|
|
|
|
Published in The National Post on July 4, 2005 Canadian event pales next to British: Collaboration and creativity made
Hyde Park rock
There are few more bizarre ways to start off your Saturday than watching
a bloated Elton John dueting with a rail-thin, strung-out Pete Doherty
on a cover of T-Rex's Children of the Revolution. Courtesy of Doherty, the talented former Libertines singer whose
drug-fuelled exploits have been keeping the British tabloids in
business, it was something of a grotesque spectacle - wondering if he
was going to keel over before he'd finished stumbling his way through
the song, and placing bets on whether he weighs less than girlfriend
Kate Moss, one couldn't help but feel a little lurid. But the unlikely
pairing served to highlight what made London's version of Live 8 so much
more fulfilling than its Canadian counterpart. There were pros and cons to staying home on Saturday, rather than making
the trek to Barrie. On one hand, there was no traffic, no lineups for
beer or bottled water, and a safer distance from Dan Aykroyd. On the
other, we were punished with the grating Tanya Kim, presumably employed
by CTV to make Ben Mulroney seem appealing by comparison. But by far the biggest blessing and the biggest curse of committing to
the broadcast was getting a proper look at what was going on elsewhere. Next to the Rome or Paris events - and certainly the unfortunate Tokyo
and Moscow affairs headlined by Good Charlotte and the Petshop Boys,
respectively - Barrie might have looked just fine. But the effect of
CTV's heavy commitment to the homegrown gig (for the more ambitious,
AOL's online feed was a much better option) was that most international content was
limited to the London stage. And that made for a very cruel comparison indeed. Nobody was under any illusion that we'd be able to compete with what was
going on in Hyde Park. For one thing, there was the talent - from U2
and Paul McCartney to REM and Coldplay. Then there's the impossibility
of matching the fist-pumping enthusiasm of British music fans, who greet
a set by Robbie Williams like it's the Second Coming. What made London special, though, wasn't so much the talent as what they
did with it. For an event like Live 8 to work, artists need to do more
than just perform pared-down versions of their usual sets. They need to
create special, distinct moments - usually by collaborating with one
another, something repeatedly on display in London. Somewhat more smoothly than the Doherty/Sir Elton combo, there was
McCartney pairing with U2 to start the day with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely
Hearts Club Band, Richard Ashcroft joining Coldplay for Bittersweet
Symphony, and the Hey Jude closer featuring McCartney joined by a who's
who of talent. Even the normally bland Dido had her moment, courtesy of
spicing up her set with an appearance by African singer Youssou N'Dour.
And then, of course, there was the Pink Floyd reunion - a collaboration
of sorts that inspired euphoria among long-time fans, even if it left
some of us non-believers a little underwhelmed. When it wasn't duets, the London set found other ways to create a
larger-than-life feel - from the gospel choir helping out Madonna with
Like a Prayer By contrast, the Barrie show went nearly nine hours before finally transcending the ordinary with Neil Young's heartfelt set - particularly when an array of fellow performers joined him to close with Keep On Rockin' in the Free World. With the exception of an early-evening set by DMC, which boasted a crowded stage and a worthy spin on All Along the Watchtower, the rest of the lineup was completely by-the-book. No collaborations, outside the frightful Aykroyd joining the Tragically Hip on harmonica. No show-stopping covers, or even unique arrangements of the songs they'd played a million times before. For much of the day, the merciless booing of Celine Dion's piped-in performance (a frail Nelson Mandela managed to take the stage in Johannesburg, but leaving Las Vegas's comfy confines was apparently too much for Celine) stood as the day's highlight. In general, younger, more hard-rocking artists fared better than their older counterparts, with the likes of Sam Roberts and Jet injecting more life into the proceedings than Randy Bachman, Blue Rodeo or a badly misplaced Gordon Lightfoot. And on a bill criticized for its disconnect from the continent it was supposed to help, an appearance by Somali-Canadian poet-rapper K'Naan offered a welcome change of pace. But for the most part, it was all pretty perfunctory. Then again, one of the few attempts at breaking out of the mould made perfunctory seem pretty good. Already maligned for his posturing and pretensions, Raine Maida kicked off Our Lady Peace's set with a grotesque rendition of Leonard Cohen's Bird on a Wire, complete with trite adapted lyrics ("I swear by this song/We're good people, but we've done you wrong/And Africa, well it's time/We made it up to you"). After that, trying to match what was going on in Hyde Park didn't seem like such a good idea after all. All rights reserved. |