefani's The Sweet Escape like a frustrated penguin.
- KT Tunstall - Are they really this desperate for performers?
- Dave Matthews Band - Apparently, yes.
- Alicia Keys - Yes, Alicia is still going, mainly on the basis that she's beloved of critics because she can certainly sing. The fact that she tends to sing the sort of music that makes the inside of a kettle look interesting seems mainly to pass them by.
- Sheryl Crow - Sheryl has recently been demanding - although whether she hopes for this to be enforced by the law has yet to be made clear - that, when going to the toilet, people should only use one square of paper, "except, of course, on those pesky occasions where two to three could be required.". This is clearly a ludicrous idea.
- Ludacris - "Yes", says Ludacris, "I did come up with it first".
- Bon Jovi - It's hard to imagine a man that wears that much leather taking much of an interest in the environment, but since ditching the hairspray and going for a more respectable hairdo - in an entirely relative sense of course - it's estimated that this act alone has increased the arctic shelf's lifespan by almost twenty years. Campaigners are currently targeting their invective towards the inhabitants of Hoxton in a bid to achieve a similar reduction.
- Melissa Etheridge - Earnest, reflective and brooding. Melissa, frankly, is not someone you'd invite to a party. Not unless you wanted someone to get rid of all your guests in a quick and painless - ish - manner.
- Rihanna - Well, someone has to do a song called SOS and it seems unlikely that Abba are going to reform for the occasion.
- Fall Out Boy - If the sea water levels rise then, Sugar, we're gonna drown. Arf!
- Roger Waters - This is a basically the Pink Floyd reformation for Live 8, only without the rest of Pink Floyd. And, indeed, much public enthusiasm.
- Smashing Pumpkins - In a bid to help avert ecological disaster, Billy Corgan and his band will be changing their name to Growing Pumpkins, and Other Vegetation, If You Like for the night, in the hope that people will be inspired to try and rebalance the plant/human mismatch.
- John Mayer - The Mayer, the merrier! This pun has never ever been used in connection with John Mayer, nor will it ever be lest he sue for libel.
- The Police - Not the band, but the actual police, who'll be on hand for the inevitable rioting which will occur when people realise that this - this! - is what they've paid for.
Labels: Lists, Live, Live Earth
