Link: Live 8 – Hyde Park – 2nd June 2005 – a photoset on Flickr.
Sunday… my arms are killing me from clapping above my head, my throat is sore from screaming and my feet and back hurt from standing up for 12 hours straight but none of that matters because my head’s full of memories from one amazing day.
We got to Victoria at around 12ish and walked up to Hyde Park corner and Park Lane with hundreds of other people.. and promptly ran into Gay Pride coming the other way…. fair play to the Old Bill though, they must have had their hand full yesterday what with Live 8, Gay Pride, Wimbledon, and a load of other stuff… the capital was buzzing.
We got in and thankfully we were in the gold circle section, which meant the luxury of booze! Quick can of Carling and a pasty and we were off celeb spotting on the way to the stage. First off, they showed clips form Live Aid ’85 on the screen, including Freddie doing radio gaga.. ahhh, the closest I’ll every get to being there…
Anyway, then the show started proper… I’m not gonna do a act by act breakdown, there’s plenty of that about on the blog-o-spere.. For me, high points.. The Who, which was surprising as I’m not a massive fan… which made it all the more enjoyable. Robbie, fantastic, again for the same reasons.. got the whole place moving. REM, likewise. Also I finally got to see Slash live, even if it wasn’t with G’n'R. Good to see he hasn’t updated his wardrobe in 15 years.. he jumped down into the pit, sunburst Les Paul straining out a fantastic solo… Enjoyed the Sterophonics, Keene, Madonna, Scissor Sisters got us all clapping and jumping too. And Sir Bobness doing ‘don’t like Mondays’ was a rare treat. Travis’ version of staying alive was well timed and funny… Found myself shouting along to U2, who’s music really does sound better in stadiums. Ms Dynamite’s redemption song was well judged and well done. In fact there were some great cover versions, including Dido’s 7 seconds.
lukewarm but still good for me for me; Coldplay, ok, but not that fussed, Snoop Dogg, and missed UB40 as that was our only bog/ber break in 12 hours. Shit award goes to Mariah Carey.. who tried her diva antics on us. Where as almost every other act brought a bottle of water to the stage and opened it themselves, she shrieked like the fat neurotic pig she is.. “can I get a sip of water here..” and on rushed her personal masseuse holding tissues and a bottle of water with a straw in… this at a gig to highlight the plight of people in the third world who walk miles to get dirty diseased water. We all started booing… Then she screamed for a mic stand, and added, ‘even thought I said I didn’t want one’. Glad to see the roadies all made themselves busy elsewhere. When one did turn up 10 mins later.. it got more of a cheer than she did. I wanted to go Donnington monsters of rock stylee and bottle her off – but alas no. Macca came back on and got by with a little help from his friend, George Michael. Then everyone came back on for the hey Jude ending…
I’m not sure what the TV coverage was like, but I hope it showed some of the videos and other speech bits, as well as the music, as these were extremely poignant and were the real reason for it all. But back to the music, it was great seeing bands and acts I normally wouldn’t go to see live, yes, even Sting. In all one amazing experience that only a bout of Alzheimer’s will ever make me forget…
Sara Cox was on Radio 1 this afternoon talking about it… she summed it up as like the feeling you got after a wedding. All that build up, then while you were there there’s the hanging about, trying to buy a t-shirt (they’d ran out), stepping over plastic bottles and stuff. So at the moment, it doesn’t feel historic, it’s all to new and fresh in my head… right now it just feels brilliant.
Anyway HUGE flickr set here…
