Just got done watching the webcast of Pink Floyd’s set for Live8… WOW. It’s really amazing to see the originals all back together again; as one hand-made sign read “Pink Floyd Reunited: Pigs Have Flown!” It stuns me how a tiny little WMV stream can bring me right back to seeing them in Denver in 1993, and the raw, overwhelming joy of the experience.
The setlist:
- “Breathe” (including the verse from the reprise at the end of “Time”)
- “Money”
- “Wish You Were Here” (beautiful, heartwrenching, perfect performance)
- “Comfortably Numb” (absolutely scorching, fantastic)
While I was delighted to hear anything performed at all, I was a bit disappointed by the absence of some would-be uncannily appropriate songs, such as “On the Turning Away”, “High Hopes”, or Roger Waters’ “The Tide Is Turning (After Live Aid)”. Of course, all of these songs were written after Waters had split from the band, so the setlist definitely reflects an attempt to minimize conflict between band members. And of course any of those would have been dead giveaways and possibly bordering on cheese. But still.
I would have preferred a longer set as well, but you can’t have everything, now can you? I guess I’ll just have to pray my heart out for a reunion tour.
…
I never watched any of the original Live Aid concerts when I was a child, and now I feel a strange mix of hope and cynicism. The blue state dreamer in me hopes that this mass of humanity coming together through music has some positive effect on the upcoming G8 summit, but the jaded cynic thinks that the most powerful leaders of the world don’t really give a rat’s ass about a bunch of people putting on a big concert.
Still, it’s a good cause, and I hope something will come of it all.
- Mood:contemplative
- Music:Refreshed memories of Pink Floyd
Tags: concerts current-events music politics9 CommentsPrint This Post
9 responses so far ↓
I followed most of it, and most people had 2-3 songs, given the number of bands. 4 was generous. I’d have been surprised to hear anything from Momentary Lapse of Reason or Division Bell given that Waters was with them. They showed 90% of the set of MTV, which I was suprised by. It was better on TV - I have XM, which broadcasted it and it sounded flat, especially compared to The Who who was before them.
Here’s hoping for the tour.
Yeah, I wasn’t really surprised by the selections either. Cutting away to commercial just as the solo in “Comfortably Numb” was about to start was friggin’ criminal. (We hates the MTV, precious, nasty tricksy MTV!) I’m also a bit pissed that the entire last hour of the MTV/VH1 coverage was just recap of stuff already shown, rather than showing the rest of Paul McCartney’s set. And only showing the very tail end of “Hey Jude”? Argh! Those people should be taken out and beaten.
Thank goodness I had already seen the webcast at that point. (We skimmed the TV coverage later in the evening at about 4x or 8x for most of it.) Once pumped through real speakers, it sounded quite nice.
A full tour would just be the most perfect thing ever.
While I am very happy that you enjoyed the show (I missed it), and share in your cautious optimism towards the impact this will have on the world’s leaders, one thing sticks out in my mind: a picture in yesterday’s PD showing a lone man rummaging through the debris left by the “socially-minded” concert-goers. We’re not talking about a few cigarette butts and bongs. Rather TONS of trash left behind by the people who were supposed to be interested in making the world better. I guess it’s ok to not clean up after yourself and mimimize the effect your actions have on the environment as long as you are shelling out big bucks to attend a benefit.
Yeah, the amount of rubbish left everywhere really bothered me too.
Actually, no big bucks were shelled out for the shows themselves; the tickets were free, distributed by some bizarro form of lottery. (Granted, this does not include any travel or food expenses that attendees may have incurred.) While it’s “nice” that the shows were technically free, it’s another thing that really makes me feel like the whole thing is just too wishy-washy and won’t accomplish anything–other than a Pink Floyd reunion (no small feat).
Great…that makes me feel even better. So, not only did these idiots get to attend the show for free, most likely the funds raised were reduced even further because of the clean-up costs.
Grrr….
In the immortal words of Eric Cartman: I hate hippies…
No funds were being raised at all. That’s the whole thing about “Live8″ vs. the original “Live Aid”… This one is just to “raise awareness”.
Yeah. Awareness.
(Although, based on some things I have seen in discussion forums, it sounds like many of those who were woefully ignorant about the state of Africa are starting to have a clue, which is good… Of course, I doubt it will matter much to them, but still…)
I have also been educated
I agree, awareness is good. Action is even better. We’ll have to wait and see what happens…
I’m sorry that I missed the Live 8 conference, and I also admire its optimistic goals while cynically remaining unconvinced that it’s going to have an impact… On the other hand, I think that awareness is important.
After spending a week in Tanzania and two days in Cambodia, I have to say that living conditions are pretty grim for anybody not intimitely involved in the tourism industry. We were in relatively wealthy parts of both Tanzania and Cambodia, but the contrast with the US was shocking. *sigh*
I have to decide what, as a private citizen, I want to try to do about it. Because to ignore the global problem of poverty is untenable.
A co-worker of mine quit a couple years ago to go to Cameroon with the Peace Corps. His emails & blogging were quite eye-opening as to the conditions in the developing world.
We may think we have it bad sometimes, but we are pretty damn lucky to be where we’re at.