So, Mariah Carey comes onstage. There's a couple of boos as she walks out, a lot of people thought she had no right to be there. She finishes her first song and demands some water, which is promptly brought to her by an assistant waiting in the wings. A couple more boos. She then demands a microphone stand. Bigger boos. She laughs off the fact that a microphone stand hasn't been brought to her, and she sings Hero without one, shame. She then launches into an 'emotional' plea about how much the African children inspire her (the same Mariah who reportedly said "When I see all those starving children in Africa on my TV I want to cry. I mean, I'd love to be that thin, but oh my God, all those flies...") and then she said she was dedicating a song to them, that happened to be 'my new song' - now here's where the biggest boos I heard all day came! The fact that she used the event to promote her new song, it was sick. No, I don't like Mariah Carey, and yes, I joined in the boos. She cannot treat people the way she does, and she didn't deserve to perform at Live 8.
The actual day was great, obviously, but seriously - be glad you watched it from the comfort of your home! We'd been on our feet probably for 14 hours - it was hot, sweaty, with headaches from the dehydration (if you drank too much you needed to go to the toilets, which was an ordeal to get to). Even in the front half of the arena it was hard to see any of the performers as the stage was too low, you had to get on friend's shoulders to see properly. The sound quality was quite poor too, thanks to the local residents association they have limits on how loud they can make it.. it wasn't really loud enough. Some people had serious attitude problems if you bumped into them as well, but on the whole the community spirit was nice, and we ended up feeling very comfortable with the people around us.. no-one worried if we stepped on their stuff by the end of it.
Best acts, by far, Madonna and Robbie Williams - no-one else really came close, though Snoop Dogg was a highlight. The general consensus with my friends (there was 8 of us in total, not bad considering you could only get 2 tickets at a time) was that the poorer acts picked bad songs to do - Joss Stone, Coldplay, The Killers, even Elton John - and the least successful ones were so evident because everyone just sat down throughout them (by 8 o'clock standing was an effort!).
Madonna's was the best because she was the only one who really PERFORMED, as opposed to SANG. I think there's a big difference. She gave a big fat star performance, and she's used to working crowds that size. She had dancers, and picked her songs perfectly. Robbie Williams just had the audience in the palm of his hand, he is probably one of the greatest performers of recent times - seen very much as the next Frank Sinatra, an image he played upon in an album a few years back. Am I right that he's an unknown in America? If so it's a great shame, but as he's a thoroughly British performer it's probably for the best. Never seen a crowd like it.
Scissor Sisters were great and their new song was good even though no-one knew it, Keane played beautifully as ever, Travis had the whole audience singing along to Why Does it Always Rain on Me, I missed Annie Lennox, Brad Pitt and UB40 getting food/toilet break. The Little Britain skit was hilarious, but again, very British. Peter Kay was awful, and I found out later it was because he was very drunk.. he's usually funnyish but he had nothing to say apart from sing his parody single.
France got booed when we did a video link (there's been big news about France not giving Britain our EU rebate, it has strained things even more). George Bush and Tony Blair got brief, sort of uncertain, boos - do we boo these people or not? So only half-heartedly. Biggest cheers were definitely for Robbie Williams, and that was the only act that everyone stood for (people sat if they didn't like/know the act - Velvet Revolver for example).
Unfortunately we didn't stay past Robbie Williams (missed Pink Floyd, The Who and the finale) because we were worried about missing transport and Bob Geldof was urging people to leave rather than be stranded. I think I fell asleep quicker than I ever have before! - was exhausted, and am now. My sister and her boyfriend (who I didn't realise were only 30 metres away from us, couldn't believe it, I thought she was somewhere way over the other side) saw a bit more, but were glad to get out after Pink Floyd because it was getting much busier. In the end the local authorities laid on free blankets so people could sleep in the park overnight (we don't have 24 hour subways here, closes at 12:30).
But, yeah. Just thought I'd give a personal account of what it was like to be there in person - basically, brilliant to be a part of history and to be part of the event in person, but exhausting and not altogether brilliant as far as seeing/hearing the actual show went!
