Live Earth Review: a dead event?

7/07/07 was supposed to be a magical day where the corrupt American leadership - from its politicians to corporate thieves and the oil oligarchy would be dealt an ideological blow by the liberal intelligentsia through Al Gore’s Live Earth concert to raise awareness of the global warming issue. Unfortunately, NBC's coverage of Live Earth was so completely dreadful, it became un-watchable after the first 5 minutes. Was it because of their producer’s hatchet job edits, or were the acts just uninspired and irrelevant? From Ann Curry’s antiseptic interview of Sting and Trudy, to Carson Daly’s complete lack of talent as an MC, not only did the musical acts fail to deliver any real passion, even Gore’s 3 minute speech on his “7 step pledge” was delivered in his usual wooden style in such a hurried fashion I can’t recall what the pledge was.

If global warming is such a big deal, why didn’t Al get someone with vision and clout to produce the event? Whoever he hired was talentless on just about every level, from production design to talent acquisition. I was hoping for at least the aspiration of a Woodstock or the impact of Live Aid, and all we got was watered down MTV. Only Metallica had a sense of edge to it with a solid performance. Watching Madonna sing off-key, and The Police (with Kanye’ West) butchering “Message in a Bottle” was about exciting as having a good bowel movement. It’s a sad day when pop media figures like Alicia Keys or Cameron Diaz are used to speak on complex issues like global climate change. Couldn’t they find one decent climatologist with charisma to talk about the state of the science? Is this the best we can do?

Starting with the stage design - where those supposed to be used tires in the background? Where was the video backdrop presenting educational messaging to educate the crowd on global warming and the actions that can be taken to make a difference? According to NBC’s coverage, it all begins with changing a light bulb. Where was Robert Redford and the Apollo Alliance? And NBC couldn’t donate 3 hours of tv time? They had to sell advertising time, where we found out that American cars can get 30 miles per gallon (Buckminster Fuller had a patent in 1929 for a car with those specs). At least Live Aid was an all day event, which was only 2 international stadiums, and it had real passion.

The execution of this event was amateur, the musical acts irrelevant, the message obfuscated, and NBC’s coverage disgraceful. I understand it’s a step, but considering all the energy and promotion spent on it, if this is the best we can do, we might as well say to hell with it. It shows that Al has less leadership capability than Bob Geldoff (the Live Aid executive producer for all you youngsters), so I pray he chooses to stay out of politics. Perhaps Gore’s heart is in the right place (although one can’t deny the hypocrisy of the wealthy and their extended carbon footprint). Perhaps his efforts will have a positive impact on people’s attitudes so that they make a serious effort to change their lifestyle and their economic choices, which is the only power the American citizenry has.

Popular music has lost all sense of message, musicianship, and balls. While Joss Stone was the only other decent musical act, where was Prince, dressed to kill, playing a Hendrix-like ‘Star Spangled Banner,’ guitar on fire, with photos of George and Dick with their evil smirk, then dead and wounded soldiers in Iraq with oil fields ablaze in the background and Halliburton’s annual report in black and white for all to see? We need to look in the mirror to see the real reason our country is hated. As the greatest contributor to this threat to our planet, we need to start taking responsibility for our actions and treating these issues with the seriousness they deserve. For me, Live Earth was a limp effort bordering on the absurd. It was so completely uninteresting, I didn’t even feel disappointed - I felt nothing at all.