mandpete

That's exactly what we thought, why would anyone want to watch two babbling commentators instead of listening to the music (especially Pink Floyd). My husband was getting more and more annoyed with MTV/VH1.

I think en e-mail to MTV/VH1 is on it's way from us.

dgsyd1

There seems to be a pretty major MTV/VH1 backlash brewing over their coverage of Live 8 in general, and Pink Floyd's set in particular. On several of the other groups i've been on, to say people are up in arms over this is a massive understatement. Coverage of this should have gone to a station like HBO, or even PBS with a feed from the BBC (who from what i've heard had excellent coverage of the event!). As soon as I found out VH1 was doing the show over here I knew that their coverage would be bad, but they surprised even me with just how bad it was.

Triumphrob

It was stupid horrible!
Please go to VH1.com and complain

cupranod

Pink Floyd and The Who were head and shoulders the best acts in London,it was hard to believe it was so long since Floyd had all played together.
The coverage on BBC 1 was ok for a live event,but over here we had two young-ish co-presenters,one of them a Radio1 DJ called Jo Wiley,who rattled on about the 'new bands'.Admittedly some were excellent but after The Who and Floyd they largely paled into insignificance.Wiley even said,after saying Floyd were 'good',that she would have liked to have seen Justin Timberlake on the London bill.
How the hell can she even mention him in the same line as Pink Floyd and The Who??
It has been said that they are 'Bob's mates',but friends or not you can't deny the sheer class of these 'old timers'.Mc Cartney was his usual great self,as was Sting.I thought of the newer bands,Scissor Sisters performed a great set.
I don't know what the US coverage was like,but from here it looked a great show in Philly with the excellent Will Smith doing a good compere's job.

Lynne

As has been said, VH1's coverage was total crap. I taped the whole performance but periodically switched on to see what was happening and each time all I saw was two no bodies babbling on. One stupid presenter even tried to get a laugh by saying she had agreed to meet someone at the concert and then turned and asked one of the crowd if they had seen her buddy.

Cutting off Pink Floyd was the ultimate insult. Most of those presenters were not even born when Dark Side of the Moon was released. From the snipets I saw they cut off Elton John, Sit Bob himself and Sting, three, in my opinion, more worthy performers than all the rap artists that VH1 subjected us to.

Was it my imagination or were most of the performers in Philly rap artists?

I shall certainly be complaining to VH1.

My one hope now is that Gilmore and Walters had such a good time they may decide to go on tour.

bookemjano

Shame if you missed Sting doing Every Breath You Take, with lyrics changed to target the G8 Summit. It was brilliant, the best one of the night! Hopefully they'll make that downloadable like they did the Sergeant Pepper one at the beginning. If anyone finds out they've done this please let me know!

Brit3964

I totally agree about VH1's coverage..it was crap! Yes, Philly seemed to be mostly the newer (c)rap artistes. I'm sure it went down well with the local population tho. One thing I can't understand is why didn't BBC America cover it?? The biggest live music event centered in UK for 20 yrs and they didn't cover it?!

scrubbedexpat099

BBC America is not BBC, Discovery Channel?. They just bought the branding rights for the US.

Which sort of explains the poor quailty.

Dimsie

I'm not normally in favour of great shows of patriotism, nationalism and general razz-a-matazz about one's own country (such as we shall be watching tomorrow ) BUT, I felt so very proud of Britain yesterday, and of the organisers of Live8, and the great British bands and artists the country has produced over the years. Britian is such a tiny country, after all - but it has such a wealth of talent and people who care about things other than their own country. Sorry- had to say that. Promise to be good on 4th July

cupranod

How well publicised was the event over there in the USA??

dgsyd1

Pretty poorly!
A lot of people I know didn't even know about it. And I even managed to shock one person when I told him that the classic Pink Floyd lineup was reforming for the show, as he hadn't heard anything about Live8 let alone the Pink Floyd reunion.

Brit3964

Not a lot. Although I think it was better publicised than Live Aid in 1985.

yorkshirelass

I agree -- the US coverage was just horrible! Even worse than the incessant ranting of the presenters was the fact that they would cut from a live act for adverts! You would have thought that for one day, they could have broadcast commercial free -- so much for people before profit!

Also, did anyone else see this news story:

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=54219

Kind of defeats the purpose of the whole event really.

dgsyd1

That was just at the US show apparently. And I have to say that going by what I saw yesterday the artists in London who didn't get anything put on a much better show. And it's not often that us Brits outdo America when it comes to putting on a big show, but we certainly managed it yesterday!

Brit3964

That's the American way! *L*