I got one solid laugh during MTV's coverage of Live8...and it came from Jimmy Fallon, no less.

John Norris was interviewing him, and it was clear that Fallon was absolutely giddy at the prospect of seeing Pink Floyd perform.
Norris said, "So, did you ever imagine you'd see David Gilmour and Roger Waters share a stage together again...?"
Grinning from ear to ear, Fallon said, "Dude, if Syd Barrett rode a bike onto the stage, that's the only way this day could get any better!"

I also got a cheap laugh from ABC's coverage, which allowed Roger Daltrey to ask the immortal question, "Who the fuck are you?" but edited some bit of random crowd noise over top of David Gilmour railing against "that goody-good bullshit."

As far as my overall impressions of the day, I thought some of the performances were spectacular, but they were almost entirely from what I caught online.  Was Brian Wilson EVER featured on a television broadcast...?  I never even saw *clips* of him!  In fact, the only artist from Berlin I saw featured anywhere was Green Day...and if I see their version of "We Are The Champions" one more time, I'm liable to put my fist through my TV set.  Come to think of it, I think the only bits I saw from Canada were a performance by Jet and a brief clip of Bryan Adams.  MTV and VH-1 should be strung up for their incredibly shoddy coverage of the various concerts...starting first and foremost with the fact that the same feed was showing on both networks.  No-one cares what the brain-dead teenagers in the crowd thought of the acts!  I mean, am I looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, or wasn't the network's coverage of Live Aid back in the day far more about the music...?  What they're showing on ABC right now is a hell of a lot more like what I remember from 1985...celebrities introducing performers, and - GASP! - full-length performances by the artists.  Why no-one put together a pay-per-view package where you could spend a certain amount of money to watch all the performances from a particular city is beyond me...because I'd've paid 50 bucks for access to all of the London performances...

And, yet, oddly, the most offensive thing I saw all day wasn't anything to do with Live8.  It was when a local R&B radio station ran a TV ad...one that was put together at least two years ago...that contained a voiceover from a pre-stroke Luther Vandross, hyping the merits of the station.  To drag that ad out and run it now that Luther's passed on is just in incredibly poor taste...

Latah,

WiLL

WILL HARRIS
Contributing Writer
PopMatters / Amplifier Magazine / PortFolio Weekly
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