I’m wondering how I can find out whose ‘product shifted serious units’ after their appearances at Live 8. Such as Kaiser Chiefs in the US or maybe Black Eyed Peas here.
Who do you think will have career-lengthening sales after the gigs?
(I saw very little of it; playing cricket and then a bbq, since you ask).
MiM
I watched quite a bit of it, but not all of it. These are just my impressions of what I saw. One of the really cool things (IMHO) about Live Aid and Live 8 was that it separated the great musicans from those who are propped up by producers and studio marketing money.
U2’s appearance at Live Aid was what made them into the international stars they are today. Their Live 8 set was was great (playing a song with Paul McCartney didn’t hurt, either!), but they had nothing to prove. They are already on the short list of “greatest rock bands on the planet”, and their Live 8 appearance was another data point in their favor. They were relaxed, professional, and they rocked. They had the unenvialbe position of going first, and they made it look easy. Coldplay had the unenviable position of going next, and they sounded turgid and boring in comparison.
In contrast, Duran Duran were huge in 1985, but their Live Aid set was atrocious and their carreer went into a sharp decline after that. At Live Aid, Simon Le Bon’s voice broke during “A View to a Kill” (which was a horrible song anyway) really badly. It was humiliatingly bad. On Saturday, their set at Circus Maximus was going fine. They were doing “Save a Prayer”, which Le Bon said they had intended to do at Live Aid but ran out of time, and it was sounding pretty good and the Le Bon went for a high note that’s not even in the song and his voice broke again. It wasn’t the long atonal bleating kind of breaking that he did at Live Aid, but it broke. Kind of took the wind out of their sails. Then they went into “Wild Boys” and it was teh suck. It was kind of sad.
I didn’t get to see much of Green Day’s set in Berlin, but what I saw was aces. They did “American Idiot” and gave me a whole new appreciation of the song. The crowd was going nuts, too. They also closed with “We Are the Champions,” which was one of the big moments at Live Aid and (I think) one of Queen’s last performances with Freddy Mercury. Green Day also killed with it.
Joss Stone’s set was barely seen on MTV, but it sounded like she had borrowed Prince’s band for the day, she was in great voice and she worked the crowd like…well, Bono.
I’ve never been a fan of Destiny’s Child, but I have always been a great admirer of Beyonce’s…assests. I saw their set almost by accident, and I didn’t turn it off. She’s got a great set of pipes to go along with her…assets…and I was thoroughly entertained.
Jay Z and Linkin Park’s set was heavily covered by MTV. The rap/metal thing sounded even more awkward than usual, and the band (not Jay Z, whose incredible ego carried him through) looked uncomfortable and timid. The MTV people said the set was “electrifying”, but besides actually being powered by electricity, it didn’t look that way to me.
Velvet Revolver, on the other hand, threw down in London. I tuned in out of morbid curiosity to see the dinosaurs embarass themselves, but they fucking rocked. Slash is a freaking guitar god.
Sting made the right choice of doing all Police songs, and doing them as “old school” as possible. Why couldn’t he have gotten the Police back together to do “Message in a Bottle”, “Driven to Tears” (which rocked), and “Every Breath You Take”? He may not get a career boost out of the concert, but he reminded people that his old stuff was pretty good.
Alijica (sp?) Keys did the sensitive piano/singer/strings thing, and actually made it work. Like Beyonce, I was shocked to hear that she actually has talent!
Stevie Wonder was a fucking pro if ever I saw one. While the song was going on, he was cueing the guy he was dueting with (was it Timberlake?) and singing circles around him. All class. And the crowd ate it up.
The Pink Floyd reunion was emotional, but shaky. Maybe it was its shakiness that lent part of the emotion, if that makes any sense. Live music is kind of like NASCAR in that you’re always kind of looking for the wreck. They seemed to wobble, but they never actually hit the wall. But it was very compelling–at least until MTV cut off the solo in “Comfortably Numb” to go to commercial.
That’s all that pops to mind right now. I want to watch some of the individual performances that I missed while they’re still up on the site.
The biggest loser of the day, IMHO, was MTV, whose coverage couldn’t have been worse if they had deliberately tried to sabotage it. Somebody needs to lose their job over it. Maybe several someones.
David Gilmour admirably has stated that he will not profit from Live 8, and urges other artists/record companies (damn, don’t we have another name for them? Motherfuckers comes to mind) to donate profits.
Nick Mason didn’t have a great night—he’s Pink Floyd’s musically weakest link anyway, and he came in late on “Money,” though the band managed to get back together within a few bars. But overall, it was a nice change from the plodding, 15-piece behemoth that Pink Floyd had become since Gilmour took over (or since the Wall shows, if you want to count them); a little roughness in the sound was worth it.
I agree is was cool to see Pink Floyd as a “band” rather than an “orchestra.” It really helped one appreciate the quality of the songs as rock songs rather than orchestral compositions, or whatever.
I missed the whole set, but saw the videos here on AOL. At the end of Comfortably Numb…Waters waved up Gilmour, Mason, and Wright to get together side-by-side, on the stage and wave out to the crowd. Maybe a hatchet or 4 were buried that night, and MTV muffed it bigtime. Shaky and wobbly…probably, but the event of those 4 together on stage was not diminished by it. Ms. Boods link also showed that their performance sparked a tremendous increase in 5 of their album sales that were in the top 10.
Didn’t see it but heard Pink Floyd. I have to say that I was impressed. Sure, they were just going through the motions but I was surprised how tight they sounded, considering how long it’s been since they went through those motions together. And a lot of bands would sell their souls for motions like that to go through.
However, I’m surprised their album sales jumped like that (Pink Floyd - Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd up 1343%) since I thought everybody with a CD player had everything they ever recorded.
The biggest selling albums ever are at around the 30 million unit mark. The publicity for Live 8 claimed a billion people watched. Even if you cut that by a more realistic 90%, you’re talking 100 million people. Plenty of room for new sales of any album, no matter how old or famous.
And that 1343% increase just meant that sales went from around 80 to around 1000. Peanuts.
I expect every band will see a slight spike in sales. I also expect that the half-life for increased sales will be very short. A month from now, the effect will be mostly gone and swamped by any new reason to buy or not buy their albums.
My heart says Pink Floyd, but my head says…Madonna!
Damn, she is one hell of good performer! Awesome set. She has total command of the stage. She sings great. She dances great. She has charisma. And she has the experience, and confidence, of a seasoned pro. Fantastic!
Did she relinquish her total command of that poor woman’s arm yet? 
Heh! 
Actually, as I’m looking at the performances on AOLMusic.com, I might have to go with Green Day! Holy shit, that was an awesome set! An 8 minute, crowd pleasing, version of Minority. We Are The Champions. Billie Joe, Man. Billie Joe!
Interesting. I had a different take on that clam. It seemed to me that when Waters and Gilmour came in on the famous 7/4 riff, they almost immediately got out of sync from the prerecorded rhythmic money sounds. Mason was wearing headphones, so I guess that he heard those sounds clearly and came in where he expected his pickup to be, and the other guys in the band were elsewhere. So I put it down to Waters and Gilmour not being able to hear the loop clearly enough.
But in general, I thought it was a fine set, warts and all–with the exception of Waters’ ill-advised lead vocal in the second verse of Wish You Were Here.
Green Day’s set was amazing. I wondered which songs they’d do, and got two of them right (American Idiot and Holiday) but was surprised by Minority and We Are The Champions.
Audioslave’s set was pretty impressive too, as I didn’t expect Black Hole Sun or Killing in the Name Of.
The Pink Floyd set was surprisingly good for a group that hadn’t played together at all in years. Certainly better than the first time Fleetwood Mac did a reunion (find a copy of Don’t Stop from the 1992 DNC to see what I mean.) I’m also not surprised that they all said they wouldn’t do it again. Gilmour likened it to sleeping with an ex-wife.
Interesting. Good point. Then again, Waters was also wearing an earpiece.
Holy CRAP yes.
Agreed. I don’t watch MTV that much (not that they care since I’m way out of their demographic) but I tuned in on Saturday morning hoping to see some live performances of at least few acts I’m somewhat interested in. The first thing I see is a commercial … then another commercial … then another, etc. I then channel surf for about five minutes with the hope that when I get back to MTV, they’ll be done with their commercial block and we can get back to the music. However, when I do, I just get their commentators (none of whom I really know) prattling on endlessly about the great performances that are going on without, of course, cutting to those “great performances” so the viewers can see and hear for themselves how “great” they are. Then, finally, MTV goes to The Killers performing their latest single live. Now, I know a lot of people don’t like The Killers (I have rather mixed feelings about them) and they’re certainly not U2 but seeing an act perform live is why I’m watching. Unfortunately, once they get about 2/3 of the way through their song, MTV cuts back their prattling jocks who briefly talk about the acts that are coming up and then the network goes to another long block of commercials. Knowing what I’m in for if I keep watching MTV, I turn off my set and go get an iced coffee and take care of some personal errands. When I come back, I watch/listen to the rest of Live 8 on the internet. Thank God I have broadband.
As for anybody at MTV losing their job over their pathetic Live 8 coverage, I doubt if it will happen. They’ve been steadily phasing out the “Music” from “Music Television” for about seven years and the network’s ratings have mostly gone up. Today’s regular MTV viewer doesn’t care about watching music videos or complete live performances–they’re more interested in Road Rules/Real World marathons, Cribs, and whatever reality show they’ve got on at the time. Those who really wanted to see and hear Live 8 went to the internet (provided they had access to it).
It couldn’t hurt that the direct-sale ad for “Echoes” ("a unique sonic exploration…"etc) was run at least once at some point before or after they were in some markets (like mine).