Brit Music Scene

Live Earth London Concert Review | Who Rocked Wembley Stadium?

by Dave Parrack on July 8th, 2007

7/7/07 came and it was time for Live Earth. There were 8 concerts in all held around the world, starting in the East and moving Westwards throughout the day due to timezones.

I watched pretty much all of the coverage of the London leg of this World event, with the BBC fitting the gig around the women’s tennis final at Wimbledon in the afternoon. The BBC have done a great job at outdoor music events in recent years with their Glastonbury coverage getting better every year, and all in all they coped with broadcasting this spectacle quite well.

Apart from the problems with the sound systems which I discussed yesterday, I found the concert highly enjoyable for the most part, with some bands wowing and some well, not. Although is it just me who thinks that these types of concert have never lived up to the original Live Aid over 20 years ago?

Jonathan Ross is the new Terry Wogan

The BBC had Jonathan Ross presenting, ably assisted by Graham Norton (they finally found a use for him) and Edith Bowman. I adore Ross anyway, so appreciated his style while presenting this. He had a kind of Terry Wogan vibe going on, as the same as when Wogan presents Eurovision, Ross was quite sarcastic and didn’t take it all too seriously. We all know the event was to raise awareness of Global Climate Change but it needed to be entertaining to keep the viewers and that’s exactly what he did. Norton was bizarrely kept in the basement, and interviewed the performers and various celebrity pundits throughout the day. Before they got there though, Bowman had grabbed and chatted to them straight after coming off stage. This was a good idea in theory but it meant she was stood to the side of the stage with massive speakers right in her (and our) ears. It meant the bands couldn’t hear her very well, and it took the Beastie Boys to sort out the problem, they simply unplugged the speaker! Genius.

The day started with Genesis opening the concert, and it was ok, although Phil Collins is looking very old these days. They did 3 songs which was the order of the day for most performers, although some did just 2 and others 5. It at least felt more complete than the Concert for Diana where each band was pushed off stage just as you got warmed up to them.

Razorlight kicked arse, as they normally do, with Johnny Borrell displaying even more swagger on stage than usual. Whoever thought of pairing up Damien Rice and David Gray deserves a medal, as they complimented each other fantastically. And then Kasabian came on stage and blew the cobwebs out of the crowd’s ears. Up until then, they’d been slightly subdued but this woke them up and set the tone for the rest of the day.

The Black Eyed Peas were great, much better than I expected, and left the crowd wanting more, even after doing 5 songs. The old duffers Duran Duran then came on and played some classics. They had technical issues, and even without them, they just didn’t seem to display the magic of yesteryear. Luckily for us the Red Hot Chili Peppers followed them on stage and left people with mouths agape as they played through songs that we all know and love. I’ve never had the fortune to see them live, but they are now on my wishlist.

The British contingent was on next with Bloc Party, Corinne Bailey Rae and Keane playing back to back. I’m a massive Bloc Party fan, and guess they will have picked up quite a few more on this showing. They played current single ‘Hunting for Witches’ which I’ll be reviewing this week. Keane have the advantage that absolutely everyone in the world bought their first album and so knows the words. For a 3 piece band without a guitarist, they did well to play to this many people.

BBC Ruin Spinal Tap comeback

Metallica then entered the arena and tore the roof off, well if Wembley had a roof they would have. Personally I would have had them on later in a sandwich with Madonna and Foo Fighters but what do I know. This is when the BBC’s coverage pissed me off, as just as the band started ‘Enter Sandman’, we had to watch Katie Melua’s performance from Germany instead. Why?
And then the Beeb commited a mortal sin in my eyes by cutting away from Spinal Tap’s homecoming reunion to watch someone recorded hours ago. I can’t even remember who it was, I was spitting mad at this point. We did get to see 2 songs in full though, including a new one… This Is Spinal Tap 2 anyone? Please let it happen.

Glossing over the abominations that were James Blunt and Keith Urban, we got to the Beastie Boys who were fantastic as usual. With Mixmaster Mike DJing, and the 3 of them on top of their game, it was a sight to see them rocking the British crowd. It’s yet another American group to go on my gig wishlist after this concert. The Pussycat Dolls weren’t wearing many clothes… that’s about all I need to say about their set.

And so we came to the finale, the two headliners being the Foo Fighters and Madonna. It would have been nice to have a British band such as Muse finishing the gig off, as despite her status as an Anglophile, Madonna isn’t English. I’m not going to complain about the Foo Fighters though who provided the set of the day, blowing away all who had gone before them and completely drowning out Madonna’s ‘Headline’ role. Madonna herself was ok, but I can’t help thinking these two should have been the other way around.

Overall Live Earth London was a great gig, and a fitting concert to get across the message of Global Climate Change. Unfortunately, all the bands then would have got in to their private jets and flown home afterwards, polluting the environment more in a day than I do in a year. Ah well, you can’t have everything.

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