chris rock
07/09/2007
Madonna and the Live Earth Round-up
It's impossible to tell at this early stage whether Saturday's Live Earth concert mega-event will have the intended effect upon the planet's CO2 emissions. In fact, it seems to have already done substantive harm to the environment. And with 150 artists performing at eleven different venues, there's another kind of pollution generated as well -- the Internet video kind.
Honestly, It's a bit hard to know where to start. But Spinal Tap performed, and then they were interviewed, and that's the greatest thing ever. There's Chris Rock dropping a bad Paris Hilton joke and a F-bomb, to which the BBC reacts by leisurely cutting back to the studio fifteen seconds later. Shakira shook her hips in Germany, and if you've never seen Shakira shake her hips, then you've never seen Shakespeare the way it's meant to be done. And there are very few men in suits who can rock a mike like The Beastie Boys.
But my favorite video definitely has to be Madonna's feisty performance of "La Isla Bonita," as accompanied by two gypsy fiddlers and a pack of rambunctious dancers. Thanks to the blood red lighting scheme, there's a distinctly post-apocalyptic air to Madonna's whole set, but perhaps that's appropriate. Live Earth was a lot of things, but world-saving was not one of them.
