skippy the bush kangaroo: we don't need no education

Sunday, July 08, 2007

we don't need no education

mr. and mrs. skippy enjoyed several hours of the live earth concerts yesterday. skippy started by watching king brown band and toni collette & finish from sydney, australia, via the net on friday evening. the connection was suprisingly good and the msn website had a nice big screen (which could be enlarged), so it was a good web presentation.

as the saturday wore on, both bravo and cnbc carried various venues of the concerts. the chili peppers rocked the house at wembly stadium, and smashing pumpkins were also particularly good. lenny kravitz, looking a bit thicker than we remember him, got the whole crowd going in rio, when he left the stage and wandered out into the audience to finish "let love rule." it was also bizarrely exciting to see kayne west rap with sting & the police on "message in a bottle," which was an appropriate song, because its refrain of "sending out an s o s" went perfectly with the logo of the entire concert series.

also of note: melissa etheridge, genesis, duran duran, ub40 (they be 50!) metallica, shakira (looking not like a belly dancer for once), linkin park, kelly clarkson (who is growing into a great singer) and of course, mrs. skippy's favorite, madonna. but skippy was incredibly happy to see roger waters do the finale of dark side of the moon, from us and them thru eclipse. and then he topped it off with a children's choir joining him for another brick in the wall, as a huge inflatable pig floated thru the audience.

if there was a problem with the broadcasts, it was the jumping around from venue to venue, artist to artist, with no apparent rhyme or reason. we would have liked to have seen madonna's set all in a piece; and it was jarring to be watching a dark night at giants stadium one minute and then a bright daylight set at sydney's venue. and, switching back and forth between bravo, cnbc and nbc (in prime time) the same artists would be seen over and over again (at one point, roger waters was on all three channels at once! now, we love roger waters, but he ain't no sid barrett).

we missed keith urban and alicia keyes doing gimmee shelter, which was apparently the highlight of the concerts, and we didn't see any of the dc concerts with garth brooks and trisha yearwood. in theory, everything is available on demand at the web site.

jeralyn has a great live-blogging account of the concerts at talkleft.

Labels: global warming, gore, multi-millionaire media, music

posted by skippy at 9:59 AM |

7 Comments:

I thought NBC's coverage sucked the head

commented by

Carl, 12:27 PM PDT

You can go to msn.com and see all of the concert by selecting which video you want. Keith, as usual, was great!

commented by

terminalfrost, 4:57 PM PDT

I watched it on Sundance. They showed most of the sets. Without talking heads. There were commercials for Sundance, but that was it.

commented by

shayera, 9:22 PM PDT

skippy thanx for the pointers. caught dsotm stuff on you tube, as well as (no kidding) spinal tap.

go figure.usnde

commented by

Jo Fish, 10:14 PM PDT

Gimme Shelter was indeed a major highlight, which, thanks to the three-channel Groundhog Day-like broadcast, I got to see twice. Although as a whole, Madonna was definitely the star of the show. Her performance of La Isla Bonita with what seemed like a Scottish Klezmer band (!) was amazing, and the rest of her numbers were also in fine form.

Another Brick in the Wall was great, highlighted by the little bouncy girl (one of the schoolchildren) who was really into it and brought a smile to my face every time the camera went to her. The pig I could have lived without. "Save Our Sausages" indeed!

commented by

Left I on the News, 9:16 AM PDT

Just went to msn.com (thanks for the tip, terminalfrost). I discovered first that you can only watch using IE; forget Firefox. Thanks, Microsoft. Jerks. Anyway, I finally got it up and saw the beginning (which I had missed live) and discovered the band were Romany Gypsies (not Scottish Klezmers). :-)

commented by

Left I on the News, 9:28 AM PDT

The other major failure of the broadcast was the lack of chirons on a regular basis. Which venue, which artist (hey, I don't know these faces at all!), etc.

commented by

Linkmeister, 5:53 PM PDT

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