Live 8

For goodness sake! What is wrong with having a concert!? Not everyone can rush off to Africa and administer vital medication to dying children. Not everyone wants to post their leftover food to starving children. This concert was simply a way for everyone (who wanted too) to feel that they have done something positive towards making a change. It was a POSITIVE thing to do.

Those of us lucky enough to be at the concert left that evening feeling human. Those who watched it on TV felt the power of that message. We had been forced to get in touch with our emotions, whether that be elation, excitement, empathy, passion.... whatever the emotions we felt, they made us remember what it was like to be human.

Reminding us fortunate westerners what it is like to be a real human.

And that, my friend, is what i believe is the key to making a change in this very un-human world.

I won't say this is worthy of a higher rating than "7" because many of the artists/performers, etc., were not to my liking. That said, a lot of them were great.

Pink Floyd made a historic return to the stage and stole the show. Roger's voice may not be at its best, but in terms of pure presence, they were ace! Velvet Revolver, sadly, was less impressive; the first live performance of theirs that I had seen, and I was fairly underwhelmed. Slash looked bloated and bored, Scott Weiland's vocals were fair at best, and their song selection was questionable (the opening line of "Do It for the Kids" contains a strong expletive, and the entire point of the song is to encourage sex). I'm not anti-swearing/sex, but the idea of them performing this show in front of millions of families across the nation was a bit disappointing. I think they could have instead played something more relevant and melodic.

To be entirely honest I couldn't care less about most of the other performers. REM was pretty dull and all the solo artists were grating MTV generation no-talent hacks.

Pretty colossal production. I was only 20 miles from Hyde Park, and looking back in retrospect I wish I had gone down to see the concert if only to catch a glimpse of what may possibly be the last Pink Floyd performance ever.

Sublime...

A who's who concert of the past and present music industry featuring Paul McCartney, U2, The Who, Pink Floyd, Madonna, Elton John, Coldplay, Sting, Robbie Williams and REM in 10 different concerts in London, Cornwall, Berlin, Rome, Paris, Ontario, Tokyo, Jo'Burg, Moscow and Philadelphia.

Why? For justice! The concerts were designed to raise awareness, (not money), about the catastrophic poverty that exists in our world today, primarily in Africa. This public awareness was raised in order to put pressure on the G8 Leaders who will be meeting in Scotland on July 6-9. Through the huge public support, these leaders will be forced to consider the issues of fair trade, debt relief and aid and hopefully act upon these issues and in doing so, Make Poverty History.

A stellar event for a most worthy cause!

Live 8 was a great concert with great artists from the present and the past.The greatest thing about the music was the choice of songs by a great number of performing artists and bands.The Who played "Won't get Fooled Again" and Sting "Every Breath You Take".All songs with a double meaning during this concert,cause it's all about raising awareness towards the poverty in Africa and pressuring the G8 leaders.

Still,the ultimate highlight for me was the performance of my favorite band (together with Sonic Youth) Pink Floyd in their entire line up (except Syd Barrett of course).They also had a great choice of songs (Money,Wish You Were Here,Breathe).Still,there final song took my breath away and I wasn't the only one. "Comfortably Numb" was sung so beautifully and played with such intensity that it was unreal (considering the fact that they are old rockers and haven't played together in this set for over 20 years). Truly the musical highpoint of the day! But all in all it was about the message and it was spread out in a good and sincere way,thank you Bob Geldof! Now we can only hope that the G8 leaders have a heart...

Missing bands: Sonic Youth,Radiohead,The Prodigy,Lou Reed,Underworld,etc... But hey,you can't have them all!

I really enjoyed Live 8 at the time.

There was a real sense of occasion about it, that it might have an influence on world poverty.

Now watching the DVDs some of that sense of occasion has gone. Although there are still children dying every few seconds and the haunting video to Annie Lenox's 'Why?' still affects as it should.

What disappointed me most was the removal of some tracks, presumably due to shortage of time. I was particularly looking forward to seeing Keane's 'Bedshaped' again and found it was one of those that had been left out.

The sound quality however is excellent through my hifi speakers but not all the bands performed that well on the day. For me Pete Doherty and Black Eyed Peas were a little bit poor.

Overall it is still an excellent concert to watch, the variety of artists and the reason they were all there make it unique...apart from Live Aid of course