CONCERT REVIEW: Live Earth

I had a chance to catch a large portion of the Live Earth concert this weekend. It was a multi-nation all day concert to raise awareness of the global climate crisis. The idea came from former Vice President (and Presidential Loser) Al Gore. Artists from a wide range of fields donated their time and talents for this event... which is nice to see.

The performances were great, for the most part. Highlights included Rhianna from Tokyo, Madonna from London, and Duran Duran, also in London. Some rather disappointing sets came from the normally entertaining Ludacris (New York) and the not-so-great live, reunited Black Eyed Peas (London - although, to be fair, London had some sound problems that seemed to affect the singers' ability to hear the band anytime they went beyond the proscenium.) Most of the performers had to fight the hassle of light crowds; most of the daytime venues were less than 2/3 full until the sun went down. While this doesn't really strike me as unusual (who wants to go to an all-day musical festival during the day when the best acts are on at night?), it surprised me to see how many performers were affected by it.

Shakira gave a spotty, but entertaining set. Also turning in a set of questionable quality was Bon Jovi. They sounded great on their old tunes, like Living On A Prayer, and not so great on their newer, lesser-known material. The award for the weirdest performance comes from Beijing: a group that was a mix of classical strings and bad techno, 12 Girls, played a mix of Beethoven covers set to bad dance beats. Bringing up the caboose of the crap train was the tone-deaf, more shouting than singing Melissa Ethridge and a severely under energized performance from Garth Brooks, featuring Al Gore in the background, clapping on the wrong beat.

But what stood out the most (in the bad way), was the coverage. MSNBC offered live coverage, without live comments, and seemed to be broadcasting live. MTV broke into an all-day marathon of America's Next Top Model with live reports from New York, but never showed any performances. They interviewed a bevy of nobodies, a cavalcade of would-be stars... who were all awful interviews. It was basically a series of, "uh" and "umm" tied together with random comments about how, "totally important" the environment is, and stuff. Bravo offered the most comprehensive coverage, jumping from continent to continent, but you had to suffer though the idiotic babbling of the two "hosts" who spent most of the day in NYC, talking to... each other.

Overall, the day was entertaining, without being overly-preachy, which had been my big fear. I would say that the event might improve next year, but hopefully we won't need a concert like this every year to remind us to treat the planet better... maybe we'll just start treating the planet better. But until then, I'd give the Live Earth experience a grade of B-.