Jesus *Fuck*
I watched some of yon “Live 8” nonsense last night… don’t think I’ve ever come across anything quite so poor on the telly before. Really rather shocking.
A gaggle of coffin dodgers, smackheads, kiddy porn mongers, and some of the more insipid bands that you might have found in the nme when they were going through a crap patch two or three years ago. Oh, and convicted monopolist, Bill Gates - whose presence on stage was at least less hypocritical than that of most of the musicians.
The crowd was dead. The people at the front might as well have brought along deckchairs for all the movement there was. The scissor sisters tried very, very hard to wring a bit of enthusiasm out of them, but went and ruined it all by playing a crap new song that noone knew.
Oh, and someone had a giant pre-1972 Northern Ireland flag. Christ, I know it’s coming up to the twelfth and all that, but you’d think that the BBC would’ve edited that out and digitally replaced it with something less offensive like, I dunno, a swastika or something. Robbie Williams had obviously seen it, and was parading round the stage like an ultra-camp orangeman - followed up by a weird mime of some lambeg drumming and a bit of cock-fondling. All rather distasteful.
Sir Wacky Thumbs Aloft was sat in some glass-walled studio pontificating about vladimir putin, and looking like a margaret thatcher impersonator on his day off. Afterwards, we were exposed to the horrors of “Velvet Revolver”, a band made up of most of Guns’n’Roses, apart from, er, either Guns or Rose. Their lead singer is some sort of celebrity junkie, and used to be in a poor grunge band, I think. He was wearing tight trousers, no shirt, and had eyeliner on. Now, skinny boys in makeup are usually a good thing - but not when they’re in their mid 40s, thanks. That, though, was nothing compared to “Slash” - a man who looks like a character from a Viz comic strip. He’s fat and old and decrepit, and wasnt wearing anything under his leather waistcoat. As a result, his tits were hanging over the top of his guitar in an utterly disgusting fashion. He then proceded to wander aimlessly around the stage with a fag drooping out of his mouth and his beer belly wobbling and glistening under the stage lights. ugh.
The Who were on next. “Who?”, cry the kids - some band yer granddad might’ve heard of. Their guitarist is most famous for being on the sex offender’s register. Dunno what the BBC were playing at with the shots of the nubile young girlie in the crowd stretching her arms up to him - very funny in theory, but not the cleverest thing to be broadcasting to an easily-offeded world, surely? At around this point, the BBC claimed they were going to have an interview with Peaches, but instead they wheeled on some buck-toothed 14 yr old who is apparantly bob geldoff’s daughter. ah well, i suppose I was stupid to’ve gotten my hopes up for a decent musician to be allowed near the place.
Pink Floyd were okay. The sneery indie kid in me wants to say “no good since Syd left”, but that’s not really true, is it?. They’re great, especially if you like that pompous prog thing (which i sort-of do, sometimes). Tonight we were “treated” to a reformation of er, their second or third lineup (not sure which) - impressive from the point of view that they’ve been suing each other for 20 years, but rather dull in reality - mainly because the lack of crowd response made it look like they were at a banker’s retirement do.
Connor left at that stage, so I turned the teevee off. I’ve since read that paul mccartney came back on to do the beatles’ infamous “wogs out” song, Get Back. But that, surely, can’t really have happened? Songs inspired be Enoch Powell’s speeches surely can’t go down well at a big charidee (sorry, “awareness raising”, not that the bands were doing much of that) do like that. Ah well. Oh, and he played Helter Skelter, too - which I’m quite impressed by, since it’s one of the best pieces of music that he’s been involved with. As I said… ah well.
Not really sure how the evening’s entertainment - the musical equivalent of “Last of the Summer Wine” - was supposed to have helped anyone in africa, but it at least did some good for prince charlie’s bank account, the mobile phone companies, and whoever got the £2.50-a-bottle water concession. bah.
