02/07/2005
Live 8 blogging #1: Pete Doherty wrecks T-Rex shock
[Inquisitor is blogging Live 8 from the perspective of an Edinburgh
citizen watching TV, unable to post important letters because the Post
Office has blocked up his nearest post box and is closing for a local
holiday on Monday. So sit back and enjoy!]
Elton John just described Pete Doherty as a "young talent". One of these
words is wrong, and if you know who Pete Doherty is it's not too hard to
work out which one.
Pete Doherty really does look rather ill, doesn't he? And his stage
antics are somewhat... stale. Has he gone back on the drugs again? It's
a surprise he's even managed to turn up on time...
Anyway, back to Wimbledon: it's
all shit for the next hour, until REM come on (and even then, that's
only because they're doing The One I Love). After that, it's all
shit until Travis come on, and that's only because they're apparently
going to do a version of I Don't Like Mondays with the
Bob-meister himself - this could be the funniest thing since their cover
of Baby One More Time, and I've got the VCR ready for it.
Other highlights: Snoop Dogg (dear God, I hope he swears profusely, it
wouldn't be a live concert event without it), Sting doing Every
Breath You Take for the first time in several years, Paul McCartney,
and the Floyd.Oh, yes, the Floyd. There is no way in hell
I am missing the Floyd, and neither should you. (Besides, the
two-person Who before it could be... interesting.) See you later...
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Live 8 blogging #2: Bollocks...
...Venus Williams won. I thought Lindsey Davenport deserved it for her
first two sets, and the way she was handling that all-out assault in the
third... Still, it's not that bad, at least Venus was playing extremely
well (from the second set tie-break onwards), so congratulations to her.
The problem with Live 8, musically, is that all the interesting acts
aren't doing the British concert. Pet Shop Boys are in Russia, Bjork was
in Japan, the Cure and Muse are in Paris, Brian Wilson and Roxy Music (avec
Eno) are in Berlin. There is good news, though; Duran Duran are in
Italy. The London gig has Paul McCartney and the Floyd, but
that's about it. It may make for good ratings to have several hundred
Coldplays and Robbies, but it turns me off and I'm sure it turns others
off too.
And I mean, come on, UB40? For crying out loud. (I didn't even
know they were still going...)
More blogging for the Floyd. And maybe even before.
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Live 8 blogging #3: You knew it was going to happen...
I'm pretty sure I just heard Snoop Dogg let off the F-bomb at 6:30pm in
the evening on national TV. Worse for him, it was a MF-bomb, accompanied
by multiple other words that Ofcom don't take too much of a shine to.
The BBC really should have got in a ten-second delay and a beeper, for
his set if nothing else - especially since the Floyd are
definitely not going to replace the shit in "Money" for love nor.
6:40: And there's two definite MFs now! Wonder what Geldof's
going to have to say to Ofcom...
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Live 8 blogging #4: Nice stunt, Bob.
Also, it gave you a good excuse to wheel out the Cars video again, even
if it was just to end up as a link into Madonna.
We can go on all day about the morality of Live 8, but I won't; I'll
leave that up to the rest of you (it's notable that this is splitting
the UK lefty blogosphere down the middle). All I can say is that I hope
it'll do some good, which is all that can be done; cynicism or no, you
have to have some hope.
And coming up: Snow Patrol, the Killers, Joss Stone, Scissor Sisters and
(barf) Velvet Revolver. By 9pm, I might well be well enough to start
blogging again, unless something else catches my eye.
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Live 8 blogging #5: Added a white band now
entry posted by Inquisitor at 21:19
(permalink).
edited on: 02/07/2005 21:23.
categories: Music
, TV
Somewhat late in doing it, but...
Velvet Revolver. Umm. Not nearly as bad as they could have been,
but just so unmemorable.
Next up: Sting. Followed by Mariah, doing various awful recent tracks,
and then the unassailable Robbie (no matter how much you try).
Post-Robbie, the fun begins: Who, Floyd, and McCartney...
...and ooh, Message in a Bottle sounds really good, actually. How
odd. If he keeps playing Police songs, we'll be fine...
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Live 8 blogging #6: FLOYD ARE NEXT!!! NEXT!!! NEXT!!!!!!
And the Who were surprisingly OK.
Don't look away...
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Live 8 blogging #7: I'm speechless...
THEY STILL HAVE IT.
They're practically pensioners, they haven't played together since 1981,
the non-Roger section hasn't played the songs since 1994, and THEY STILL
HAVE IT.
And Roger and Dave hugged at the end; which, considering their history,
is really quite something.
Well, Paul McCartney was and always will be a Beatle, but he's going to
have to try really really hard to top that... why couldn't they have had
an hour, Bob?
Thankfully, VHS will preserve this moment at least for a few years. I
may be remembering it for a lot longer. Please, God, let them tour...
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03/07/2005
Live 8 blogging #8: No postmortem yet
That'll wait until the end of the G8 conference. There is really nothing
more you can say about it until we see whether or not it'll have any
effect whatsoever. Apart from saying, of course, that Pink Floyd should
tour as a matter of urgency...
The Americans, whose only TV source of Live 8 was MTV (get off the
air!) are somewhat
annoyed because they went straight to a commercial break in the
middle of "Comfortably Numb". I don't blame them at all. Quite, quite
sad...
It is also notable that the US and Canadian legs were the only legs with
less watchable (but much more popular) bands than at Hyde Park, although
that's soon to be topped by the Murrayfield leg - the best we've got is
the Proclaimers, and that really does say it all. Worse, we've got a
Bedingfield; even worse, it's Natasha. A disaster in the making?
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06/07/2005
Idiots at large, G8 conference edition
DISCLAIMER: Inquisitor is an Edinburgh resident, most of the
time. He also knows people who know members of Lothian and Borders
Police force, and people who work for Standard Life and other large
financial organisations. Hence you can discount opinions at will, but
they're genuinely held by me. Promise.
CAUTION: Very strong language. Don't say I didn't warn you.
You may have seen pictures of anti-capitalist idiots going about
Edinburgh city centre on Monday afternoon and evening like they owned
the place, and if you haven't they're here
(decent report here).
If you really want your blood to boil, read some
of the reports on Indymedia; a classic case of "We didn't do it, it
must have been...those guys!" (and, indeed, "Sure, we did it, but they
were worse!") if I ever saw one. IMC is useful for finding out their
point of view; it isn't so independent when it comes to our
point of view.
Now, I dislike unfettered global capitalism as much as anyone, but did
you fuckwits really have to rip up Princes Street Gardens? You
don't pay for that, but we do, and Edinburgh City Council will take any
excuse to hike council tax - thus hurting the poor people you claim to
be supporting. If you want to protest against the corporations that run
our society, why not do it without destroying anything? Sure, it takes
time, but that's life. And if you're going to throw memorial park
benches at riot cops (and, as one IMC poster points out, random
non-'black bloc' protesters), why not realise that they're going to get
annoyed enough to push back? You provoked them (and you did provoke
them, let's face it), so you take the consequences; your freedom of
speech, and your freedom of movement, exists only as long as it doesn't
impose on ours, and that's exactly as it should be.
I want the end of poverty too, I want to see a more equitable global
system than the one we have. And you know that in the future, no-one
will remember Saturday's peaceful rally, with 200,000 people from the
local area and around Britain in support of this view; no, they'll
remember 200 'black bloc' assholes, mostly from down south, Italy and
Spain, throwing memorial park benches at riot cops for no discernible
reason. In twelve hours, they've possibly wrecked all the Make Poverty
History campaign has managed to do in twelve months; but wow, you
smashed in a McDonalds window. Thanks a fucking lot.
[And I note that the comments to the IMC article suggests that the
anarchists could be regrouping around lines such as the "Animal Libbers"
- their words - that protest Huntingdon Life Sciences; they may be
successful, but guys who firebomb
other people's homes indiscriminately don't exactly hold the moral
high ground, do they?]
As it happens, I agree with the "Selfish Bastards" comment on this
IMC article. Since I actually live around that part of Edinburgh, I
will be very upset if these selfish anarchist bastards stop my
freedom of movement tomorrow; very upset indeed. Can you really blame me?
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07/07/2005
I really can't think of anything to say at this point
...
...
...
...
...
My
condolences to the people of London.
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13/07/2005
Apparently listeners to Planet Rock have better taste than I'd think they would...
...since, in a poll to vote for their ideal supergroup (with separate
polls for singer, guitarist, bassist and drummer), they
ended up voting for Led Zeppelin. Now, ain't that the truth!
I'm going to London on Thursday, by the way, and needless to say I will
be going by public transport. There's no reason not to, as far as I can
see it, and it's all been booked for weeks. So I'll be writing up my
experiences on Tuesday when I get back; needless to say, I won't have
access to blueyonder between Thursday and Monday, so only the haloscan
comments (if anything at all) will get updated. (Think I should switch
to enetation? Vote now!)
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19/07/2005
A short hiatus (to dial-up land)
At least two weeks, maybe three, and since I'm unable to update the site
properly from non-blueyonder space this means blog silence. However, I
will return in time for the new, incredible blog series:
Inquisitor At The Edinburgh International Film Festival 2005! Yes
- bigger and better than last year, hopefully.
Over the period from the 17th of August to the 27th of August, I will be
attending rather a lot of screenings - including both the opening and
closing night films, and the List surprise movie. (I know this because I
just bought the tickets. Get yours now!) I will not, afaik, be attending Serenity,
because all the tickets for that have gone already - although if any
turn up for Best of the Fest and aren't in the way of planned
screenings, I'll grab them.
Handy hint if you're booking tickets - if you have a Cineworld Unlimited
Card (no longer UGC, sigh, they've even rebranded the doors), and you
plan on booking before the start of the festival, head over to the desk
there between 5pm and 9:30pm and you get two-for-the-price-of-one if you
show your card. In case you're wondering, this has just saved me £30
(the cost of the Unlimited Card for three months). There's probably
something in this year's programme, if you pardon the cliche, for
everyone - Korean revenge thrillers, Scandinavian comedy, Spanish
weirdness, Land of the Dead, the lot.
And I will be reviewing, for this site, only a small fraction. But will
it be worth it? Almost certainly.
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