And the Winner for Worst Concert Broadcast Ever Goes to…..It’s a Tie! MTV and VH1 Take Home the Honor

Live 8 was billed as the greatest concert ever. It had over 150 artists performing in 8 cities, 9 really when Johannesburg is included. Had the time zone differential had been accounted for, many performances were complete by the time the 12 noon to 8 P.M. American coverage began. So, did MTV and VH1 present different performances on the two networks? No. Instead they combined a VJ from MTV with a VJ from VH1. During the first hour it became clear that the coverage would not focus on the artists or the songs but mainly on the VJs, their opinions, and their interviews with the concertgoers. Only one song, Paul McCartney and Bono’s London opening with their version of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was shown in its entirety. Afterwards viewers were luckiest to see 2/3 of a song. Concert organizer, Bob Geldof’s performance of his Boomtown Rats classic I Don’t Like Mondays was shown for little more than 5 seconds. Mostly one saw VJs asking each other how large they thought the crowd was, talking about how the music being presented this time was balanced fairly because only one rap band, Run DMC was at Live Aid, and there were many more at Live 8 (As far as I know only Tim McGraw performed country although I never saw it), asking crowd members where they were from and why they came (I will give you the answer to the second question at the bottom. Don’t peak until you have made a guess.), and showing a one minute or so montage of who had performed earlier. I am trying to remember which acts I saw near complete or completed songs. Out of the 150+ acts I saw Good Charlotte, Linkin Park, Jay Z, Jay Z and Linkin Park, and Pink Floyd. Viewers tended to only see performances from Philadelphia and London with maybe a two or thre minute clip from one of the other sites each hour. I would have liked to have seen the Barenaked Ladies performance from Canada as well as bands from Italy, France, Russia, and all the other sites. Music could have been going during the entire broadcast. It was great to see Amir (the dude from the VH1 show Bands Reunited?) and his co-host from MTV Europe talk about their love for the Who, join Won’t Get Fooled Again after the intro had started, play 5 minutes of it, talk about the song before it was over, and go to commercials and never return to the Who. Amir particularly seemed embarrassed by it. They talked of the Pink Floyd reunion with Roger Waters and when the performance finally came they had to break away from what was arguably the highlight of the event to go to commercials just as David Gilmore was beginning the guitar solo in Comfortably Numb. Why even have commercials during a charity event. It is funny that ABC’s 2 hour broadcast of highlight performances from the day had more complete songs than MTV and VH1. You would think that if it was truly thought of as the most historic concert ever more interest would be generated by the networks like their coverage of foreign VIPs’ funerals. After all the hunger, disease, and poverty of some parts of Africa is just as important as are the efforts to end the crisis. I guess in the end the arrogance of VH1 and MTV to turn the focus on their VJs and less on the performers or their cause is atrocious and deserving of the award for worst concert broadcast.

answer: the concert