If anyone still doesn't understand why Al Gore isn't running for President again, this is it. Performances on all seven (7) continents. Even Antarctica.
Now that's what I call on-message.
An event like this is such a great concert value, tons of great acts, and this time not a bunch of 60's holdovers.. The Police were the granddaddy act, and even they did a duet ("Message in a Bottle") with Kanye West, some of which worked very nicely, some of which was happily dissonant.
The first clip to pop-up on the Net was, funnily enough, Spinal Tap doing "Big Bottom"...along with every single bassist backstage at Wembley. I'm guessing this is the largest audience that the fake heavy metal band has ever played, and there it was...on message?
The bigger the cushion, the sweeter the pushin'
That's what I said
The looser the waistband, the deeper the quicksand
Or so I have read...
...Big bottom, big bottom
Talk about mud flaps, my girl's got 'em
Big bottom drive me out of my mind
How could I leave this behind?
Maybe a methane tie-in?
One of the finest pleasures of Live Earth is that Gore actually stuck it to everyone by pulling it off, and by everyone I mean the Republican leadership. Here we've got President Cheney and Vessel Bush killing off the Kyoto Treaty and then just a month ago sandbagging German Chancellor Angela Merkel's global environmental initiative.
Even better, Gore got it over on satanic Sen. Jame Inhofe (R-OK), a vociferous global-warming denier who treated Gore with an alarming lack of respect, even insult when Al came back to Capitol Hill to testify. Inhofe was so petty, so beholden to his oil-agarchy masters, so much of a fascist that he vowed to personally block Live Earth from using the U.S. Capitol as a venue.
Gore looked particularly pleased to announce that Inhofe had failed to keep Live Earth off Federal property:
"Some who don't understand what is now at stake tried to stop this event on the Mall," the former Democratic presidential candidate said in a thinly veiled hit on members of President George W. Bush's Republican party.
"But here we are," he said as an image of a bright Earth shined behind him. "And it wasn't the cavalry who came to our rescue, it was the American Indian."
Per Jackson Williams at HuffPost:
Gore took the concert denial in stride and quietly made arrangements with the Smithsonian, specifically their National Museum of the American Indian, to sponsor a Washington concert under their auspices, to take place on the Mall, just two blocks from the Capitol. The surprise announcement only came this week, just 24 hours before today's Live Earth concerts. Inhofe has no control over what takes place on the Mall, of course, but he could have - and no doubt would have - made a stink if he knew that the Smithsonian, a federal institution, was partnering with Gore to get around the roadblock he'd threatened...
...Oh, and just who are the headliners performing at this last minute added concert in D.C.? Why, none other than the superstar Couple of Country Music, Oklahoma native and favorite son Garth Brooks and his wife Tricia Yearwood...
Best served cold.
Finally, can I say how happy am to have James Hatfield in our army? He opened MetallicA's apocalyptic "Sandman" hollering:
"Are you out there?
(crowd roar)
"Make some noise if you give a shit!"
(ROAR)
And they vamped under him leading into the next song:
"Are you alive?"Sound pro-Earth to me.
(roar)
"Are you ALIVE?"
(ROAR)
"So tell me, how does it feel to be alive?"
(Crazy Roaring)
"Yeah! Me, too!"
(pandemonium)
Oh, and if you want the goodness to continue past the final encore, sign up for saving your planet here.
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