Off the top I'd like to say that when I first saw the Live 8 logo, I thought it was a dollar sign woven into the guitar. I bet a few others did too. I was lucky enough (I guess) to get tickets to the show up here in Barrie.
First I'll talk about the music itself I guess, then rant about the rest of it.
Personally I found Bruce Cockburn and Gordon Lightfoot to be a great part of the show. Both had their turn going up in front of the crowd alone, with only a guitar in hand. Cockburn's songs were good because they actually had something to do with the meaning of the whole show. And Lightfoot's performance of If You Could Read My Mind was probably the best single song of the show. I think it's awesome that he was nervous as hell before taking the stage. The dude's been performing for years and years, but I guess a crowd of 35000 is at least seven times as many people as he'd used to getting. He handled himself admirably though.
Jet was pretty good as a live band, but Cold Hard Bitch doesn't really do much to raise awareness for the starving African kids. Then we had to listen to that insufferable Look What You've Done. That song single handedly sucked all credibility from the band as a whole.
I'm not a big Our Lady Peace fan, but they were quite good, especially with the song that was written by Leonard Cohen. Nice addition to the show. BNL did the expected songs, but were also good live. BTO was pretty solid as well, along with Deep Purple. But those guys are ancient and flabby now.
The rest of the bands were all good, save Great Big Sea. They coulda been a highlight, but came out with no instruments, except one dude with a drum. The whole crew just sang, and the one song about the donkey was a fucking joke. It would've been better if they'd avoided showing up all together, after a performance like that.
Neil Young polished the show off in style. But I'd been waiting for a great rendition of Rockin' in the Free World to cap off the show, and it ended up being a bit of a disappointment. All of the day's performers came out to sing it, but mics were cutting out like mad and noone but Young and the Barenaked Ladies seemed to know the lyrics. They missed the final verse of the song completely, the one with the kinder, gentler machine-gun hand. BNL saved face by leading the whole lot of us in singing Oh Canada as the grande finale.
The weather was great, and no shithawks were around at all. All in all a great day with classic tunes, and good intent behind the organization of the thing.
Alas, I have alot to bitch about. Big surprise. Where to begin...
I guess I'll start off with the white bracelets. I doubt many people took note of where their bracelet was actually produced in the world. Before the show I read about alot of them being made in Chinese sweatshops. (It turned out that the ones being sold at the show were actually made in Canada.) However, this has to raise an eyebrow or two, doesn't it? How exactly are we helping the world's poor by exploiting them further? Like most things, it was probably just cheaper to do it in the East, which just supports the economics of the rich staying rich, and the poor getting poorer. This actually goes for all of these rubber band things, it just happens that this cause is the most hypocritical.
Next I'd like to discuss the fact that it was actually held in Barrie. I don't know about anyone else, but I quickly got tired of hearing Toronotonians bitching and Barrie-ites gloating about the location. Who the fuck really cares? The point of the show was not to raise awareness for Barrie, but that's what it seemed to do. It was supposed to be about something more important than which town got to sell out their hotels and rip people off for parking.
The radio station 102.1 the Edge was bad for complaining, not to mention the fact that they expressed brutally uninformed views about Live 8. Their DJs and talk show guys were obviously bitter about Toronto losing the bid for the show, and voiced their displeasure in the most embarrassing of ways. They chose to belittle the entire operation by saying shit like, "We're glad Toronto doesn't have to play host to these has-beens of the music world" and, "Kids can't eat awareness... just send money to Africa... don't worry about going to the show." These guys clearly missed the point, but more importantly they kept joking about things that made them look like fools, as they had no real grasp on the problems of Africa. Which brings me to my next point...
Anyone who says "just cancel the debt to the poor countries, problem solved" is completely lost. Now you may have heard that we rich countries have pledged to "eliminate" debt to the very poorest of countries in the world. But if you do get rid of the debt for the poorest 25 countries, for example, I'm pretty sure the children from the 26th poorest country are still gonna starve. Well done, we're fucking heroes now, right? (As a little note, the city of Barrie wanted to use Live 8 as a vessel to raise awareness for poverty right here in town, but Geldoff refused to allow it. So now our poor are merely second class poor. Nice message to endorse there pal.)
What you probably haven't heard about are the conditions that the West has imposed upon these poorest of the poor countries. In exchange for debt elimination, the West has secured the rights to fuck over the average Joe again. We've got it all set up to move our companies in and rob the poor of their valuable natural resources, not to mention our exploitation of the environment in the process. So rather than hold a huge number over the heads of these countries, we'll simply sneak in there and take what we please. As it turns out, it's predicted that the overall gains will provide more money to the West than the debt would have! It's time to call a spade a spade folks, not simply rename it.
Next on the chopping block is CTV. As far as I know they were the only Canadian station with coverage of the whole show. Here's a question for ya: Do you think all of the revenues collected from the TV commercials were gladly handed over to the Make Poverty History fund? Not fucking likely. Enough said. Oh, and those $40 t-shirts for sale at the show... you think nobody's got their fingers in that honey pot?
As for the performers, it was assumed that everyone would be doing this show pro bono. However, it's been confirmed that gifts for the performers could total about $12000 US for the band partaking in the show. This included Rolex watches and $3000 suits. I'm assuming that this wasn't the case for most bands, but it's worth noting.
And as for the assumption that simply dumping a wad of cash on a government would solve anything, you've got another thing coming. Money is useless in the wrong hands. Particularly hands that were brought into political power by the West in the first place. (Fun Fact: the only democratically elected leader of the Congo was assassinated by the U.S. and Portugal for daring to say that the people of his land should reap the rewards of their work and resources.) When money is given to dictators, odds are good that the people who need the funds will be left high and dry still. And the kickbacks to Western governments could be substantial.
Lastly I'll comment about the massive increase in album sales for performers worldwide. Bands at the London show saw an average increase of 1000% for their records. Pink Floyd did the honourable thing by pledging all extra gains to charity. (It's also awesome that they came together for a reunion in order to support this cause. It had been something like 24 years since they were last together.) Naturally the rest of them followed suit, but it's tough to say if they would've done so without Pink Floyd doing it first.
All I can really say about this entire thing is this: Live 8 was a display of how uninformed most of us really are. I don't claim to know it all, but at least I'm putting in an effort to learn. Most people probably only cared about how many tickets they could grab and how close they could get to the stages. Though the intent was good, the commercials were effective, and the performers did their best to remind us why we were there, the truth is we'll forget about all of that in a few weeks or months. Millions upon millions of people blindly signed that live8live petition, but how many of those people actually cared to investigate why there's so much poverty and death and starvation in the world??
The reason is simple:
It's us.
It's our greed that makes them poor. Our gluttony that makes them starve. And our conceit that ensures that nothing will ever change.
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