Live 8: Three Snapshots

Technorati Tag(s): Music, live8

By now you can get the veritable shitload of information on yesterday's Live8 concert. You'll only get three things here:

This Is What We Do

R.E.M. never fails to amaze. On a day when everyone else pitched messages about adding your name to the list, the blue paint-goggled baldy walked up to the mike, and said, "We are R.E.M. And this is what we do." It has to be the best opener I've heard.

And they proceeded to perform a truly rocking song.

I'm almost certain that baldy has faulty wiring somewhere inside, you see all those tics every time he performs--especially that blank, distant look. But who cares? They're musicians. And that's what they do, and do it very well.
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The Who

Of all the bands who performed before them yesterday, none had the raw energy of The Who's performance. Bar none. Not even Robbie Wiliams' usually livewire performance came close.

The guitar playing was furious. Furious.

You could almost see charge pulsing through the crowd. The whole place went electric.

If you head to live8live's concert index, you'll find The Who aren't on London's list.

Certainly one of the best surprise concerts I've seen.
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The Pigs Have Flown

Is what a crowd member wrote in big letters when Pink Floyd went on stage.

If you can't understand why someone would stay awake all night long just to watch Floyd perform together after so many years--especially if that someone only saw it on a TV--you probably don't know why someone would like Pink Floyd's music at all.

I stayed up till four in the night to watch them.

Yes, they're having a repeat telecast of the concert right now as I'm writing this, but it's recorded. It isn't live. Let's not get into the technicalities about how something shown on TV is never really live.

If you don't understand why someone would stay up all night to watch a band perform, you probably don't understand just what it means to see all four of them on stage together again--something I did not expect to see in my time.

Live8 may or may not succeed in changing the minds of those men, it may or may not change the future, it may or may not be future's important history regarding humanity, but it already has secured a place in the books for reuniting perhaps the greatest band of all time.