It did what it said on the poster – but no more. The British leg of Live Earth
started at 1.30 pm sharp with a thunderous five-minute drum fanfare by a
20-odd troupe of flailing percussionists, battering a miscellany of ethnic
skinned instruments.
Led by Roger Taylor, formerly drummer with Queen, and Chad Smith of the Red
Hot Chili Peppers, their SOS pattern, hammered out in morse code, was a cute
way of flagging up the Live Earth message: environmental calamity ahoy. But
it couldn’t disguise the problem that regularly threatened to becalm this
Wembley show.
As a concert, Live Earth was not the repeat of Live Aid/Live 8 it clearly
wanted to be. Unlike the events organised by the charismatic Sir Bob Geldof
– upon which this one modelled itself closely, right down to its choice of
name – the acts who answered the call from Al Gore’s people to play at
Wembley Stadium were a bit short on superstar clout.
It was Geldof’s legendarily persuasive powers which got Pink Floyd to abandon
a 20-year feud and re-form for Live 8 in Hyde Park in 2005. There was
nothing on the Live Earth London bill to command that level of anticipation
and potential drama.
With the exception of the closing act Madonna – who played next door at
Wembley Arena only last summer – there was nobody on the Stadium bill with
the cross-generational appeal, and catalogue of monster hits, to supply the
great unifying moments which event gigs need to make their message stick in
the mind.
Queen singing We Will Rock You at Live Aid, or Robbie Williams leading the
80,000 Live 8 crowd through a giant karaoke session of Angels, are worth far
more in this context than the 20 minutes per hour of worthy exhortations
dished out on screen or by guest celebs at Live Earth.
Genesis were the first band to take the stage, playing a four-song sample from
the set they performed in its entirety later in the day at Manchester as
part of their current British tour. The middle-aged-male contingent in the
crowd were delighted to welcome back Phil Collins’ recently reformed band of
pop-rock veterans. An element of surprise entered an otherwise solid
performance when Collins appeared to let out a rare ‘f **k’ during Invisible
Touch. But with latecomers still trickling into the stadium, Genesis landed
a few punches – notably with the environmentally incorrect Turn It On Again
– without knocking anybody out.
Razorlight fared better. Their music hasn’t yet acquired the dimensions to
suit stadia but the predominantly under-40 demographic of the audience
seemed more attuned to Razorlight’s brand of fizzy guitar rock than the more
ponderous Genesis.
As the sun continued to make a long overdue comeback over London, Belfast’s
finest, Snow Patrol, went down well with the arms aloft faithful on the
pitch at the front. Further back though, as well as up on the terraces, the
audience seemed to be enjoying the sunny afternoon as much as indie anthems
such as Open Your Eyes.
A similar atmosphere of music-as-wallpaper surrounded the performance of the
next couple to take the stage; the beardy singer-songwriters, David Gray and
Damien Rice. Their fiercely shouted duet of Que Sera, Sera, specially worked
up for the occasion, may have had some bearing, lyrically, on the future of
the planet; but it sure didn’t sound like the kind of music we might be
listening to in our putatively greener future.
With the arrival of Kasabian, launching into the swaggering title track of
their latest album, Empire, the decibel level in the stadium went up
noticeably. So did attention levels. Even the tee-shirts queuing for drinks
at the bars interrupted conversations to shout their approval. Kasabian have
been touted as the new Oasis and while this showing didn’t represent a
breakthrough, it showed they can rise to a big occasion. They even
remembered why they were there, enthusing bizarrely about how they wanted
“to save the polar bears”.
Paulo Nutini was another newcomer who injected a sense of urgency into a
concert sagging under the weight of its own worthiness. Following Al Gore’s
televised lecture on climate change, Nutini’s youthful rocking r'n’b vocal
reminded us that politicians need musicians more than musicians need them.
Just when it appeared that this concert was developing into a rather earnest,
all-male affair – onstage if not out in the 50/50 audience – Stacy Ferguson
of the LA hip-hop band Black Eyed Peas saved the day. Her soulful account of
Big Girls Don’t Cry was the most nakedly emotional moment so far. Next up,
the Peas’ signature hit, Where Is The Love, became the first song to get the
entire stadium shouting and waving along. A big moment at last, and a hard
act to follow.
Too hard, sadly, for John Legend. One of the most sophisticated new talents in
American r’n’b came and went in a blink, performing just one song alone at
the piano before most of the crowd noticed his arrival.
As the halfway point beckoned, the event needed a serious lift.
What it got was Geri Halliwell, flagging the return of her old group later in
the year and introducing, right now, Duran Duran. Like Genesis, but with
more modern haircuts, Simon LeBon and co turned in a thoroughly professional
20 minute resume of four of their old hits. The audience applauded but soon
afterwards were seen amusing themselves with Mexican waves.
If anybody could raise the temperature of an event that needed a bit of old
fashioned warming, it was Red Hot Chili Peppers. Capering about the stage
with an abandon which shamed the static efforts of the younger bands, the LA
four-piece’s explosive punk-funk had the energising effect of a double
espresso. By The Way got a roar of recognition comparable to that accorded
to Black Eyed Peas.
But then, again, the pace flagged. More indistinct rocking, this time from the
British band Bloc Party, led to a soul-lite performance from Corinne Bailey
Rae, which cruelly exposed new Wembley’s brutal acoustics. Three robustly
melodic songs from the keyboard trio Keane interrupted the snacking which
had replaced rocking as stadium favorite, before a concerted sonic assault
from the American heavy-metal band Metallica. Screen images of elephants
plodding along behind them, designed to assist the ecological message, did
nothing for the thick trudge of their music.
After six hours of non-stop seriousness, humour in the form of the re-convened
joke prog-rock band Spinal Tap offered welcome relief. Christopher Guest and
his absurdly wigged associates were undeniably funny, particularly when they
were joined by a dozen pointless bass players from the other bands on the
bill. But you had to be in on the joke when it was originally cracked in the
1980’s to get what was going on in 2007. Most of the Wembley crowd looked
bemused rather than amused by the Tap’s antics.
James Blunt’s performance was a Wembley wallpaper moment, uniformly pleasant
and in tune, but notable only because he didn’t play his theme song,
Beautiful. Nobody could accuse the Beastie Boys of singing in tune, or
indeed singing at all. The inclusion of this arty, whiny, faux-rap band so
high on the Live Earth bill appeared to be an example of the organisers
outsmarting their broadly middle of the road audience.
Swerving to the other extreme, next to appear were Pussycat Dolls, an all-girl
American group who came on like lap dancers, strutting and writhing down the
apron stage with their big hit Bet You Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me.
That’s ‘hot’ in a good way presumably, rather than an environmentally
damaging one.
Foo Fighters fared best of all the numerous guitar bands on the Live Earth
bill. The Foo’s front man, Dave Grohl, formerly of grunge Nirvana, had as
many women jumping in the air as men, and his frantic but vulnerable vocals
on Best Of You brought the entire stadium to its feet. The ear-splitting
cheer that greeted the end of the FF set left no doubt that Grohl was Man Of
The Night.
The Woman of the Night award was a shoe-in. Not for the first time in her
career, it fell to Madonna to rescue pop – or this concert anyway – from the
grasp of bloke-ish noiseniks. As the only artist to have written a song
specifically for the event - Hey You – Madge stole the show with a typically
slick routine, punctuated with moments of complete darkness. A dystopian
preview of a carbon-positive future which made Live Earth's point more
vividly than all the preceding hours of slogans and lectures.
