MTV Ruins Live 8 Concerts

[ghosty]

Would've been nice to see Razorlight, Keane, The Killers, Coldplay (w/Richard Ashcroft), Kaiser Chiefs...hell...would've been nice to see more than 10 second clips of U2, McCartney, Madonna...but NO...we get 15 full minutes of Jay-Z!!!!! and 10 sec's a piece of most everyone else. Barely a full performance by anybody. Of course, the mindless VJ's yap all through Stevie Wonder's set like he's a piece of shit!

MTV's broadcast was a disgrace.

[ghosty]

Looks like ABC's 2 hour "highlights" show is getting it right with at least one full performance from many of the day's acts. Too bad MTV did'nt think the London concert was anything it's target audience of 7 year olds would enjoy. Thank you MTV for shitting on what might have been a memorable TV occasion.[:(!]

[schwenko]

Agreed! It really irritated me when, after 30 seconds or so of performance, they cut off Bon Jovi for some VJ schtick! Not even a commercial! (Bon Jovi was performing Living on a Prayer, a guilty pleasure). When I tuned back in hours later I was treated to 25 seconds of The Killers.
Jerks!

[buffalochipz]

I caught a few minutes of Green Day in Berlin--and this makes me old--but I seriously could not take the quick edits that MTV insisted on using. I swear, each shot only lasted about two seconds before they cut to something else like they were trying to turn a live performance into a video. I could barely keep up and found it hugely distracting.

I wonder if thirty-somethings in 2025 will be nostalgic for Live 8 like I am for Live Aid? Doubt it.

[devildog]

Yeah, MTV sucked as usual.

[bpdp3]

Sad to say, MTV took its focus on actual music sometime between 1984 and now. I'm willing to bet less than 20% of their airtime now is spent actually showing MUSIC. It's no wonder they've lost their ability to intelligently cover music events.

[KYYX4ever]

I don't have cable ( and thus, MTV), but one the headlines on my newspage this morning (on the 'net) was how MTV absolutely botched their coverage up. Maybe they themselves did not think so, but from what I've read here, they did. Dumbasses.[:(]

[Darkwave]

MTV's coverage was rotten! It was like watching the Olympics on NBC a few years ago[xx(].


Best Live 8 Viewing to Be Found Online


By DAVID BAUDER

(AP) Various artists perform at the finale of the Live 8 concert in Hyde Park, London, late Saturday...


In Berlin, Green Day proclaimed its majesty with a cover of Queen's "We Are the Champions" as R.E.M. performed "Man on the Moon" in London. And R.E.M. hadn't left the stage before Tim McGraw began singing "Live Like You Were Dying" in Rome.

These were just a few thrilling musical moments from Live 8 that you couldn't see on live television. For the ultimate viewing experience, you needed America Online.

Television seemed shockingly old-fashioned during Saturday's worldwide concert for poverty relief. AOL's coverage was so superior, it may one day serve as a historical marker in drawing people to computers instead of TV screens for big events.

Part of it was simply the way things were structured. Concerts held more or less simultaneously in 10 venues are next to impossible for television to get its arms around. Live Aid 20 years ago, with concerts only in London and Philadelphia, was much easier.

And part of it was also MTV's failure to really try. There were as many commercial breaks as performances, and MTV's stable of correspondents spent more time talking about what a fantastic event it was instead of showing it.

With a click of the mouse, AOL visitors could jump from a video feed of the London concert to one from Philadelphia, Berlin or Rome. The performances were shown in their entirety. AOL programming chief Bill Wilson claimed that 160,000 people were simultaneously viewing the video streams at any given time, and that more than 5 million people sampled the video at some point during the day.

While AOL could be faulted for failing to provide users with a comprehensive schedule ahead of time, it offered updates onscreen under an entry called "The Buzz." People watching Kanye West in Philadelphia, for instance, were flashed a message: "Brian Wilson is performing 'Good Vibrations' in Berlin." Or they were told Snoop Dogg was about to take the stage in London.

It was utterly addictive. It tied the event together and gave fans a reason to stay glued to their computers.

AOL's "global feed" feature offered a chance to catch up with performances that just took place, with little chatter or interruption.

Meanwhile, MTV was playing catch-up on a whole different level.

When Destiny's Child took the stage in Philadelphia to sing "Survivor," MTV was showing a tape of Coldplay from three hours earlier in London. MTV also suffered from a maddeningly short attention span: It missed the opening of a Black-Eyed Peas song because of an interview with fans, then cut off the end for a commercial.

MTV simply had too many elements - interviews, personalities who needed their "face time" and all those performances - to give its broadcast any sense of coherence.

Overall, the day's events were magnificent in their sheer breadth and diversity. Organizer Bob Geldof promised to deliver "the greatest concert ever, and it was hard to prove him wrong. Most acts seized the moment with magnanimity, realizing it could well be the most-remembered moment from their careers.

After backing Paul McCartney on the concert-opening "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," U2 cemented its status as the world's top rock band. It performed "Beautiful Day,""Vertigo" and "One" with ease and power.

Green Day - whose crowd-pleasing leader Billie Joe Armstrong has a future in Vegas - had a powerful four-song set. And after being critically discounted in recent years, R.E.M. was intent on proving its strength.

Carried out on a throne behind women spreading rose petals in his path, Will Smith gave a delightfully over-the-top show in his hometown of Philly. Madonna rose to the occasion with a stage full of singers and breakdancers all dressed in white.

The day's oddest trend? Masks.

R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe had an odd blue raccoon-like mask painted on his face, and Kanye West's violin players looked like they had black masking tape over their eyes.

By ending with the desultory "Fix It," Coldplay missed a chance to make a powerful statement for itself; cameras were busy in Coldplay's set with no less than three peeks at singer Chris Martin's wife Gwyneth Paltrow and their baby in the front row.

Dido seemed to be swallowed up by the large stage, her voice not up to the challenge. Maroon 5 needlessly broke an unspoken rule by covering a song by an artist scheduled to perform later, with Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World."

Pictures of the G8 leaders flashed on video screens as Sting sang the "I'll be watching you" refrain in "Every Breath You Take." The Who used the same pictures behind "Who Are You."

The day's most anticipated musical event, a reunion by Pink Floyd, felt ragged and a little sad. One could only guess whether formerly feuding Roger Waters and Dave Gilmour wondered about their wasted years as they looked across the stage at one another.

The London concert wrapped up with Paul McCartney singing "The Long and Winding Road" - a fitting end for Live 8's eclectic trip around the globe.

[DevoManiac101]

Would anyone kill me if I said that the Madonna performance was really amazing? Overall the entire Live 8 sucked, nice Geldolf interview though

Thanks, Justin/DevoManiac1-1

[zalasta]

MTV was a disgrace. AOL did a fantastic job (i never thought i'd use the words "AOL" and "fantastic" in the same sentance.)

I thought the Live 8 shows were amazing. Annie Lennox, in particular, was fantastic. The Cure was great, so was the Pink Floyd reunion. Even people that I don't really like, Joss Stone, for instance, just really sounded good and sounded like they gave it their all.

I thought Bob Geldof's performance of I Don't Like Mondays was a hightlight as well. He was so humble: "Thanks for letting me do this."


All in all, i thought, as a musical event, it was simply amazing. Too bad that MTV couldn't get over itself enough to actually broadcast it.

[Frank_Chickens]

Over here in England, they kept cutting away so we could view some vital tennis action from Wimbledon. :/

As usual, the best way to view is by DVD.

[ghosty]

What sucks is that this COULD'VE been a very memorable experience, much like the original Live Aid where MTV just pointed cameras at the stage and let it go. I disagree that Live 8 "sucked" as someone said here. Any show with The Cure, Roxy Music, Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney, Green Day, The Pet Shop Boys, U2, Sting, Coldplay, Razorlight, Stevie Wonder, Annie Lennox, Pink Floyd, Scissor Sisters, Keane, R.E.M. and The Killers (to name but a few) could'nt possibly suck completely. Even acts I had no interest in like Joss Stone for example gave incredible performances. Had they spread the broadcast out over two days and gave viweres a chance to see ALL the performances, this would've been the greatest thing going....but no, they fucking ruined it!!! This was there last chance to restore any semblance of credibilty, having pissed it away since the late 90's, but they took the low road as usual. I mean, does anybody at MTV know ANYTHING about music? If the comments made by the VJ's on the braodcast are any indication, I'd say they'd have a hard time picking Elvis out of lineup. Fuckin' morons!!

[DayGloJo]

The only coverage of Live 8 I saw was 15 seconds of Madonna on the CBS Nightly News boradcast. From what you've all posted, Iit sounds as if CBS did more justice to the event than MTV did.

DayGloJo

[Panorama]

Right in the middle of Pink Floyd's set they cut to the female VJ for her "insightful comments" -- I'm looking at the screen yelling "SHUT UP -- WHY ARE YOU TALKING -- I DIDN'T WAIT 24 YEARS FOR A PINK FLOYD REUNION TO HEAR YOU TALK."

I hate MTV now (well long before this) -- it was almost as bad as when Led Zep regrouped during Live Aid and Mark Goodman (I think) said they would play Stairway -- well at least he kept his mouth shut during the song.

[My Aural Stimulator]

Hmmm...MTV screwing something up? How unlike them.