No speech at Live 8?

I have to disagree here. Of course I understand where you are coming from, but given the fact that a lot of people probably only went because it was a big concert, it was most definitely important to drive the point home. As did the actors, commercials, announcers, and some other performers. Maybe it was a Philly thing.

London and Berlin, I think, did a great job of promoting the cause. The best phrase coming from the singer of Die Toten Hosen, when he asked the question 'which category do you fall into? the one that sits at home on their sofa, eating chips and watching a free concert? or the one that gets up their butts, meets at 10 to catch a bus to Edinburgh and stands up for their beliefs.' At the same token you had artists that seemed to be completely into the cause and believed they were making changes, and you had others that seemed to just take the opportunity to be part of one of the biggest festivals in history (VR, Motley Crue, and numerous others).

I didn't think BJ's attitude was up to the event. They played the songs well enough, sure, but they didn't make it special. No variation to old songs, no cover, no duo... just a new song that only fans will notice. Exactly what they would have played at a random music award ceremony no one really cares about. But overall the Philly show was boring.

The London show was by far the most "up to" the event imo, even though Green Day or Robbie Williams scraped their covers, at least they made it special. Sting with a special change to his lyrics, Coldplay with Richard Ashcroft, U2 with Mcartney and most of all Pink Floyd back together... it was just as unique as the event.

Ponrauil

Green Day were in Berlin.

Makes the London show even better then!

Ponrauil

Yeah it's a shame they didn't make more of it. Even if they were just there
for promotion: this wasn't very good promotion, so they didn't succeed
in that one either.

On the other hand: they do support the cause, we know that for a fact,
just listen to Wembley '95, 'I don't like mondays' with Geldof.

Keep in mind though that BJ was supposed to play a fourth song, which may have been a bit different, but time constraints wouldn't allow it. I think the crowd really got into the songs BJ played, as the reaction there was quite enthusiastic. So their choice of songs did work for the event. As for Philly being boring, I agree with you 100 percent. London ruled the day.

Honestly, I think it was poorly organized there. Nothing was working right when people first arrived, and they cut the number of songs each artist was supposed to peform for what reason? It ended so early anyway. I don't understand why they chose to do it there, when there are much better places that they could have gone too.

I bet the 4th song was Wanted anyway. It may have worked well enough in terms of crowd reaction (and I wouldn't quite agree to that from the videos I've seen), but they could have made it more a special event than a promo act. Though at least they didn't go like the Black Eyed Peas (Man, do they suck on stage...) "We're going to do a song from our new album...".

I was expecting the "Count Basy Theatre" kind of spirit, see what I mean?
A simple cover of Lennon or Dylan would have made my day.

Ponrauil

Yeah but when Jon was asked whether playing a new song that nobody had heard was a risk he mentioned something about the lyrics being relevant to the cause. They showed it on the London Broadcast near the start.

what's wrong with that and why do the peas suck on stage? I enjoyed them

They weren't on stage to promote their music were they?

About their stage act, that girl can't sing and ruins the show on her own, but even without her the way they move and sing is just ridiculous and not up to the quality of their studio stuff.

Ponrauil