ความคิดเห็นที่ 17
New York Times
July 3, 2005
On Britain's Main Stage, a Mix of Hoping and Moping
By JON PARELES
LONDON, Sunday, July 3 - "We'll be watching you," Sting sang to the crowd of 200,000 people in Hyde Park for the London Live 8 concert, as photographs of the Group of 8 leaders who will meet in Edinburgh on Wednesday were shown on video screens. He had changed the lyrics of his song "Every Breath You Take" to suit the Live 8 concerts, which set out to pressure the leaders to adopt measures to "make poverty history."
Sting is an old hand at concerts for causes, which grew by an order of magnitude with Live Aid in 1985 and again with its expanded, technologically upgraded sequel, Live 8. So is U2, the Irish band that opened the concert with songs that mixed humility with high-mindedness.
Every broadcast pop benefit concert blends music, media, politics, celebrity, altruism and self-promotion, with ample possibilities for missteps as well as good works. Live 8 had both.
The misstep, at the flagship London concert, was to have Africa itself barely represented. The organizers lost an opportunity to slip some African music into a program broadcast worldwide, which might remind the world that Africans have a vital culture as well as crises. In London, one of the world's great singers, Youssou N'Dour from Senegal, was relegated to join the glum English songwriter Dido.
The Hyde Park concert was, instead, a very British affair, with a few American acts to add funk and swagger. It held a minihistory of British rock, from 1960's bands like the Who - whose leader, Pete Townshend, furiously windmilled his guitar - to current hitmakers like Coldplay. It started with a Beatle: Sir Paul McCartney, backed by U2, singing "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" mostly for its first line, "It was 20 years ago today," referring to the 1985 Live Aid concert.
Sir Paul returned for the finale, belting the Beatles rockers' "Get Back" and, joined onstage by George Michael, "Drive My Car." Before he played a ferocious "Helter Skelter," he vowed, "We'll rock and roll and stomp and stroll all the way to Edinburgh." A "na, na, na" singalong on "Hey Jude" ended the event.
The concert included the reunion of Pink Floyd, which separated two decades ago from its main songwriter, Roger Waters. Together, they revisited songs from the 1970's about alienation and madness.
The Scottish songwriter Annie Lennox turned her breakup ballad "Why" and the upbeat "Sweet Dreams Are Made of This" into professions of compassion and hope. But much current English rock is sodden with narcissism and self-pity, and the anthems that filled the afternoon often sounded like the moping of overindulged Europeans.
It was better for some musicians just to play the entertainer, like Elton John, who posed campily on his piano during "The Bitch Is Back," or Velvet Revolver, who strutted like old-fashioned glam-rock stars. Snoop Dogg, the show's hip-hop representative, let fly some four-letter words and gangsta tales.
Mariah Carey, who brought the African Children's Choir onstage with her, tried to tilt her self-affirmation songs "Make It Happen" and "Hero" toward the cause, but also promoted her latest single.
Sir Bob Geldof, who organized Live Aid in 1985 as well as Live 8, seized his chance to perform his 1979 hit "I Don't Like Mondays," about a high-school shooting, far from his current mission.
Madonna, a genius of the media event, played Live 8 just right. Dressed in white and surrounded by the London Community Gospel Choir, she sang spiritual dance-floor anthems - "Like a Prayer," "Ray of Light" and "Music" - and pumped her hips, demanding and getting a full-park singalong for a chorus: "Music makes the people come together."
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