Live 8

You may have heard about a concert here last week called Live 8 to indirectly benefit starving Africans and directly benefit sellers of cheese fries.

We got there as the Black Eyed Peas were playing and actually got a decent spot near the stage. I couldn’t actually see the performers, but I think my taller friend could. I could hear everything perfectly. Too bad the philly lineup sucked.

Here’s my quick review:

* Alicia Keys – Didn’t hear her.
* Black Eyed Peas – To be honest, I thought these guys were Eagle Eye Cherry until two months ago. There were surprisingly decent.
* Bon Jovi – I took shelter in my friend’s apartment durng Bon Jovi’s set.
* Dave Matthews Band – Utterly forgettable, unless their bus driver drops poop on you.
* Def Leppard – What has 9 arms and sucks? I love that joke.
* Destiny’s Child – No reccolection of this at all.
* Jay-Z – Best of the day by far.
* Josh Groban – Was this guy a runner up on American Idol or something?
* Kaiser Chiefs – The only band I really looked forward to seeing played first and I missed them.
* Keith Urban – I’ll assume this was the country singer I heard although I thought that was Toby Keith.
* Linkin Park – They weren’t too bad with Jay-Z, but their songs are terrible.
* Maroon 5 – I remember when the guy from Maroon 5 came out with Stevie Wonder, but I don’t remember them actually playing by themselves.
* Rob Thomas – What has two arms and sucks?
* Sarah McLachlan – I think they only let her play half a song.
* Stevie Wonder – Good set Stevie. Only one crappy ballad out of about 4 or 5 tunes. He sounded awesome.
* Toby Keith – I was probably sitting down for this one.
* Will Smith – I know it’s a crowd favorite, but when you only have two songs to play and one of them is the theme song to your sitcom…

Even though my review is overwhelmingly negative, I still had a good time. Everyone around us was cool and I saw only one little fight (and my mom got scared!)

(Quick note: Notice the spelling of Philadelphia in the link I just posted)

At one point during the day I saw a guy with about 20 press passes next to me and I asked him, “Can’t you get any closer with all those press passes?” and then he wanted to ask me a few questions for WHYY about the acts and the cause and whether we needed to cheer as loud for Steve Wonder because his hearing was extra sensitive and it would seem just as loud to him. I said we should cheer as loud because he’s that much better than the other acts.*

* Parts of that last paragraph may not be true.

I can’t wait for Live 9.