The slogan above the stage said it all: LIVE 8 THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING.
On CTV, especially early in the day, the slogan could have been: THE WHOLE COUNTRY IS WATCHING COMMERCIALS. Who knew there were so many hair-care products in Canada?
Ben Mulroney, that's who. The Canadian Idol host fronted the marathon CTV broadcast from deep within "mission control" (so deep he was missing most of the afternoon). Canada AM host Seamus O'Regan was briefly seen, but not heard, from a helicopter somewhere above Barrie. Dan Aykroyd and Tom Green worked the crowd at Park Place ("Pro war! Pro separation!" brayed never-funny Green) while eTalk Daily's Tanya Kim gamely grabbed the talent as they bolted off stage.
It all more or less worked. After years of Canadian Idol coverage, CTV has the team in place to pull off such an ambitious, day- and night-long live music broadcast and, to be fair, they ditched most of the commercials once the Barrie-fest hit its uneven stride.
Between ads, the early, pre-Barrie, world-jumping part of the show rocked. Paul McCartney opened the Brit show with U2 singing the Beatles anthem Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Four Beatle clones, dressed in multi-coloured Pepper gear, stood on stage. McCartney was his ever-gracious self; Bono, as usual, a pompous ass.
One world concept
Headliners aside, the effect for viewers of seeing so many people in so many world capitals rocking to the same message was very cool.
The split screen peeks at the other world venues -- Philadelphia, London, Paris, Tokyo, Johannesburg, Moscow, Rome, Berlin and then, wait for it, Barrie -- really drove home the one world concept.
The aggressive camera work and quick cutting set the Hyde Park and Rome shows apart.
On the down side, CTV crammed so many commercials into the early part of their broadcast you barely got one song -- or worse, a song and a half -- between ads. In Berlin, Audioslave was finally starting to kick it when we cut to another damn shampoo ad.
There were some technical gaffes. It sounded like there were four people in Barrie for Sam Roberts' set. The crowd just wasn't miked. The sound went out on stage a couple of times, too.
That had to be expected for a live broadcast of this unprecedented scale. CTV tweaked throughout the day and slowly got their act together. By the time Green led 40,000 in a Simple Plan chant, the crowd got loud.
A few newcomers
Live 8 Canada, so criticized for being an "oldies" event, did showcase a few newcomers. After lunch, bongo newcomer K'Naan grabbed a little face time. Here was an actual African, getting his big break in Barrie. Cool.
CTV made good on their pledge to switch to other venues between Barrie sets. Early on we saw Green Day rip through American Idiot in Berlin; good thing they weren't playing Philly. "We're not part of a redneck agenda," shouted lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong. Finally, some edge to this too polite rock show.
Later, Dan Aykroyd threw to R.E.M. in London. Paint-smeared lead singer Michael Stipe seemed to be auditioning for Blue Man Group. Will Smith opened the Philly gig by quoting from the Declaration of Independence and cueing that three-second, mega-star finger snap ad. He was wearing a Nelson Mandela T-shirt. (The real Mandela later gave an impassioned shout out from Johannesburg. He was not wearing a Will Smith T-shirt.) "Tokyo, can you say, 'What's up,' to my family here in Philly?" shouted Smith.
Cut to beach balls being tossed in Barrie.
It was an odd day in many ways. The world has changed -- and not changed -- since Country Joe and The Fish played Woodstock. As Mandela said, "It is a world of great promise and hope, it is a world of great despair."
Hats off to CTV for opening a window to it all yesterday.
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