LIVE 8: OH.

Apparently, the end of the affair is just the back half of Hey Jude. Which does have an element of a singalong to it, which is all very jolly, but its not even the full song. And because it's mostly just going "na-na-na", there's not much dignity to it.

But, yes, Harvey goldsmith pops up, and asks everyone to be safe as they leave, so that is it.

Luckily, the US show also seems to be over-running, so BBC One is able to pick up the Kaiser Chiefs straight away. Which gives I Predict A Riot an unenviable "follow that, then."

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LIVE 8: THE CLOSING STRETCH

That was always the danger, though: it would take something major to persuade the Floyd to reform, but there reformation would overwhelm the event which caused it. So, ironically, although it couldn't have happened without Live 8, their set took itself off to a little bubble that had nothing to do with poverty, Africa, making anything history or even Bob Geldof. Even Williams, while he forgot why he was hear, or didn't know, or didn't care, still had a set that was grounded in the paraphernalia of Making Poverty History. The Floyd set could have been closing off a Sunday in Glastonbury, or a special event in Knebworth, or anything.

Back in the presento-pod, Whiley and Cotton are trumpeting the party line - wasn't Robbie Williams amazing? (Actually, no); Ross chips in with how "superb" Pink Floyd were (if you like that sort of thing); they're desperate for the stage to be set up for Macca and George Michael so we can all go home/to bed/shamble off to a station. "We're so privileged."

Macca has finally come on - doing Get Back, which considering the song's dubious origins is a bit of an odd choice for such a positive-feeling event. These days, McCartney is, of course, a bit like a superpowered Scissor Sisters, tending to only come out for big events, which means he's a good, solid choice for show closer if nothing else.

Drive My Car next - well, we could complain about the global warming implications, but having George Michael on stage for what is essentially a novelty song is a cheeky spot of ego-popping (Michael was moaning earlier that he'd really wanted to do one of his own songs; how sweet he ends up doing something with less gravitas than Bad Boys).

Fucking hell! Helter Skelter - okay, it's not Tomorrow Never Knows, but it's close enough to keep us happy. We'd say that we can't believe he does this live very often, but we'd only be setting ourselves up for emails from archivists with details that he plays it down a pub on the dock road every third Sunday. Sadly, this will lead three-quarters of the audience to go on a murder spree as they head back to the coach park, but that's a price worth paying.

The Long and Winding Road is, I guess, a fitting tip of the hat to the Long Walk concept, but you can hear that it desperately wishes it was Live and Let Die instead.

So, are we now about to get the big closure? Surely it won't be Do They Know Its Christmas, will it?

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LIVE 8: COMING UP TO ELEVEN

There's some sort of crushing inevitabilty that the screen time for the reunion which is actually interesting (Roxy Music, on tape from Berlin earlier) is going to be cut short by the bore-revival of the almost hyper-overrated coming together of the second Pink Floyd line-up. To be honest, Bryan's more or less just walking through it, but at least they've made the effort with a bunch of showgirls.

Yes... there it goes, as we prepare for the marching on of the Floyd, or 'no bloody good since Syd left', as we call them. Oh my sweet christ they look so scary now, it's like a bunch of Kwik Fit fitters have come into town. To be fair, I guess if you'd joined in the excitement of the ceremonial passing of the Dark Side of the Moon from generation to generation, then this will be the bit of Live 8 you think of as you hug yourself to sleep this evening, and to be even fairer, considering they're a bunch of people who would have still been attacking each other with wrenches, carjacks and anything else to hand this time last year, they're turning in a fairly tight performance. But they always felt to me like old men too heavy on the carpentry of rock and too sure of their importance to be loveable, and this slot, on this day hasn't done anything to lessen that sense.

"We're doing this for everyone who's not here, but particuarly, of course, for Syd." Oh, go on, then, you're not so bad.

By our calculations, they've already overrun Hyde Park by two and a half hours. If they're not careful, there's going to be all sorts of problems with people missing last trains home. Let's hope the rail companies are being a bit flexible.

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LIVE 8: HALF PAST TEN

Well, by now it was meant to be all eyes on America, but perhaps mercifully there's enough British stuff left to keep us going without having to worry about watching Keith Urban.

Although that did mean Peter Kay doing Is This The Way To Amarillo (wrong charidee, shurely?) beyond the point where the joke had worn thin while The Who's stuff was being set up. Pete Townshend is wearing dark glasses, although if he thinks that'll stop Rebekah Wade spotting him and naming and shaming him in The Sun next week, he'll be lucky. Roger Daltrey looks like a man who needs an American Express card to be recognised these days - he's slowly morphing into Cliff Richard, which is quite alarming. And dancing like Andy McCluskey, which is even more disturbing. Without wanting to open an old sore, actually, how does it work with Townshend signing the sex offenders register and Mariah Carey marching kids around backstage? We know that there's not any real risk involved, but was that something that had to be worked around?

We've just been trying to get AOL to work again to see Placebo, who might or might not be on stage in Paris at the moment - thats how we like our non-vanilla sex - but it's crashing the browser like crazy. We're not quite sure why, when they're obsessed with streaming in Windows Media, they won't actually work with Internet Explorer. It's frustrating as we've always had problems trying to get Firefox to accept Windows Media Player as a plug-in, which we quite understand - it's like trying to get your space rocket to accept a tape-player and AM radio.

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LIVE 8: TWENTY PAST TEN

Where could they find anyone more irritating than Robbie Williams to do the introduction for the handbag of ego? Step forward, David Beckham. (And how much must it kill Geri Halliwell that the closest the Spices got to the Live 8 stage was one of their husbands doing a run-in.)

We're not quite sure what message Williams is trying to send by gooning round the stage to Let Me Entertain You while flashing images of unfortunate and dispossesed children on the big screen behind him. And we're equally uncertain why he's wearing Albert Steptoe's scarf round his neck, come to that.

Still, compared to Jet - who are onstage at Canada - Williams looks like he's spent a fortune in Moss Bros. We can only presume that the band had to sleep under some sort of hedge before the gig. For six or seven nights straight. In thunderstorms. There's a slight feeling around everything we're seeing from Canada that nobody's really making that much of an effort - the feeling is the one you get at the Acoustic Stage at Glastonbury in the closing hours of the ceremony, that everyone's having fun but with the sense that something better and more exciting is happening elsewhere. (Actually, we've got a couple of friends - Rufus and Claire, hi and congratulations - who were getting married in Toronto today; they had toruble getting their guests anywhere to stay because a giant Alcoholics Anonymous meeting had booked up every spare room in the city months ago, so it's possible Jet did spend last night under a hedge.)

Turning our attention to Hyde Park, we wish we hadn't - Williams appears to be touching his cock - nervous tick? checking it's still there? - before launching into The Greatest Song Ever Made Ever(TM). It's only really sinking in now that any major event with even an ounce of emotional twang to it is going to have Angels lumbered into it at some point, which would be a great reason to attempt to harden your heart and resolve to never connect.

Philadelphia seem to have been watching Maroon 5 forever - they've just started Rockin In The Free World, too, which means they'll be on for a good half hour yet, too.

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LIVE 8: TWENTY TO TEN

Oh, lord, she's going to be so embarrassed: Mariah Carey, on stage in front of a squintillion viewers, and she's forgotten to put a skirt on. And someone's forgotten to fade up her vocals. And she's forgotten to do a proper song, too. She'll just die when she watches the Sky+ tonight when she gets home.

Luckily, though, there's sweet relief just a red button away, with Sarah Mclaughlin doing, you know, proper music (and looking proper sexy, too) on stage in Philadelphia - although, to be honest, we're starting to lose track of what's live and what's been saved up from earlier. Sarah even apologises for sounding corny when she says we can all make a difference.

Back in Hyde Park, Mariah is parading "the African Children's choir" - apparently, they represent "eleven million orphans and they deserve a round of applause." Mariah claims "children like these inspire me" - which is quite disturbing since her art, such as it is, seems to involve little more than removing her knickers, ramming her tits into a push-up bra and screeching and panting. Is she really thinking about small children when she's doing that?

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LIVE 8: NINE THIRTY

Still, at least there was Kanda Bongo Man to escape to on the BBCi service while Velvet Revolver was going. And after Scott and Slash Sting comes as a bit of a relief. And what makes the difference between Sting and his partner in light jazz and concept projects Annie Lennox is that Sting accepts that if you're playing a gig to large numbers of people, most of them won't give a fuck about your new, Montreux-friendly stuff and will really want to hear the songs you did when you were still famous. So he's come on with Message in a Bottle, and is about to do Every Breath You Take. The Police - like the Eurythmics - had some cracking pop songs, and Sting at least has the sense to not be ashamed of the tracks which got him to his position today.

And it is quite a position, too - nobody but a powerful figure would be able to get Trudi onto the interview couch, despite her not being famous, nor having anything to say, and wearing a stupid, stupid hat of the sort old ladies might crochet for a charity shop whose fundraising aims they didn't totally agree with.

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LIVE 8: TEN PAST NINE

Just when ITV had abandoned all hope of getting any audience at all this evening, on come Velvet Revolver. Who thought it would be a good idea to let them on the bill at all, much less during the evening, when they'd had a chance to enjoy some of the chilled drinks available backstage? They've never been anything more than the brainwrong of a bunch of over-promoted rock grunts, a vanity unit of dubious beauty, but tonight's performance took their rather low benchmark and didn't even set out to try and grab up towards that.

"You can come out now, they've gone" said Ross as they returned us to the safety of the presentation pod, where Paul McCartney was recalling his meeting with Vladimir Putin: "he seems a nice man... then someone reminded me he was the head of the KGB."

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LIVE 8: THE PEOPLE SPEAK

BBC News has been running a Blog all day, mixing BBC correspondents posts with public text messages which has given an interesting, if slightly depressing, chance to measure just how high that awareness beam has been raised by today's events:

1920, Lucy, from East Sussex, at Hyde Park
I'm just here to watch the bands, really.

1901, Jo-anna, from London, at Hyde Park
Dido was amazing and when she was singing with that guy, singing 'Seven Seconds', it was amazing. Everybody's in such a great mood.

We're sure there'll be a small queue at record shops on Monday morning seeking records by "that [African] bloke."

1630, Mark Jeynes, via text
The inactivity and disinterest of the lucky few in the golden circle is a disgrace. The bands must be disappointed the real people are so far away.

1600, Jamie, via text from Liverpool
I thought when Bill Gates introduced Dido, he was going to start singing Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? I was gutted when he didn't!

1519, Phillipa Thomas, BBC News, London
Looking around, there are very few black faces on the stage and there are very few black faces in the crowd. But the organisers have already said that's not the point, the point was to get the big commercial acts on stage and as many people as possible listening and watching as possible.

1440, Dave from Exeter via text
At the back of Hyde Park. Great opening by U2. The sound is travelling slower than the big screen vision! Paid £2 for cup of coffee!

We're sure, of course, that that's fairtrade coffee and most of the scalped price will be heading its way to a grower's collective in Africa, won't it? Won't it? Bob...?

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LIVE 8: EIGHT FORTY

The Scissor Sisters really are made for this sort of thing, aren't they? We expressed a fear last week that they're fast turning into a band who have little time left to do anything other than a never-ending circuit of festivals and benefits and awards shows, but they've actually written a new song, which they're electing to do here and now. Which is probably the most brave thing anyone's done so far in this show - if you're going to debut a song, why not try it just a spit from the finale of the biggest gig in history (TM)?

It's brave; it's just a pity the song isn't quite as strong as anything from their first album.

The whole thing's starting to look like it's going to run a little late, at least in London.

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MOTOWNOBIT: Renaldo Benson

The death has been announced of Renaldo 'Obie' Benson, one of the original Four Tops.

Born in 1936, Benson came together with Levi Stubbs, Abdul Fakir and Lawrence Payton in 1953 to form the band, originally named The Four Aims. The line-up remained unchanged until the death of Lawrence in 1997. Over the course of fifty years they managed two number ones - I Can't Help Myself and Reach Out, I'll Be There - but their status never quite regained after their songwriters Holland-Dozier-Holland quite Motown in 1967, leaving the Four Tops to be shuffled from one team of producers to another. Although they never touched the top again, they remained successful enough to make a living from music. Even a forced change of label when they elected to not follow Motown to Los Angeles in 1972 didn't leave them totally beached - they still charted regularly until the late 70s.

After the chart action started to dry up (their last visit to the Top 40 was 1988's destructable), the band focused their attention on a lucrative business of tours, cabarets and PAs. Besides a one-off festive special, they haven't bothered with a new album since 1988, but being The Four Tops had effectively provided them with all they needed to guarantee an interested audience would turn up.

Obie died in a Detroit Hospital on Friday, from lung cancer. He was 69, and his last appearance with the band was on a performance on David Letterman's show in April this year.

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LIVE 8: EIGHT FIFTEEN

See? Who can complain that this is just a load of white people pretending they know what's best for Africa? BBC ONE finally remembers the Africans are playing down in Cornwall, just in time to catch, erm, Dido.

Snow Patrol shout "The Killers are coming on next - isn't that exciting?" and, well, compared to them, yes it is. Bemusingly, at the end of their microset, The Killers announce that Martin Luther King Jr is about to do something. What, we'll never know, as the BBC cut back to Jonathan Ross at that point. We're guessing it might be King's crowd-pleasing juggling act that we missed.

Joss Stone's just turned up now - not driving her Lexus but nevertheless looking like a girl raiding her Mum's purse in order to try and swing the homecoming queen vote at a private school's prom.

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LIVE 8: BLOG ROUND-UP

This event - where most participants are sat in their living rooms with a plate of gypsy cremes and a cup of tea - is just made for the instant punditry beloved of the bloggers. We're just going to dip a very ginger toe into the waters:

My Heart's In Accara picks up a report in the Christian Science Monitor, which showed that Live8 ticket holders in the US didn't really have much of a clue about Africa: "only half the concertgoers could name a single African leader. (In three of four cases, the concertgoers came up with “Robert Mugabe”, suggesting something about what African countries do and don’t receive Northern media coverage."

For Pambazuka, Gerald Caplan isn't entirely sure that Live 8 is going anything like far enough: Anyone who doesn't distrust the Group of 8 leaders who'll be meeting next month hasn't been paying attention. They're the ones responsible for the economic apartheid that characterizes rich-poor country relations today. Every one of them has failed to live up to repeated pledges about aid, debt relief and agricultural subsidies, solemnly made and blithely ignored. The recent ballyhoo about debt relief for 14 African countries was wildly overblown; it was no more than a modest first step. The more leaders like Tony Blair and Paul Martin shed crocodile tears talk about their moral crusade for Africa, the more liberal imperialist rhetoric they spin, the more nervous we should be. The job of Bono and Bob Geldof and other Live 8 organizers is to let their fans know that Africans need no more missionaries or do-gooders. Instead, Africans have a right to justice and equity to make up for the incalculable harm that we in the rich world have inflicted on them for such a long, long time.

Of course, that's the politics - what's really getting people excited is the swearing:

Razorlight cause a Ruckus! By saying the "F" word twice before the watershed! Oh my! Good for them. Update: Madge does, too! saysRecord Card; while Gav's Studio begs for some understanding:She swore. For god sake no-one complain to the BBC. The poor African woman looked dazed. I’m not surprised seeing 200,000 people looking back at you.

Did anyone actually invite Crosby, Stills and Nash? They've rushed out a press release saying how sorry they were they couldn't take part:

"After working many hours to try and support Live8 and David Crosby even helping to secure a plane as CSN was prepared to do the show, the band was not able to get a workable slot in the Berlin performance sequence that would have put them back in Bonn to perform a tour date that was previously routed prior to any announcement of the Live 8 event," Gerry Tolman, manager of Crosby, Stills & Nash said today. "They are extremely sad that they could not be a part of this historic event."

Yeah, we bet the Berlin organisers were really falling over themselves to try and work CS&N into the schedule. We can just picture them on the phone - "sorry, we have a metal band doing Hang On Sloopy when you want to play... how does ten pm sound? No..."

Paul Korda's blog also has this: The historic opening of today's Live 8 concert in London - U2 and Sir Paul McCartney collaborating on the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" - has been rush-released worldwide by Universal Music Group as a digital download, for sale an hour after its performance on the Hyde Park stage.

The unique recording is available to buy through more than 200 online music stores and services in 30 countries, including www.Live8Live.com, and the proceeds from the download sales are being donated to Live 8.

Pity - or perhaps not - that they can't include it in the download chart, isn't it?

So while that end of the digital world is holding up under the strain, it looks like AOL is having a bit of a nightmare - Caryl isn't the only blogger having trouble watching the streams:

Ok, So its 3:30am and Im staying up TRYING to watch Live8 but the damn site wont let me! Linkin Park are on in less than 30 minutes but I still havent fix this problem! I have been on this fucking site since 11:30 and I haven't even managed to get the radio stream to work! *kicks computer* Damn it!

Mind you, not hearing Limp Bizkit is hardly the most crushing thing that can happen to you, is it?

Back to the politics - and for a useful round-up on African Bloggers' perspectives on Live 8, Global Voices offers some first steps in.

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LIVE 8: HALF PAST SEVEN

Going into Music, she has a bit of a sitdown and allows two young guys do some bodypopping - that's showbiz, one minute you're stood outside Peacocks in Chester trying to get a couple of quid out of the tourists, then before you know it, you're being brought on stage to provide some young flesh to bring down the average age of the Madonna segment. Her entire bunch of supporters seem to have been told to do some weird tai-chi style dancing. And there are a lot of people trying to shore her up/back her up. It could all be rather clever - Madonna's way of demonstrating that without many others, we are all rather weak, reedy, and unable to do much. But I suspect she's just hoping that we won't notice that these days, she needs a gospel band and a pair of keyboardists helping if she has any hope of carrying a tune.

And, yes, she is wearing her special cult wristband.

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LIVE 8: SEVEN FIFTEEN

And we think that makes a straight run of every TV appearance ever that Johnny Borrell of Razorlight has removed his shirt - we know his nipples more intimately than our own, we think.

Bob Geldof has come out on stage again, this time to show that CBC Drive video which Bowie introduced last time (why no Dame David this year?) and to introduce a girl who didn't die because of Live Aid. (Although, actually, that's slightly arguable of course.) Having used her as a trophy of how great he's been, he then handed the poor woman over to Madonna. Maddy gripped her with her claws and forced her stand, looking a bit bemused, in front of a billion people while she did Like A Prayer. Eventually her interpreter came to her rescue.

Wisely, Madonna has decided to stick tracks from before her career went dismal, although her unconvinced delivery of Ray of Light underlines just how much of a slump she's in. Not so much "I feel like I've just got home" as it's a bit like you've left your gumption at home, lady.

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LIVE 8: WORLDWIDE?

Right, after the public service announcement, back to the cynicism: apparently the venue for Tokyo's Live 8 gig was only half-full; there's a lot of explanations as to why - not least of which is the claims that there isn't a history of charity gigs in Tokyo and there wasn't very much time to get ready. Joel Madden, of Good Charlotte, patted the organisers on the head and gave them a lollipop:

"It's encouraging they got something together. Maybe next time they'll get twice as many people."

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CYNICISM ASIDE

There might be flaws with their plans, there might be more sweet intentions than solid plans, there might be a thousand reasons to be cynical, but any pressure in the right direction can only be a good thing. Sign the live 8 list - not for Bob, not for Bono, and certainly not because we've asked you to. Sign it because it adds your voice to the mele, and until the world is fairer, we need all the clamouring we can muster.

LIVE 8: HALF PAST SIX

Fortune is a strange and wonderful beast, with its twists and turns. A few years ago, Snoop Dogg was such a threat to the well being of every known creature on these islands that the Daily Star was amongst those calling on the Home Secretary to throw him out - possibly with a spot of pre-deportation knuckledusting at Heathrow. Now, though, he's striding the stage at Live 8 in one of the Queen's parks, a valid member of society and even telling Gordon Brown what he needs to do. The slightly creepy way he's drooling over the barely legal gymslip dancers suggests that he might not have totally been reintegrated into acceptable society, but he's probably only only an ace away from his first Royal Variety performance. He still pulls that face like he's trying to poop out a garden tool way too much, though.

It turns out when UB40 appeared in the listings, it wasn't a misprint, or a joke. Ali Campbell and his friends and family did indeed take the stage, making something of a mockery of Bob's claims that the only way to get onto the Live 8 stage was to be a big-selling artist in 2005. They trudged their way through their stuff to a largely disinterested audience - it's not even cod reggae anymore; it's like some sort of cheap cod substitute (Hoki Reggae, anyone?), but at least it gave the BBC something to swap easily from BBC ONE to BBC TWO during. Unfortunately, the astonishingly long Wimbledon ladies' final had interfered with the original plans to show Live 8 on BBC TWO until that finished, and then swap to BBC ONE while TWO picked up the men's doubles final. That was meant to be just before five - as it turned out, they couldn't do the swingover until after six, thereby fucking up anyone who had set their TIVOs to tape the whole thing while they sat at the back of Hyde Park. Mind you, why anyone would want to see a thing on TV having spent all day watching it on TVs anyway is anyone's guess; a bigger question, why the BBC couldn't have put all of one event on one channel and all of the other on the other is one of those subtle mysteries that only the longest serving members of Transdiffusion would be able to explain to us.

Still, it gave us a chance to flick off behind the press red to see what was going on elsewhere - we bet it wasn't youssou ndour playing in Eden, but it's the only African artist they could come up with at the caption department; Brian Wilson looked like he was having more fun in Berlin than he ever had at Glastonbury.

Bakcstage, Robbie Williams took another opportunity to prove how straight he is by flirting with Fearne Cotton. His method of flirting is rather like the sales method used by Indian call centre workers; constantly repeating a not very attractive offer in the face of indifference. Of course, Williams' bid to prove he is a heterosexual bloke is totally undermined by his mannerisms, which are starting to make Sean from Corrie look like Conan the Barbarian.

Over in Rome, Simon LeBon is sounding surprisingly like Bob Dylan. Dylan at least has the excuse that he has a kazoo lodged in his windpipe.

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LIVE 8: JUST AFTER FIVE

Of course, the Whistle Test team who were behind the presentation for Live Aid joked that it was like getting the team from Radio Cleckheaton to do the job; with Live 8 that's actually happened as all the UK commercial radio stations have bandied together to be able to enable them to just about fail to rise to the occasion. Presentation is being handled by Richard Bacon, Ronan Keating and Ulrika Jonsson - which means Richard Bacon is doing his best to hold things together in the face of an almost pointless presence. Jonsson, before Dido arrived, launched a single-handed attack on people who claim that Dido is bland (giving us, for the first time, a polar opposite of the pot calling the kettle black) and later on took the opportunity to "personally thank the Hilton hotel chain"; she also giggling introduced herself as "Anthea Turner" which would only work as a joke if she had an instantly recognisable voice.

Most bemusing of all, though, the Commercial Radio network has taken the decision that, to avoid panicing its audience by having any dead air at all, between songs in individual sets it'll cut away to interviews with other bands. So, midway between Keane's two songs, we get Snow Patrol. (Snow Patrol, by the way, are nervous. Everyone seems to be nervous).

It's also through this coverage that we listen to Bill Gates' little speech. Bill Gates, telling us how to beat poverty. It's a little hard to take, to be honest: we know that Bill gives oodles to charity, but we still don't buy that he's the world's greatest philanthropist. He gives squillions, but from his hypersquillions, it's unlikely he even notices. And let's not forget how he makes that cash - by ruthlessly exploiting and shoring up a monopoly, charging through the nose for a closed operating system and enforcing proprietary formats on the world. Gates makes his money by forcing governments to spend money on Windows which could otherwise be spent on education; on health; on aid; on debt relief. Every computer Oxfam has that runs Windows; every Medicien Sans Frontieres PC; each Windows computer used by aid workers, third world education projects; each sends a supernormal profit back to Bill Gates. So he gives a little of that to charity to make himself feel better. If Gates wants to do something, he could release the Windows source code. That would make a massive difference - that would be doing something positive. Instead, he turns up at a party supposed to alter the very sort of restrictive trade rules he makes his money from. We'd wonder how he can sleep, but we bet he has a very, very cosy bed.

Elton John brings Pete Doherty on stage - Elton seems to be one of the few acts who seems to realise that if this thing is going to be a success, you'll need to excite and inspire teenagers as much as paunchy middle-aged guys.

As Philadelphia comes online, Will Smith starts them up with the kid-dies-every-three-seconds bit (he has trouble clicking his fingers, but the point is made nevertheless), but back in Britain, Travis are taking the stage. We wonder if they'll do an unlikely cover? Oh, yes, Staying Alive. Do you geddit? Fran Healy is wearing the most horrible trousers ever, although they match the colour of Bono's sunglasses, oddly enough.

And although Bob has said he wasn't going to perform, nobody's that surprised when he comes on and does I Don't Like Mondays - and, frankly, you can't begrudge him his moment. The "and the lesson today is how to die" bit is a straight reprise of Live Aid, although it doesn't crackle with meaning in quite the same way this time round - probably because it now carries the "oh, like last time" message as well.

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LIVE 8: FIVE TO THREE

Just before Coldplay go off stage, Chris Martin introduces a film "and if the BBC doesn't play this, they're not doing their job." The BBC show only about two seconds before cutting away - although there seems to be great confusion on the part of Jonathan Ross if they're going to cut back into it. (It's also a silent film, so not much good for the supposed 28 million people listening to this on radio, then).

Instead, they have Andrew Marr again - already marking himself out as the king of this event - describing being in the "grey human packade."

Walliams and Lucas are now doing the Smith and Jones style comedy introduction for Elton John.

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LIVE 8: HALF PAST TWO

Clearly, every fucker's going to try and emulate Bono's 1985 trick of sticking a bit of a different song into their performance - Bono whacked in some Unchained Melody. Chris Martin, meanwhile, poked Rocking All Over The World into In My Place, before going into some sort of seizure at the end.

Gwyneth has given Apple some ear protection, which was very, very visible. So, both sensible and making sure everyone could see she was being sensible.

Richard Ashcroft's just been brought on - the audience forgot they were supposed to act surprised - and he sounds terrible. It's kind of like when Alan Partridge brings on Cheeky Monkey; it's nice that he kept the promise he made to the bloke whose work he enjoyed before he was famous, but it would have been better for everyone involved if he'd quietly forgotten it.

Ah! "I'm a billion different people from one day to the next" - do you see what they did there?

Meanwhile, we've been trying to see if AOL is having any problems streaming the gig, and all we can get is the page with any empty space above the dire warning:

This concert is a live webcast. Some content during this event may not be appropriate for all audiences. AOL does not edit content so viewer discretion is advised.

What AOL does let us know is that Katherine Jenkins is currently on stage in Berlin.

Richard Ashcroft has, swiftly, knocked Bono off the "cheapest, nastiest sunglasses" podium for the day, at least. Chris has just described Live 8 as "the greatest thing organised in the history of the world", which it's perhaps a little too early to write off as hyperbole.

And, for those of you who keep a record: he's drawn massive equals signs on the back of his hands.

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LIVE 8: A BIT AFTER TWO.

Jonathan Ross manages to fudge his intro - "It's 2pm on July 1st, 2005..." - because nobody is actually ready. So they go to a package of Live Aid before Ross has to do it again, now with the edge taken off. Plus, there's the Greenwich time signal, although Big Ben shows its about four minutes past the hour. Still, at least people can now stop saying "the countdown is underway..."

Macca and U2 come on - no costumes after all, then, although Bono seems to have selected some awful sage green sunglasses for some reason. Sergeant Pepper sounds terrible and as they go into Beautiful Day - the official song of Coca-Cola's football coverage on ITV - everything seems a little bit too bassy. And Bono's voice seems to have been rubbed a bit ragged by the tour. Oh, god, he's changing the lyrics to mention everywhere where there's a gig, except Cornwall ("putting the Africans in the conservatory", as Andy Kershaw called it.)

They should have gone with Status Quo, after all.

music live8 live 8 u2 paul mccartney

LIVE 8 COVERAGE: FIRST HOUR

Well, Nokia's Live 8 is underway, sort of, not quite; or at least, BBC TWO has cranked up its coverage. Chaired by Jonathan Ross (we'd have hoped for Ellen - Kershaw - Skinner ourselves), with Fearne Cotton running around backstage ("look - Madonna might be over there") and Jo Wylie sitting on the couch asking Dido soft questions - when Dido says she wants to send her message, why didn't you ask her what her message is.

Ricky Gervais is doing his amusing, undercutting the event drop-in films that he's done for Children In Need and Comic Relief as well - no reason why not, everyone else is doing their greatest hits. And Andrew Marr has done a little film to explain what's going on - apparently the G8 is "the sofa of the world", which might be why they could get someone to dig around down the back to find some extra cash, we suppose.

Elsewhere, Fox News is excited by the Pink Floyd reunion, but manages to discuss if Bono uses soap instead of Africa; but it's Euronews which does the best coverage - frequently cutting to its No Comment live footage of the protest marches in Edinburgh.

Everyone seems to have the same two seconds of the "first Live 8 concert, in Tokyo, Japan" of a Japanese rock act going "cling"; the Berlin event is being represented by some scary metal act doing Hang On Sloopy and - to prove how daft it is to pretend the African artists are being excluded - there's two seconds from an unnamed African band rushed by on BBC TWO, as well.

music live8c live 8

A QUICK LOOK AT THIS MORNING'S FRONT PAGES

Well, it's Live 8 day, isn't it? When the FT and the Morning Star clear space on their front pages to cover the same event, there's some sort of force at work:





- we love the Morning Star interviewing the Streophonics; we wonder if they tried to get Madonna first?

The Independent, king of the stunt front pages, ties up with Bob Geldof, king of the stunts:



The Times, meanwhile, has to make do with Sting:



The Sun can't quite wean itself off the CD giveaway habit, but at least their CD has a Live 8 theme:



(oh look... it's a Free Nelson Mandela CD)

... the Express, meanwhile, just has a Disco CD and the bollocks claim that "5.5 million will see the Supergig", a mathematical nonesense that Geldof came up with on MTV last night:



The Mirror come up with a novel way of avoiding the potential sales-destroying problem of having a big picture of Bob Geldof on the front page:



The telegraph and Guardian both go for the 'building the stage' shot:





And in the US, too, the nation is in no doubt about what the main story is today. The retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor. Indeed, we couldn't see any of today's papers that have decided that Live 8 is the biggest story in the world today, which might take the edge off what the event is trying to achieve.

music newspapers live 8 live8

SOULOBIT: Luther Vandross

Allowing several news anchors to make cringe-inducing references to "a voice being silenced on a day of music", Luther Vandross has died at the age of 54.

His first breakthrough came as a backing singer during the early 1970s - he provided voicals for the legendary Chic, David Bowie (on the Young Americans album) and Dinna Summer amongst others. Roberta Flack encouraged him to try and develop a solo career, but it would take a while before he settled on an identity; a contract with Cotillion records saw him taking a 'first name only' guise as Luther for a couple of albums. It was signing to Epic in 1981 and re-attaching his surname which allowed him to start selling in larger quantities. His first album for the label, Never Too Much, sold two million (he would go on to sell 23 million further records in his career) and gave him a number one in the R&B charts. This also opened other doors for him, and he developed a lucrative sideline as a producer, working with Aretha Franklin amongst others.

Although achieving success on a scale to match Prince or Stevie Wonder during the 80s, Vandross never quite made the same stride into mainstram success beyond the sould circuit. His 1991 Best Of album contained a new track, Here and Now, which gave him his first US top 10 hit, but even then he never quite made a move to become a regular on the pop lists, relying on duets with the likes of Janet Jackson and Mariah Carey to keep a toe on radio beyond the R&B and soul stations - and, indeed, if it wasn't for those collaborations, Vandross would never have had a UK Top 10 hit. Meanwhile, though, he was quietly adding to what would become a total of 22 R&B US chart hits.

Eyebrows were raised over Vandross' sexuality - he was a confirmed bachelor, and hints were often dropped over his closeness to producer Marcus Miller and the out saxophonist Dave Koz.

In recent years, Vandross has suffered from ill health. Diabetes runs in his family, taking his father when Luther was just five; ironically, Vandross' last studio collection Dance With My Father was dedicated to the memory of Luther senior. (The title track won Vandross a Best Song grammy in 2004, shared with Richard Marx.) On April 16th 2003, Vandross suffered a massive stroke; it was compilcations from this which would eventually end his life yesterday (July 1st).

In a career garlanded with awards, Vandross won five grammys, a BET Walk of Fame tribute and, astonishingly, every one of his fourteen albums went at least platinum in the US.

Besides his music, Vandross is also credited with one fo the 20th Centruy's greatest inventions, the Luther Burger. Supposedly created on a day when he'd run out of burger buns, the Luther employs a glazed donut to hold the patty. It sounds like perfect diabetic fayre to us.

music obit obituary luther vandross

WE MIGHT TAKE THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE SHOPS BEING QUIETER

Well, in case you're trying to plan your Saturday, this might give you a clue as to the best point to walk the dog or whatever:

1. Paul McCartney/U2: Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
2. U2: One
3. Coldplay: In My Place, Fix You, Bitter Sweet Symphony (duet with Richard Ashcroft)
4. Elton John: Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting, The Bitch Is Back, Children Of The Revolution (duet with Pete Doherty)
5. Dido: Life For Rent, White Flag, Thank You
6. Stereophonics: [TBC]
7. REM: The One I Love, Losing My Religion, Imitation Of Life, Everybody Hurts
8. Ms Dynamite: Dy-namitee, Judgement Day, Redemption Song
9. Keane: Everybody's Changing, Somewhere Only We Know
10. Travis: Sing, Turn, Why Does It Always Rain On Me?
11. Annie Lennox: Walking On Broken Glass, Sweet Dreams
12. UB40: Food For Thought, Red Red Wine
13. Snoop Dogg: [TBC]
14. Razorlight: Somewhere Else, Golden Touch, Vice
15. Madonna: Like A Prayer, Music, Ray Of Light
16. Snow Patrol: Chocolate, Run
17. Joss Stone: I Had A Dream, Super Duper Love
18. Scissor Sisters: Laura, Take Your Mama
19. Velvet Revolver: [TBC]
20. The Killers: [TBC]
21. Sting: Every Breath You Take - to include the lyric 'We'll Be Watching You', Message In A Bottle
22. Mariah Carey: Vision Of Love, Make It Happen
23. Robbie Williams: Let Me Entertain You, Rock DJ, Feel, We Will Rock You
24. The Who: Won't Get Fooled Again, Baba O'Riley
25. Pink Floyd: Money, Comfortably Numb, Wish You Were Here
26. Paul McCartney: The Long and Winding Road
27. Grand finale: All the stars will join Sir Paul on stage

music live 8 live8

LAUPER BEATS LANDLORD

We know you;'ve been waiting nervously for the result from the court case where Cyndi Lauper was fighting her landlord over a rent increase. Judges have rules the demand for USD3,250 a month was excessive; they've set the new rent at just under a thousand bucks. Now we can all sleep soundly tonight.

music cyndi lauper

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENTS OF SORTS

It's funny that the Brits and the Grammys choose to give their lifetime prizes to bands who've had hugely successful careers, although we'd say that once Elton had made his first million, he was in a position where he could wander along quite comfortably with no need to worry about commercial considerations. The real lifetime achievements, it seems to us, are made by those people who continue with musical careers often in the face of widespread public indifference and without the cosy back-up of a couple of houses and a stack of cash-money. That's why, even though we didn't care for their They Might Be Giants style whimsy, we're heartened to hear that The Frank and Walters are still going. It'll never make us love that record about people eating soup with a fork or whatever it was, but it gives us renewed respect for them as people.

Next week: Sultans of Ping found alive in Bolton.

music frank and walters

THE BEST WAY TO ENJOY IT IS WHEN YOU CAN'T SEE JACK'S HAIR

If you think you missed The White Stripe's Glastonbury set last weekend, well, you did. But there are, we understand, mp3s of the set available for you to listen to.

music white stripes downloads

ROCK SICK LIST: BETH DITTO

Apparently, Beth Ditto, the Gossip's singer, has had to have emergency gall bladder surgery. The good news is, she's doing just fine; the bad news is that America hasn't yet gotten round to socialising its medicine and so she's looking at a massive bill. Kill Rock Stars is throwing a benefit night on August 15th in Portlan, Orgeon. Tickets - if you're able to go - are on sale at Fabulous Jackpot Records.

music rock sick list beth ditto the gossip

SWEDISH PORN SUDDENLY GETS PRICIER

Up until now, you've been able to enjoy a wonderful life if you were Swedish; apart from the sexual liberation and the best Eurovision winner ever, you were allowed to download copyrighted material for your own personal use. That's just changed, with the Swedish government bowing to the pressure, flattery and who knows what other inducements being offered by the big entertainment groups to change the law.

There is an interesting little statistic here, though: with the downloading of material free and legal, even then only one in ten Swedes were actually taking advantage of their freedom. It's possible the main reason why the games, music and film companies wanted the law changed was because the Swedish experience proved another one of their favourite arguments in the tiresome war on filesharing to be without basis: "If we don't take a stand" wails the RIAA, "then everyone will be downloading music for free and we'll never make a profit." But Sweden proves this isn't true - even without any threat of legal action or any sense of wrongdoing, nine out of ten people aren't greedily filling up hard-drives. It's possible for filesharing to exist in the music ecosystem without wiping the whole world out.

Meanwhile, the Swedish branches of the US industries have funded a little policeforce all of their own, Antipiratbyran. They're lead by a bloke called Henrik Ponten, who seems to have confused himself with the witchfinder general. He's outraged that he's been barred from invading people's privacy to send out his anti-piracy letters:

"The situation in Sweden is completely unique, with this kind of counter-reaction," said Mr Ponten.

"The forces that are fighting to keep this illegal behaviour are incredibly strong."

Jesus, man, you're talking about a few kids swapping Coldplay; not the forces of darkness gathering at the gates of Malmo.

music downloading sweden

MOVIES THAT SCREAM TO BE MADE

The only thing that puzzles us is why it's taken so long for someone to come up with the idea of turning Copacabana, the Manilow song, into a film. We're not sure how Manilow intends to extend the three-minute plot into something substantial enough to support a full movie, but it's no more of a challenge than making a decent story out of the bits they had left when they went through War of the Worlds, we guess.

Jessica Simpson shoo-in for the part of Lola, surely?

music movies copacabana

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

The thing about having rich people do favours for you, as we imagine Bono has already discovered, is that they tend to have long memories and expect you to do favours in return. Which makes us even more concerned that Michael Jackson is throwing himself onto the kindness of strangers. He's had his debts renegotiated by Ron Burkle, it seems. Burkle could have done this out the kindness of heart; on the other hand, as the majority shareholder of the Alliance Entertainment Corporation, he could be suspected to having good reason to try and keep the man who co-owns the Beatles song catalogue sweet. Burkle also heads up the main supermarket company in the US and controls Golden State Foods, who are the main supplier of food products to McDonalds. (We're not sure what McDonalds does with the food products once it gets them).

Having helped Jackosn with his financial worries, Burkle has now spirited Jacko off to Switzerland to get some therapy, before plonking him down on a yacht:

“Michael is on his way to Switzerland for medical treatments, and then he’s off to spend time on Burkle’s yacht,” says a source close to Jackson. “Ron thinks that Michael needs time to relax and get away from all that kiddie porn and pedophile nonsense.”

You may, if you wish, insert your own "roger the cabin-boy" joke here.

music ron burkle michael jackson

SOUNDS LIKE PR GUFF TO US

Although we cheerfully admit she couldn't be worse than Scott Mills, we're not entirely convinced that Radio One are really that interested in offering Charlotte Church a regular show; nor, come to that, would we have thought Church would be that interested in such an offer.

It's a bit of a pity, though, as we reckon she'd be better at playing in the new Usher track and announcing details of the next Roadshow than she would be at this pop business. Maybe something to consider for next year... when Capital will be looking for a new breakfast host.

music charlotte church radio

LIVE 8 WOBBLES ACROSS THE FINE LINE BETWEEN 'FREE' AND 'PAID FOR'

Let's turn our Live 8 focus briefly to Philadelphia, shall we, where artists are happily giving their time for free. Almost. It turns out that while they're not actually demanding a cash fee for doing their bit, they're not leaving the stage empty handed. In fact, they're going to pull down nearly twelve grand's worth of freebies:

Live 8 performers are playing for free, but local organizers plan to shower the celebrities with a Hugo Boss duffel bag loaded with high-fashion trinkets valued at about $3,000.

They'll also be able to add to their goodie bags with big-ticket items including Hugo Boss suits, valued at $800 to $1,000 each; XM satellite radios and subscriptions, $500; Gibson guitars, $2,000; Bertolucci watches, valued between $1,500 and $6,000; and other items.

In all, a celebrity could walk away with a bag of gifts worth as much as $12,000.

Twelve grand, eh? Not bad for a half hour or so of work; you might have thought that the enormous bounce in album sales worldwide would have been enough, but then there's no accounting for taste.

Now, we don't want to wheel out Bob Geldof's comments when he found Live8 tickets on Ebay again, but... supposedly helping to adjust the gross imbalances in wealth in our planet, but doing it in return for Hugo Boss suits and a three thousand pound watch - surely, that would be "filthy money made on the back of the poorest people on the planet", wouldn't it?

music live 8 live8 philadelphia

AND THEY SAY ROMANCE IS DEAD

It's time to settle down, Pink has decided, and has asked Corey Hart to marry her.



Oh, hang about, Carey Hart, isn't it?



Mmm. Quite a catch - David Schwimmer's eyes in an accountant's face in a body apparently scribbled on by disturbed children with crayons. Still, there's no accounting for the power of love, is there?

The engagement was quite something, too:

Hart, 29, was participating in the Pro 250 racing finals in Mammoth, California, when the 25-year-old multiplatinum-selling singer reportedly popped the question by writing "Will you marry me?" on a board in the pit area. A source tells the magazine that an incredulous Hart asked, "Are you serious?" She was, and he accepted.

We can only imagine what the wedding will be like, but we do hear the Super Sausage in Towcester welcomes bikers.

music pink carey hart

NOW EVEN THEIR SINGLES TURN UP LATE

You can't rely on them coming on stage on time, and now Babyshambles' singles are starting to show up late, too. Fuck Forever has been put back to August 8th due to "artwork issues."

We wonder if someone looked at the cover and went 'Hang about, wasn't this a Sex Pistols slogan?'

music pete doherty babyshambles

A QUICK LOOK AT THIS MORNING'S FRONT PAGES

The lengths to which Bob Geldof has managed to hijack the entire Make Poverty History campaign and confuse "watching Joss Stone do her White Stripes cover" with "take action to try and force politicians to change the balance of our relationship with nations across the planet where people are living in extreme want" is demonstrated by today's Mirror, which has the confusing strapline "Make Poverty History - One Day To Go." As if Live8 is the end in itself:



The Guardian seems to be the only paper which caught Bob Geldof and Tony Blair sharing a platform (and an awful lot of empathetic nodding) on MTV yesterday. There was a time when a Prime Minister appearing on young people's TV programmes would have been a major event and the subject of much comment. Nowadays, Blair pops up on CBBC so often he was briefly in the running to join the Blue Peter team:



The Times has the most eye-catching heading:



Twenty Years Ago Tomorrow. We're not sure if this is a cheeky lament for how bloody middle-aged the line-up is, but the paper seems to be most excited by the Kaiser Chiefs, so perhaps it is.

The Sun, meanwhile, is afraid that Live 8 isn't dull and predictable enough, and so has published the full running order of every song. So you can plan when to take a toilet break:



- as in, pinpoint the few seconds when it's safe to come out of the toilet and rush past your TV.

Finally, it takes the Star to get to the heart of the real scandal - no booze. Which wouldn't be so bad, except it seems those people in the Corporate Hospitality zone will be allowed to guzzle beers, wines and fruit-based alcoholic drinks. We're all in this together, then, except some of us are in this in a little more comfort:

music live 8 live8 newspapers

BPI ATTEMPTS TO THWART ARTIST'S ATTEMPTS TO GET PAID

Now, you might recall that one of the reasons why the BPI feel the need to try and take mothers to court is because if people don't buy their downloads leaglly, why, the artists will lose out and not get paid. This would, of course, be the same BPI at the heart of legal action to try and ensure that artists don't get paid properly for their downloads.

Composers' body the MCPS and PRS, the Performing Rights Society, have suggested that with downloads representing enormous profits for the music industry, it might be nice to share the profit around, and are requesting a 12% share of gross revenues from each download sale - around 10p per iTune download. Not that greedy, considering without composers, there wouldn't be any songs for the record company to sell. But the BPI is having a cow, and along with Apple, AOL, Sony, Real, Napster, MusicNet and Yahoo are forcing this claim to a copyright tribunal. (Yes, this does mean that the record labels which also own publishers are taking themselves to a tribunal.) But, apparently, there's a principle here:

BPI general counsel Geoff Taylor said: "The licence that the Alliance is trying to impose for online music is unreasonable and unsustainable. It is charging a royalty rate on a download that is double the rate it charges for a song on a CD.

"It applies this excessive rate to a whole range of online music services, without taking into account their different characteristics.

"The Alliance's tariff threatens to seriously harm the development of the legal online and mobile music markets."

No it doesn't, Geoff, it challenges your ability to make supernormal profits from the downloads. Surely ensuring composers get a fair crack of the profits is the best way to ensure there are plenty of composers around composing in the future? You know, you suggest we should pay for downloads for that very reason, but if you can't be prepared to give the people who create music a fair share, then why the hell should people pay? Why pay through the nose if the money isn't going to go to the people whose talent you are celebrating?

music bpi

MONEY WHERE MOUTHS ARE

Alan C over at the London News Review has swung into action over the BPI attempts to get four grand out of Sylvia Price on pain of prison, and has established a pledge bank appeal to keep Sylvia out of chokey. If 400 people sign up to chip in a tenner, the BPI demand can be paid off, Sylvia doesn't go to prison, you'll have the warm glow of knowing that you've helped the BPI a further step along in its public transformation from music industry champion to seedy, cash grunning extortion board.

On the other hand, the BPI could just drop the threats to pursue Sylvia for the money. If there's still anyone there who cares what their public image is like.

Go on; pledge a tenner. You know Coldplay need it.

music bpi pledgebank

BE PART OF A MOVEMENT. NOT YOU IN THE CHAIR, SONNY.

What's even more depressing than the discovery that Live8 has elected to put a cap on the number of disabled people it's allowing to attend the event is the apparent willingness it's shown to lie and to try and blame Westminster Council instead:

Live 8 publicist Bernard Doherty told BBC News a platform had been constructed to offer the best possible view of the stage but its capacity was restricted to 140 wheelchair users and 140 of their carers by regulations laid down by the licensing authority for the event, Westminster Council.

"We are very sorry - but the platform is now full," he added.

Now, we're quite prepared to believe bad things about Westminster City Council, but they seem to feel they're being traduced:

"We take umbrage at the suggestion we told them how big the platform could be - that is up to the promoters and should be based on the number of people who want disabled access.

"We are surprised they are saying we are responsible for the decision. We would be more than willing for them to widen the platform, provided it satisfied health and safety requirements."

Bernard Doherty starts to twist in the wind:

Mr Doherty told BBC News there were already twice as many places allocated to wheelchair users and their carers as there had been at the last annual Prince's Trust Party in the Park concert in Hyde Park, which was attended by 100,000 people.

The existing platform had access to disabled toilets and refreshment stands, and a shuttle bus would carry people to and from free disabled parking spaces, he added.

We're sure the thought of a free shuttle bus they can't catch because they've been excluded from the event will be really comforting for those people who've got tickets they can't use. And the "twice as many" is a bit of a red herring, surely - there were 100,000 at Party In The Park, whereas Live 8 distributed 150,000 in the first tranche and then a further 50,000 released yesterday, which, erm, seems to suggest there's twice as many people going overall.

There's something a little puzzling about a campaign for social justice failing to treat disabled people fairly.

music live 8 live8

PIMP YOUR DAUGHTER

While we're wading through the bins of gossip, interesting details are starting to bubble to the surface that, apparently, Joe Simpson has been trying to plant shit about Lindsay Lohan into gossip magazines. Joe, of course, "represents" his daughters Jessica and the Astonishingly Talented Ashlee:

“Joe called our head offices himself and ranted and raved about it,” says a top editor at one of the weeklies. “It was obvious he wanted to paint Lindsay as a bitch. He couldn’t believe anyone would dare ban Jessica from any party because, as he said, ‘She’s a huge superstar.’….Joe will do anything to make sure she’s in the papers every week and he knows Lindsay’s an easy target.”

Simpson, a former Baptist minister, requested that the pubs under no circumstances reveal him as a source and, in at least one case, insisted that they write that the scoop came from an associate of Lohan’s. By Wednesday, extensive coverage of the incident, fueled by her father’s smear campaign, sent Jessica into damage control mode, rushing to People magazine to deny any rift with Lohan.

Joe knows there's only room for one vapid lunch-dodger (and hanger-on sister) in town. Paris Hilton, you better watch your back.

music jessica simpson lindsay lohan

DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?

Why aren't we totally surprised that people are muttering that Kevin Federline is getting a wee bit big-headed?

"Kevin thinks he's a big shot TV star. You wouldn't believe how swelled his head is. The way he carries on, you'd think he had the lead role in some big TV drama, not just a reality TV show," says a fed-up mate.

King Kev is said to fancy himself as "the new Eminem" but insiders-in-the-know say, "his voice is awful."

One particularly cruel critic has even said: "He has no business stepping inside a recording studio, let alone making a record."

We do hope that people stop leaking the gossip and start leaking the demos pretty soon...

music kevin federline

SOMETHING TO REMEMBER IN THE FUTURE

We tend to agree with Charlotte Church that it's about time they stopped releasing Tupac records - how much stuff did he leave laying about, anyway? We're sure if you added up all the lengths of his posthumous records, they'd come to more minutes than his life lasted; they certainly feel to have been going on for years. But what really caught our eye was what Charlotte said about Elton John:

"Elton John has had enough number ones in his time and I reckon he should let someone else have a go."

Apart from being wrong - Elton has had surprisingly few number ones - we hope we can take this as a firm promise from Chazza that if her pop career takes off, she'll certainly ensure she only does it for a while and then rolls over to let someone else have a go.

We're suggesting you set your limit at three singles, Charlie. Two more than Jen Ellison, right?

music charlotte church elton john tupac

BEATLES NEARLY JUMPED THE SHARK

Never mind with the whole Pink Floyd coming back together stuff - Ringo Starr has announced that the Beatles nearly reformed becuase they were offered a slot on a show straight after a bloke wrestling a shark.

How cool would that have been?

Man and shark in combat; sudden end to the battle; on comes Dennis Norden or whoever - "Don't worry, folks, he'll get the best medical treatment money can buy. And once we've sorted the shark, we'll try and do something for the bloke. [Raucous applause]. Now, as they try to reuinte him and his arm, we've got a bit of a reunion going on ourselves... ladies and gentlemen, John, Paul, George... [makes great play of consulting clipboard] Rin-Go... The Beatles..."

They come on, do Hard Day's Night, Help and Twist and Shout, and that's it forever.

If you must have a reunion, do it for fun.

music the beatles

WELLER AXES CASTLE DATE

Paul Weller had been planning on striding round a stage in the backyard of Powderham Castle, home of the Duke of Devon, singing a few of his songs. But, sadly, the promoter's gone bust and now it's not going to happen. Weller's godawful website is desperate to make clear that Paul himself hasn't made any money out of the situation, you know.

music paul weller

HE'S NOT MADE OF STONE, YOU KNOW

It seems to be fairly obvious to us that what's going to lead to a Stone Roses reunion isn't so much any burning desire on the part of Brown and Squire to get together again; more it'll just be a way of stopping everyone banging on about when it's going to happen. Ian Brown seems to be getting sick of the whole thing:

“It’s like a yearly rumour now isn’t it? You’re talking to the man who’s done four LPs and is putting together a Greatest Hits, so really that’s all that’s on my mind.”

Meanwhile, he seems to be keen to shift the blame for it not happening onto John Squire:

“If the kid was serious, John, why doesn’t he phone me? Why does he go through the media? Why doesn’t he call me? I’ve got the same phone number as when he last spoke to me on nine years ago. Why doesn’t he phone me? That’s all I’m saying.”

When asked what his response would be, Brown quipped: “It’d probably be two words.”

What's astonishing here is that Brown still has the same phone number he had a decade ago - flicking backwards through our phone book we can't find anyone other than our dad who's still got a phone number that old. The other odd thing is that we could have sworn that Brown has moved more than once in the last few years - wasn't he living in Wales at one point? How did he port his Manchester code down there?

music ian brown stone roses john squire

SANTA CRUZ: IT'S NOT THAT RA-RA-RA

You have to wonder about a place where life imitates Footloose: Santa Cruz is trying to outlaw houseparties. From the end of July, it'll become illegal to hold a gathering in your own home in the city which gets too disruptive for anyone else. Now, while we can see the need for some sort of check that preserves everyone else's right to peace and quiet, the legilsation has been written so poorly that the council forgot to define what, exactly, constitutes a violation. In effect, having a couple round to eat Spaghetti Bolognaise while playing Portishead on repeat could constitute an illegal party.

Our advice: if you're planning a funeral tea in Santa Cruz next month, or a wedding, you'd better be prepared for someone sending in the cops.

music santa cruz

THE JOKES WRITE THEMSELVES

We don't really need to add anything to this, do we?

A pop star has rewarded an honest taxi driver who returned the bag she left in the back of his car - with a pair of knickers.

Twenty nine-year-old Serbian singer Tina Ivanovic offered money to Toma Majstorovic after he returned her handbag, which had been left in his car after a trip to a beauty salon in Belgrade.



But instead of taking the money Majstorovic, who earns £200 a month, said he would prefer a pair of her knickers.
Ivanovic was happy to oblige with a pair of silk panties.

YOU SHOULD ALWAYS KEEP IN TOUCH WITH YOUR FRIENDS

I suppose, if you were looking for something nice to say about Coldplay, you couldn't begrudge them that Chris Martin knows how to repay historical debts - he's thinking of bringing Richard Ashcroft onstage during Live 8 because he's always liked the Verve and they're thinking of doing Bitter Sweet Symphony and... well, that's kind of nice, isn't it?

We do wonder how Ashcroft feels about this, though: after all, there was a time when the Verve very nearly did what Coldplay did, and became a transatlantic phenom-type thing, and - towards the end - were doing pretty much the same sort of thing. Surely going on stage with Chris Martin is going to be, for him, like those Kev-Bev adverts on TV, where the bloke who used to be in Three Up Two Down and his wife is humiliated into buying a shit car off more successful versions of themselves?

music richard ashcroft verve coldplay

A QUICK LOOK AT THIS MORNING'S FRONT PAGES

And, as Live 8 gets ever closer, the papers get more and more excited at the chance to fill acres of space with very little content - why, the only spot of gloom is that the baby-faced matricide/patricide court case happened at the same time. And the Daily Telegraph is quick off the blocks with its multipage special, in doubt about what's important about Bob's event: It's going to be the biggest TV event ever. Afri-what?



The Daily Express also has a nifty multi-page guide, but they've done their best work on the front page. "Everything you need to know about Live 8" it promises, next to a picture of Mariah Carey honking and Robbie Williams gurning. Yep, that's pretty much all we need to know.



Mind you, the "official poster" which gets its first trot out on the front of the Star tells you pretty much everything you need to know, too:



Good god, I hope to hell that was designed by a six year old through a Blue Peter competition and not by anyone who pretends to know about graphic design.

Of course, you have to look a little further afield to actually see why the whole simplistic "it Mariah Carey sings, everything will be alright" approach is tricky and somewhat irrelevant. The Guardian reports that the decisions are going to be taken in a meeting in London this week anyway; thirty ultradiplomats will be having "eleventh hour meetings" in which, as ever, they'll attempt to stitch up all our futures. It's not clear how many will be Elton John fans:



Meanwhile, the FT suggests that the IMF is starting to try and work against any new approach to Africa, making worried noises about how Aid might not, you know, drive growth:



Still, at least the Mirror knows what's important - steer clear of the uberpolitics, and keep with what's simple. Beyonce's arse:

music live 8 live8 newspapers beyonce

RIAA CONTINUE TO FLOG DEAD HORSE

The RIAA has launched another tiny little nibble at the millions and millions of people using filesharing, adding another 748 lawsuits. That makes a shade over 12,000 so far, and the RIAA's Mitch Bainwol is pretty bullish:

...declaring that "if there was any doubt left, there should now be none – individuals who download music without permission are breaking the law."

Although, of course, with just two months to the second anniversary of the lawsuits, if the streaming of resources into the lawsuit initiative made any sense, you'd be seeing some results by now. That they're still able to come up with hundreds and hundreds of names would probably be enough to persuade most people they ought to try a different tack, but then the RIAA isn't spending its own money - its spending cash from the labels. The beautiful irony, of course, is that the majors are shaking down their legal customers to subsidise action against the downloaders.

Between 5.2 and 5.4 million filesharers celebrated the new lawsuits by totally ignoring it and swapping files the next day.

Meanwhile, the RIAA continues to push its tie-up with childnet, an independent charity which has produced a leaflet for parents about filesharing. Curiously, the leaflet is big on the downsides of filesharing - apparently it's full of people waiting to give your kids porn, and steal your personal data - but a bit shakier on the positives of peer to peer. Indeed, if you were a parent relying on this "independent" charity, you might come away convinced there were no potential positive usages for file networks at all. Even more curiously, the only advice it offers is total removal of the networks altogether, rather than offering parents actual useful suggestions about how they can protect their machines and still allow kids to use bittorrent to, for example, make use of the BBC Creative Archive, or share homework and data for school, and so on. Thank god Childnet weren't around ten years ago; if they approached the then new-fangled internet with the hysterical doomsaying approach they bring to peer to peer, it would have been campaigning for the porn rich internet to be closed down. "Keep your kids safe - make sure they only use the wireless."

music riaa childnet

MICHAEL JACKWHITESON

Other people have pointed out just how much like Michael Jackson Jack White is starting to look these days, but only Medication have the science to back it up. Sample:

Jacko got his start singing in the Jackson 5 a Motown (Detroit) act; Jack got his start playing in the Go, a Detroit band who wanted to be the MC5.

music jack white michael jackson

CONOR OBERST SLAPPED DOWN

Bloody hell, they thought Bobby Gillespie was out of order for making a jibe in the direction of Kylie fans - Conor Oberst seems to have upset the whole world by slagging MPH and John Peel during their Glastonbury set. People contacted nme.com to fume:

Some of the things he was saying concerning the Make Poverty History Campaign and John Peel were completely out of order. Being a bit cynical about some people's motives behind supporting the campaign is one thing, and is perhaps okay, but belittling the campaign which many people strongly believe in is plain wrong.

”The John Peel thing was in my opinion even worse as it was completely inexcusable. You can't slag off one of the most important people in our lives just because he didn’t play your tunes. A lot of people left the show and I think and hope he lost a lot fans that night. He lost me. It's a shame because the guy is quite possibly a genius, but also, clearly, he is a complete cock.”

We wonder if Oberst was slagging Peel off in order to try and get Julie Burchill to sleep with him?

Anyway, Conor's put on the hair shirt:

“I would like to express my sincerest apology to the friends and family of Mr. Peel for anything I said during our performance at Glastonbury. I truly don’t remember much of the show but have been informed since of what I said and it was way out of line and far from my real feelings.

”I have nothing but respect for John Peel and his beautiful gift for sharing music. I never had the pleasure of meeting him but by all accounts he was an outstanding man and deserves much more respect then I showed. I am very sorry.”

Conor, Conor, what have you done, with your pretty eyes... pretty, pretty eyes...

"I have been bad... I'm sorry," said Conor, teeth gritted.

"Not good enough, boy."

The metal ruler came down again on Conor's naked ass; this time it was so hard when his new bitchmaster ran his fingers across the glowing red buttock, he could feel the imprint of the lines and numbers etched on the rule now reversed into Conor's flesh.

"How sorry are you?"

Conor turned his head as much as the chain through his collar would allow him.

"Very, very sorry, master..."

music conor oberst bright eyes glastonbury festivals john peel

MID-AFTERNOON CHEAP CRACK

We were marginally interested to read on Popdirt the following:

Michael Jackson's kids were photographed arriving at Roissy Airport in Paris, France on Tuesday (June 28) to meet their father, who is currently staying in Hotel Crillon.

What are the chances of Jacko and his kid's father being in the same hotel at the same time, eh?

music michael jackson

HARD-FI ABSENCE

In a statement on their official website, Hard-Fi have apologised for missing Glastonbury - although it's not like they really need to:

Hard-Fi apologize for being unable to perform at this weekends Glastonbury Festival.
Both to be asked to play the Love Music/Hate Racism event and The John Peel Tent was an honour that they were very much looking forward to.
Unfortunately, on Saturday afternoon, Richard's mother became critically ill and he needed to be by her side.
This was due to be an amazing weekend for the band, to play Glastonbury, a dream for them, on the weekend of their first top ten record and the are sorry for any inconvenience.
This weeks concerts in Glasgow and Germany have also been cancelled.

Sadly, Richard's mother died. Our sympathies to him and his family.

music hard-fi

LET'S HOPE THE KID DOESN'T HAVE HAYFEVER

We're being drip-fed details of the plans for when Britney Spears pops out her kid:

The singer has selected a luxurious room in a Scottsdale, Arizona hospital where she’ll have her baby, according to a report, and has made sure the rooms on both sides will remain vacant.

“Britney wants white and yellow roses in the room when she gets there,” a source told the upcoming issue of the Star.

What’s more, “Britney wants all the nurses serving her to be given background checks.” The staff will reportedly be interrogated by both hospital staff and Spears’ mom. And, of course, there’ll be catered food.

Oh, Britney, don't treat the staff like shit, love - the last thing you want is a small head forcing itself out of you only to discover the nurses are pissed with you for not trusting them. "Gas, you say? Oh, but don't we need your mom to check the gas before we give it to you?"

music britney spears

LIVE 8: DOWN ANOTHER

Citing "substantial logistical and personal challenges", Sheryl Crow has cancelled plans to take part in Paris' Live 8. We're not sure what the logistical problems would be of getting to Paris and doing a brief acoustic set, but we think we can guess what the personal ones are. You keep your distance, Sheryl.

music sheryl crow live 8 live8

NOTORIOUS BIG TRIAL: SURPRISE TWIST

The continuing low rumble in the background that has been the trial of David Mack and Rafael Perez for the murder of Notorious BIG - a crime which touched all of us when it led to the release of really awful remake of a Police single - has come to a sudden halt with the appearance of a new tip-off. The judge halted the trial to allow all sides to adapt to this new witness appearing; it's believed the tip relates to someone who may have heard evidence incriminating the two former LAPD cops in the killing.

music notorious big

MARTHA'S DEPARTURE FROM HARBOUR

Trying to make a firm break from her Daughter/sister of status, Martha Wainwright will spend the dank month of November swooshing about the UK:

* Cambridge Junction (November 1)
* Norwich Waterfront (2)
* Cardiff University (3)
* Birmingham Academy (5)
* Sheffield Plug (6)
* Edinburgh Queens Hall (7)
* Glasgow Academy (9)
* Newcastle Academy (10)
* London Shepherd’s Bush Empire (12)
* Bristol Academy (13)
* Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms (14)
* Brighton Corn Exchange (15)
* Exeter Lemon Grove (17)
* Liverpool Academy (18)
* Manchester Academy (19)

Buy Now, Singalong later:

music martha wainwright

SAME SHIT; SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT PACKAGE

Will we never be free of the curse of prog rock? Franz Ferdinand are going all Peter Gabriel on us, and not giving their follow up to the first album a name. Indeed, they've gone a step beyond Gabriel, and aren't going to have a different design, either - just a different set of colors on the front. Of course, this ultimately means their US record company will just slap stickers on the outside saying "Second Franz Ferdinand album"; afficiandos will doubtless call this black, red, pale green. It's all part of a master plan, says Alex Kapranos:

“The whole point is that the album doesn’t have a title. We decided quite a while ago that we didn’t want to give any of the albums titles, they were just going to be called ‘Franz Ferdinand’.”

He added: “The albums are going to be identified by their colour schemes rather than a title. The contrast of different colours creates a different mood. We experimented with different combinations of colours and this one stuck. At one level they looked good together, and they capture the mood of this record quite well.”

There will, of course, be problems with this if they get to the ten album stage - people chiding their gran for buying the light green with red trim instead of the pale green with crimson.

We await the Dulux marketing crossover with interest.

music franz ferdinand

IT'S IN THE TREES! IT'S COMING!

There have been all sorts of rumours and hints and claims and gossip, but now, it seems, we're really, really going to have a new Kate Bush album - twelve years after the last one. Sky News has been reporting that Kate has delivered a completed album to EMI.



It's being lined up for an autumn release. We wouldn't hold your breath expecting a tour.

music kate bush

HOW RECORD LABELS & MANAGEMENT GROUPS CARE FOR THEIR ARTISTS

One of the reasons we're not meant to download music without paying over the odds for it is, were it not for the money we pay record companies, they might not be in a position to help young artists develop. Then you hear Alanis Morissette describing how her label helped her develop between the ages of 14 and 18, and you start to wonder why, exactly, that would be a bad thing:

Between the ages of 14 and 18 she battled low self-esteem that sparked a major struggle with anorexia and bulimia.

Morissette says her battle was prompted by "hardcore" pressure from those steering her career.

"I recall being called to a meeting at the recording studio, and the person said, 'I know I called you to redo vocals, but I actually wanted to talk to you about your weight. You can't be successful if you're fat,' " she remembers.

Morissette said at the time her weight jumped up and down between 15 and 20 pounds. She would barely eat for months at a time, subsisting on Melba toast, carrots and black coffee.

"Constantly dizzy," she recounts about once having nothing to eat one day while a person working on one of her videos put back a large pizza.

"He was like, 'You can't eat. And don't even put milk in (the coffee,)" the singer told US.

There are too many people working in the music industry who shouldn't be allowed to keep finches, never mind have control over the lives of children.

music alanios morissette

NAILS AND WAILS

Oh, what price vanity? Paula Abdul popped into a nail salon in Studio City, California to have her hands made all pretty, and - according to what she's telling the California Senate Business and Professions Committee - they used dirty needles giving her a year of fungus hands. Which we picture as being a cross between Fungus the Bogeyman and Edward Scissorhands, but isn't quite as cute, it turns out:

"What I saw fly out of my thumb was a green-and-yellow, thick substance that smelled foul. And then blood, blood, blood," Abdul said. "Being a professional dancer, I'm no stranger to pain, but this time the pain was so excruciating that even my hair touching my thumb caused me to scream."

Blimey. Lucky she didn't go back doors for a waxing. Abdul was appearing in front of the committee to try and persuade them to pass a bill which might force Californian nail places to put a broom round from time to time.

music paula abdul

COREY CLARK ATTACKS WOMAN IN HOTEL ROOM WITH HIS BREAKFAST SAUSAGE

Corey Clark - off of American Idol, so not really a proper pop star - has gotten himself into quite serious trouble after attacking Laura Kathleen Troy. Troy is a music industry executive, but that doesn't mean she doesn't deserve to be treated with almost the same degree of respect as merchant bankers, telesales people who won't take no for an answer and people who drop litter in conservation areas. It seems that Troy was in Clark's hotel room, brekafast was delivered, and all hell broke loose:

A guest in the room next door told police she could hear glass shattering and "a woman screaming over and over, 'Please stop.' She thought she was in mortal danger," Risley said.

When a hotel security guard responded, Clark denied there was a woman in the room but the guard could see Troy's reflection in a mirror, Risley said. The guard reported that Clark became confrontational until Troy emerged and Clark went to another room.

Troy told police that Clark knocked over several items and threw others, including a filled cereal bowl that shattered against a wall, Risley said. She said Clark yelled at her and grabbed her, leaving marks on her arm.

Police said Clark also had marks on his arms, which Clark said he may have received when he bumped a wall trying to squeeze past Troy to leave the room.

Clark's publicist, Jed Wallace, said police "got there at the tail end of a free-for-all in which everyone was involved." About five people were "letting off steam," Wallace said in a telephone interview Tuesday. "It started in fun and it got more serious."

How much damage can you do with a breakfast tray?

More puzzling is that Clark's people have denied that there's any romantic connection between Clark and Troy, although she apparently told police that they'd been dating since 2003. Clark, you'll recall, was the bloke who claimed he was also sharing his breakfast tray with Paula Abdul, and was originally kicked off American Idol for not having mentioned that he had been arrested for assaulting his own sister. (Clearly, a man who takes "You always hurt the one you love" as advice rather than a warning). Now, though, he's accepted a battery charge, and seems to be rather contrite.

It's not in any way a publicity stunt.

music corey clark

YOU BET

Last night, the US Black Entertainment Television awards were given out - oddly, unlike the Mobos in the UK, they don't seem to have given a prize to Joss Stone. Headline winners:

Best Group: Destiny's Child

Female R&B Artist: Alicia Keys

New Artist: John Legend

Male R&B Artist: Usher

Male Hip-Hop Artist: Kanye West

Lifetime Achievement: Gladys Knight

Humanitarian: Denzel and Pauletta Washington

Alicia Keys? Did she get up to much last year?

music awards BET

A WARNING TO OASIS FANS

Now, generally, we'd be tempted to say if you've bought Oasis tickets, you might deserve everything you get, but we don't like seeing people being ripped off, so there's a warning for those heading to Milton Keynes in a couple of weeks in the experiences of those who went to see Green Day.

Green Day played the MK Bowl the weekend before last, which, as you'll recall, was a pretty hot weekend. Ralph Bacon sent his 16 year old daughter well prepared for the day, carrying three bottles of water. As he tells the story, when she got to the gates of the Bowl, the stewards stole two of her bottles on the basis that you were only allowed to take one bottle inside.

Oddly, it turns out this is policy. The Bowl operators - Gaming International - have imposed a "one litre only" policy on people going to gigs there, regardless of the weather conditions. It seems this time, though, the limit was cut to just half a litre - a spokesperson for the company told the MK Citizen this was down to Green Day themselves; according to them, the band wanted the limit imposed because one of them was hit in the face by a full bottle once.

Now, this seems odd to us - if you're hit by a full bottle, you're hit by a full bottle, regardless of if it's got a litre or half a litre in it, it's going to hurt. And if you're going to throw a bottle, then you're going to throw a bottle, regardless of it's your only one, or if you've got many.

Even more curiously, it seems bottles of water sold inside the Bowl can't hurt bands if you throw them. And this, we suspect, is the real reason behind the ban on more than a little water going in to the venue - because if people take their own water in, they won't pay the shocking two pounds fifty for a bottle of water inside the bowl. Of course not, because who but someone with no choice would pay such a gouged price for water?

Bowl spokesperson Julie Wilson seems to think this is about "confusion" - "This confusion won't happen again. The restrictions on bottles taken into the arena won't change and will remain at one litre bottles or less." (Actually, for Oasis, it's going to be 500ml). But Julie, it's not confusion - we can think of several words for people who take water of teenagers about to stand and dance in thirty degree plus temperatures, and then offer to sell them water at grossly inflated prices. None of them are "confusing", although the first syllable does sound pretty similar.

music green day oasis milton keynes bowl

AND THEY THOUGHT BOBBY GILLESPIE WAS TACTLESS

Nobody's really wanted to come out and say that a large part of Delta Goodrem's career has been based on her succesfully overcoming cancer, but it's been at the back of everyone's minds - go on, give 'er a go, she's had it tough. But, of course, nobody has ever been quite so crass as to play the cancer card explicitly. Until now. Faced with sluggish ticket sales for her current tour, Delta's effectively doing press pointing out the nearly dying stuff, simultaneously blaming the cancer for poor sales and trying to guilt-trip the audience into going to see her and Kerry McFadden's husband:

Australian pop singer Delta Goodrem said Monday that time out battling lymphatic cancer earlier this year is to blame for slow ticket sales for her national concert tour that begins in Perth early in July.

"I haven't got to connect with everyone because I was behind four walls in a hospital for a while," Goodrem said of her successful treatment for lymphatic cancer.

Is this the same Delta who expressed horror when people suggested she use the cancer to sell records now using it as an excuse?

music delta goodrem

ROCK SICK LIST: DJ narrowly avoids slicing

DJ John 00 Fleming nearly got sliced to pieces in a nasty boating accident at the weekend. Fleming was being towed behind a boat off the coast of Brighton when he fell off his inflatable doughnut. The boat then hit him, but luckily, his life jacket took the force of the propellers and saved him from being chopped up.

As it is, he wound up with a deep gash on his arm, four broken ribs and a collapsed lung. Naturally, he's cancelled most of his approaching dates in order to concentare on getting over nearly being cut into ribbons.

music rock sick list john 00 fleming

Whoever would have thought it, eh? You make a sex tape with your boyfriend, dump him - and then it turns up on the internet. That doesn't happen every day, does it? In this case, it's Eve who is scrambling to have the video of her getting a humping from producer Stevie J removed from the internet, itself a process like trying to un-have sex with Stevie J. The video appears to have been made in 1999, when she had been seeing J for about two years. Apparently, it only lasts thirty seconds which might well be why she isn't seeing him anymore.

If you're still reading this and aren't busily typing Eve Fuck Video Bittorrent into Google, you might like to cast your eye over Eve's statement:

"The fact that a private moment is being made public is a violation, and we would hope that people would respect her privacy as they would their own."

How many more times, people? You shag someone while a camera's rolling, and you don't take the tape with you, you might as well think about getting a Creative Commons licence for it.

music eve

BULDINGS WITHOUT WINDOWS

Better-than-you-Mani band Architecture in Helsinki are going to come to Britain and play songs for us, not that we deserve it, because we're curs and whelps.


In fact, we might not tell you where they're playing.



Oh, alright then:

3rd - London, Brixton Windmill
5th - London, Club Fandango
6th - London, Barfly
7th - Cambridge, Portland Arms
8th - Liverpool, Barfly
10th - Nottingham, The Social
11th - York, Barfly
12th - Glasgow, Sleazy's

But we still don't deserve them.


What they do

music architecture in helsinki

U2: COURT STRUGGLE FOR OLD HAT

Why, Bono, and the rest of U2, why are so bothered about some old trousers and a hat? You're multi-multi-millionaires; sure, maybe your former stylist wasn't entitled to take them from you, and perhaps it was a little bit naughty of Lola Cashman to try and sell them, but dragging the woman to court and trying to force her to return them? Is the millionaire's world so quiet and empty you really need to go to these lengths for an old hat? Are you down to your last few quid, and require the hat so you can sell it for busfare to your next Venture Capitalist meeting?

music bono U2

LET'S NOT LOSE SIGHT OF WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT

There are some people who might think that - far from trying to show any sense of empathy with people who have nothing - Live 8 might be little more than a bunch of shallow, self-obsessed stars struggling to show themselves in a good light. Luckily, Mariah Carey knows what it's all about:

"This is such a special event for me. I want to sing my best and look my best.

"I've been working on my voice to make sure it's in top condition and working on my body too. I've been dieting and exercising non-stop so I can get into the outfit I want to wear."

What better way to show you relate to what it means to have nothing than to trill about having to trim off a few pounds of excess body weight, eh?

Interesting, of course, that Mariah is the subject of the urban legend that she claimed to be jealous of starving children. It's almost as if she wants it to be true as much as the rest of us did.

music live 8 live8 mariah carey

ELTON JOHN TO TAKE ON MIDDLE ENGLAND BIBLE

He once shook the Sun down for a million quid over a false story: now, Elton John is suing the Daily Mail. He's especially pissed off that the claims they published - that guests at his charity party were told not to speak to him unless he spoke first - had been put to him by the paper; he'd told them they were untrue but the Mail had gone ahead and published anyway. The Sunday Times, who also ran the claim, are also getting a letter from Carter-Ruck.

music elton john

NIKE: WE THOUGHT PINCHING ARTWORK WOULD BE FLATTERING

Nike have issued a statement responding to the complaints that they'd pinched Minor Threat's artwork:

Nike Skateboarding sincerely apologizes for the creation of a tour poster inspired by Minor Threat's album cover. Despite rumors being circulated, Wieden & Kennedy and Odopod had nothing to do with the creation of this tour poster and should not be held accountable. To set the record straight, Nike Skateboarding's "Major Threat" Tour poster was designed, executed and promoted by skateboarders, for skateboarders. All of the Nike employees responsible for the creation of the tour flyer are fans of both Minor Threat and Dischord records and have nothing but respect for both.

Minor Threat's music and iconographic album cover have been an inspiration to countless skateboarders since the album came out in 1984. And for the members of the Nike Skateboarding staff, this is no different. Because of the album's strong imagery and because our East Coast tour ends in Washington DC, we felt that it was a perfect fit. This was a poor judgment call and should not have been executed without consulting Minor Threat and Dischord Records.

We apologize for any problems this may have caused, and want to make very clear that we have no relationship with the members of Minor Threat, Dischord Records and they have not endorsed our products.

Every effort has been made to remove and dispose of all flyers (both print and digital). Again, Nike Skateboarding sincerely apologizes to Minor Threat and Dischord Records.

Oh, we can imagine that the Skateboarding Department was in tears when they thought they'd been caught ("upset Minor Threat.") We notice that Nike are keen to draw a line under this pillfering - we wonder if they'd be so keen to say "let's be done now" if someone else was making shoes with the swoosh on them...

music nike minor threat

DO WE CALL HIM 'PRESIDENT' OR 'SEA IEE OWE'?

Much as we love George Clinton - the first definition of f-u-n-k, of course - we really hope he's going to hire some people to help him run his new record label. Apart from anything, the signwriter and business card printer are going to need to have a close eye kept on them to ensure they get the name of the label right: C Kunspyruhzy - pronounced conspiracy, apparently. It's first release is going to be How Late Do You Have 2 B B 4 U R Absent, by Clinton himself; a name which even the sms generation might think is going a little too far.

music george clinton

BRASSED OFF

We're sure there have been other cases, but we're not sure off the top of our head that we can think of any: a band member is taking his band to court over unfair dismissal. Notebooks out, Pete Doherty:

John DeFazio was a member of Philadelphia's River City Brass Band until May 18th; then he was asked to put down his cornet and leave. He reckons it's because he's 58. And Italian. And a man. And because he had "opposition to commands that violated "sincerely held moral and ethical belief as to right and wrong.""

We'd imagine it would be that last one which was the clincher, as we'ved never heard anyone complain about someone playing the cornet with an Italian accent.

But what a wonderful precedent - we'd kill to see Frankie Poullian and Justin Hawkins down the Equal Opportunities Commission explaining their positions, and we know you would, too.

music

CONCERT "STAB MAN": I MIGHT HAVE DONE IT

The man suspected of having stabbed four people, one to death, at a Florida Corrosion of Conformity gig last week has turned himself into police, offering the slightly unsatifactory explanation that he doesn't know if he stabbed anyone or not:

On Saturday, [Michael John] Pyne admitted that he was at the nightclub the night of the attack, and was carrying a pocketknife, according to the [Tampa] Tribune.

"He said all he remembers is his girlfriend got into a fight," police spokesperson Joe Durkin told the paper. "He remembers pulling her away, but he blacked out after that and said he doesn't remember what happened after that."

It seems that Pyne had little choice but to come forward; he'd actually been handing business cards out amongst the crowd shortly before he may or may not have stabbed people. (Apparently he's a tattoo artist). He's been charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder, aggravated battery and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

music michael john pyne corrosion of conformity

GREAT NEWS FOR DRAG QUEENS

In a bid to raise some cash for charity, Beyonce is flogging some of her stage wear, giving anyone who wants to dress up as her the chance to do so. Amongst the stuff on offer will be this top:



God alone knows where you'd find a foundation garment to go with that.

music beyonce

A QUICK LOOK AT THIS MORNING'S FRONT PAGES

Gay rumours? What gay rumours? Apparently, Charlotte Church has felt the need to talk about them, but we've not heard any. Now, we're almost tempted to buy the Daily Star to find out what they are:



On second thoughts, we'll just leave it to our imaginations, which are sure to be a lot more entertaining. After all: she does look as if she might have been getting make-up tips from Shirley Manson, doesn't she? Eh? Eh?

The serious papers have got coverage of the Supreme Court Grokster judgement - both the Guardian and the FT focus on the opportunities this gives the music industry to "go after" in some way "the pirates":





You can understand the FT taking that angle, but it might have been nice to see the Guardian pick up on some of the more positive parts of the judgement.

music newspapers charlotte church filesharing

LINDA PERRY REFUSING TO WEAR PUFFY-SLEEVED DRESS

If rumours are to be believed - and let's face it, most often rumours are much more fun to believe - Avril Lavigne is engaged to be married to Deryck Whibley, the brightest one out of Sum 41. Who still can't spell Derek. According to Us magazine, Whibley asked her at the weekend, and she said "I can't wait to be Avril Whibley."

Now is not the time for cynical sideline carping - we'll wait until the wedding before we give it nine months.

music avril lavigne derek whibley sum 41

His ear infection is getting no better, and so Ryan Adams has junked his entire UK tour, just as he pulled his Glastonbury date. We'd imagine that he can't fly without his head exploding, and his head is the second most important part of the young man to his fans.

music rock sick list ryan adams

THIS IS GORGEOUS, SIGNING OFF

Who'd have thought that it would be the Primals who were the band people were talking about as they dragged their cars from the bottom of the lake? Bobby's performance yesterday has split the audience in two: between those who thought it was a pity he screwed up a great set, and those who are wondering if there oughtn't be a law of some sort.

Contact music seems convinced that Bobby "angered" Glastonbury officials - "The KILL ALL HIPPIES star appeared to be intoxicated as he took to the event's Pyramid Stage". Gillespie? Intoxicated? Surely not.

Gillespie might have got away with it, if it hadn't been for yelling out "Did anyone come to see Kylie? Fuck you." Announcing the war on terror is a pretext for a police state is one thing, but to apparently launch an attack on the pop princess - when she was ill, dammit - is just too much.

We're not so sure Gillespie would have been having a pop at Kylie, though - they got on quite well during the Select feature a decade ago when they spent some time together talking about sexual experimentation - this was probably around the high water mark of the Primal's mainstream popularity and the furthest south Kylie went in trying to rebrand herself with mud-on-the-boots indie credibility. Certainly, today, somebody from the record company has been trying to make it clear that Bobby bears no malice towards Kylie. The poor sod was also charged with trying to spin the refusal to leave the stage into something positive, too:

"The whole evening was running late because one of the earlier bands had overrun. The crowd were chanting for more and Bobby wanted to stay on, but a stage manager said he had to finish."

Chanting for more or booing them off? It's unlikely we'll ever know for sure, but the opinions of people who were there don't seem to suggest that the audience was desperate to hear much more from Bob.

music glastonbury primal scream

LATE REVIEWS ROUND-UP

You can understand the reluctance of even the digital presses to roll too soon with the Sunday reviews from the festival - it's like your spoonful of ice cream; something you want to make last as long as possible, to savour the moment. Plus, you don't want to have to face the massive queues snaking out the carpark, so there's no rush.

But sooner or later, you have to get to grips with it. So, the nme finally brings us its last day round-up. Barry Nicolson found some charm in Jools Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra, despite it being "one long smug ego wank"; Dan Martin seems to have been the only person to have actually bothered to go and see Van Morrison and Priya Elan witnessed a very hungover Martha Wainwright forget her own songs. Tim Jonze seemed taken with the Dresden Dolls:

Songs about coin-operated boys and juvenile lyrics about fucking people in the ass seem to make so much more sense with our minds in such a frazzled state.

You can hear the Jonze-Town Gang over on LiveJournal exploding at the moment, can't you?

Dorian Lynskey looked into the eyes of Bobby Gillespie:

He announces, "We're a punk rock band and you're a bunch of fucking hippies", says "fuck you" to any Kylie fans in the audience, and accuses everyone of being complacent cattle. The only way he could have caused more offence would have been by wheeling on an effigy of Michael Eavis and setting fire to it.

The Guardian let their reviewers wander more than the NME, so Dorian also got to see Sons and Daughters on the Peel stage:
Their threatening punk country may have the bite of the White Stripes or PJ Harvey, but their intensity and charisma are singular. Clad in a mud-defying white dress, singer Adele Bethel somehow manages to make a heavy Glaswegian accent sound rivetingly sexy, especially on Dance With Me's hypnotic tribal churn.

music glastonbury reviews

TEENAGE ANGST

We're actually quite glad that Glastonbury is taking a break next year, as we're finding it hard to keep up with how the Eavises view teenagers. In 2002, talking to Music Week, Michael Eavis was convinced that teenagers represented a threat to the stability of the festival:

"The amount of 17 and 18 year old students was grossly reduced. I can see a change going on that i wish we could avoid, but you can't have the nice kids without the bad kids, so there was no choice, really."

Then, in 2003, in the Guardian, he seemed to be having second thoughts:

"Mr Eavis conceded, however, that the ticketing restrictions - the full allocation of 112,500 sold out in 18 hours - meant that many Glastonbury regulars had been excluded. In particular, he said, he was considering ways to boost the numbers of teenagers and students among a crowd that seemed slightly older than usual, and was overwhelmingly white and middle-class. "

This year, then, teenagers were back, and the 360 degree full turn had been completed:

"There are a lot of students here this year," said Emily Eavis, festival organiser and daughter of festival founder Michael Eavis. "That's good, is n't it? We estimate that 60% of the people here are first-time festival goers."

Of course, the difference is that the teenagers going in 2005 were able to pay the 2005 ticket prices. But there's no guarantee a middle-class kid is going to be any better behaved than one who can't afford the ticket price. We wonder if teenagers will be getting patted on the heads or ticked off in two years time?

music glastonbury festivals

JACKSON BREAKS HIS SILENCE

Well, it's taken long enough: Michael Jackson has finally got round to thanking his fans for their logic-defying support while he was on trial for the child-touching business.



Yes, her and all of them. Michael is really, really thankful:

"Without God, my children, my family and you, my fans, I could not have made it through. Your love, support and loyalty made it all possible. You were there when I really needed you. I will never forget you. Your ever-present love held me, dried my tears, and carried me through. I will treasure your devotion and support forever. You are my inspiration."

Good god, having heard Jackson's post-Thriller work, calling someone "my inspiration" is quite a slap in the face, isn't it? They've been there, letting him dry his tears on their love (don't even try and get a visual image of that, you won't want it), and the best he can do is say "I was thinking of you when I wrote Give In To Me?" It is quite classy, though, as he refrains from asking all of his fans to send a dollar to help him this one last time.

music michael jackson

GROKSTER RULING: WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

(Thanks to Karl for posting the link to the article in the comments section for the post below)
Following the Supreme Court decision, the Wall Street Journal has invited a panel of experts to weigh exactly what it might mean.

What's expecially reassuring is it that it's not a blanket decision - it appears Justice Souter has suggested that what's important is how the various peer to peer networks have sold their services:

Souter said lower courts could find the file-sharing services responsible by examining factors such as how companies marketed the product or whether they took easily available steps to reduce infringing uses," and "We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement."

In other words, the court appears to be saying that selling a peer to peer network or its software is fine, providing that you don't say it's for getting loads of songs or music for free - the difference between selling a gun, and selling "the perfect way to shut your enemies up."

In addition, Grokster/Stream Cast lawyer Fred Von Lohmann was pretty upbeat even before the verdict came out; from their side, they were happy that the court had accepted that simply because a technology can be used to perform illegal activities doesn't mean that technology endorses those crimes.

In the WSJ roundtable, Michael Geist attempts to think forward what this judgement might mean for any future lawsuit against Bittorrent (he believes a case would be an uphill struggle for the RIAA-MPAA to prove "purposeful culpable expression") and points out this:

Though not core to the decision, I find Justice Breyer's willingness to question the economic impact of P2P on the recording industry noteworthy. Over the past three weeks, the OECD, FTC, and now the U.S. Supreme Court have all cast doubt on the linkage between P2P and declining music sales. That makes for a strong trio and should help move the debate beyond unsubstantiated claims of a direct correlation between file sharing and the recording industry's bottom line.

After all this time, even mainstream opinion is starting to catch up with what some people have been chanting for years: There's no evidence at all that filesharing costs the music industry anything at all. Except the legal bills the BPI and RIAA are running up on their member's behalfs on their Pseuppuki PR strategy, of course.

music filesharing downloads

THIS JUST IN: P2P NOT LIKE VHS

We've just heard that the US Supreme Court has ruled that file-sharing networks can be held liable for file-sharing which breaches copyright on their networks. Great news for the record companies; less good news for everyone else.

music filesharing

WHY WOULD I WANT TO DO SOMETHING I DID TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO?

The good news: Madonna and Sting duetting on Imagine is off - presumably even Geldof could see that being a hostage to fortune.

The bad news? Sting is going to do Every Breath You Take, only it's going to be subtle, like, using the song to warn politicians that we (the world) will be watching them (the politicians). And to help get the point home, they're going to have Spitting Image puppets of world leaders dancing about.

If all this sounds vaguely familiar, it'll be because this is exactly the same thing Sting did over the closing credits of a series of Spitting Image so long ago it had Aayatollah Khommeni in it. It's unclear if Sting is doing this deliberately to make people feel like the last two decades haven't happened, or because he hopes nobody will remember, or - more likely - he simply can't be arsed to come up with something new.

music live 8 live8 sting

JOSS STONE: POOR AS CHURCH MICE WITH INVESTMENT PORTFOLIOS

So, is Joss Stone a little slow, or just deliberately misunderstanding people who attack Live 8 celebs for happily turning up to flog albums off the back of the starving? In response to the suggestions from Damon Albarn that if the artists are that bothered, they'd channel the cash from the extra album sales into charitable projects, Joss has started pleading poverty:

"Hand on my heart, I'm so far from that (filthy rich) it ain't true.

"Someone needs to tell me where the money is because I cannot find the shit. I mean, I was like 'Please - where the hell is it?'

"I have bought one thing for myself - a white Lexus and it's gorgeous. But that's all I've bought."

Aha. Has Joss had the paperwork about the proportion of the world's population unable to just go out and buy a gorgeous Lexus just like that yet, Bob?

music joss stone live8 live 8

MANCHESTER'S LOSS IS THE WORLD'S GAIN

Liam Gallagher really has entered into the spirit of Live 8 - regretting that Oasis won't be able to take part because, erm, it would be a great chance to blow Robbie Williams off stage. Not that Liam isn't sympathetic to the aims of Live 8, of course:

"it's fucking awareness and all that stuff."

An awareness that requires input from Liam Gallagher to raise it isn't so much an awareness as a barely-macrobiotic ignorance, surely?

But really, Liam's sole interest is using the death of a child from starvation every three seconds as a neat way of continuing a feud between the smallest brows in rock:

"I just love to go on and do four fucking songs and really fucking rip it up. Come in and fucking bang it with fucking four of your classics.

"And walk off. And fucing flick Robbie Williams in the eye and say: "Follow that you dick!"

This isn't to say there isn't a role for Gallagher in sorting out Africa, though - what say we send him off to debate the finer points of policy with Mugabe?

music live8 live 8 liam gallagher robbie williams

BLACKMAIL? IT'S NOT EVEN GRAYMAIL

The person who took the picture of Charlotte Church pecking her ex on the cheek apparently offered Chavva a deal - give me fifteen grand or the papers get the photos. As a blackmail attempt, that's right up there with "Give me the money or your pet mayfly won't live to see tomorrow." Since her tits have been passed round every mobile phone in Britain, and on this occasion she wasn't doing anything she oughtn't anyway, Ms Church told him to publish and be damned.

music charlotte church

GLISTENBURY AND BBC-BASHING

If you spent the weekend up a tree, bewailing the forces of water, or simply want to listen again, there's a bunch of tracks from the festival available for streaming from the BBC.

Meanwhile, the BBC's coverage of the festival is turning into a totem for the newly resurgent local radio companies in the UK. They're not happy that the BBC pays for exclusive rights:

GCap Media, which owns stations including Capital and Choice FM; Chrysalis, owner of Heart and Galaxy; and SMG, which owns Virgin Radio, all single out Radio 1, in particular, for harsh criticism.

They also question why the BBC should be allowed to buy exclusive broadcasting rights for events such as this weekend's Glastonbury music festival.

In response to the Government's review of the BBC's 10-year charter, GCap points out that, when it buys a complete package, the BBC cannot always make use of all the events included. It adds: "We are at a loss to understand how negotiating exclusive rights is necessarily a public service."

The commercial companies then go on to complain that Radio One shoves its specialist programming to the edges and is more popular during the days. What's really depressing about this is that the commercial radio comapnies haven't actually come up with anything approaching a coherent or convincing argument, but merely got hold of the whines ITV and Sky have been making about TV for the last few years and done a find and replace for "on screen".

Chrysalis adds that Radio 1 and 2 are not "by any credible definition, public service broadcasting during peak daytime listening hours". It also argues that the launch of hundreds of new digital radio stations and television channels means there is less need for the BBC to provide alternative programmes.

The sad thing is, of course, Chrysalis probably do believe that, say, EMAP's Kerranng network is in some way everything a rock fan could possibly need. It would make more sense if the commercial stations started providing some alternative programming, and then asked the BBC to stop, rather than spending their time creating hundreds of variations on Top 40 radio and try to close down anyone who offers something a little more inspired.

music glastonbury radio

LOOK WHO'S COMING YOUR WAY

Ooh, yes... Raveonettes are about to tour Britain. Next month:

13 London Cargo
14 Cardiff Barfly
16 London Mean Fiddler (Frog)
17 Nottingham Rescue Rooms
18 Glasgow King Tut's
20 Manchester Night & Day
21 Birmingham Academy 2
22 Leeds Cockpit

It's all a big push for the album:


Pretty In Black - all ready for pre-ordering

music raveonettes

SWOOSHTIKA EYES

Surely Nike aren't going to try and pass off an advertising campaign as a parody, are they? That would seem to be the only, slim defence they'd have for stealing the imagery and artwork from Minor Threat to push some sort of plimsole-sales drive. This is the original:



And this is the Nike ad:



A pair of shoes stitched together by a thirsty twelve-year if you can spot three differences.

You might have though Nike would have at least got in touch before doing this, wouldn't you? But apparently not. Dischord records aren't happy:

Many people have now noticed that Nike has appropriated the Minor Threat artwork and logo for a new skateboard demo / ad campaign. To set the record straight -- Nike never contacted Dischord to obtain permission to use this imagery, nor was any permission granted. Simply put, Nike stole it and we're not happy about it. We are not yet sure what options, if any, we have to stop Nike from using our images to sell their shoes, but if you would like to direct your complaints to Nike that would be a good place to start.

To longtime fans and supporters of Minor Threat and Dischord this must seem like just another familiar example of mainstream corporations attempting to to assimilate underground culture to turn a buck. However it is more disheartening to us to think that Nike may be successful in using this imagery to fool kids, just beginning to becoming familiar with skate culture, underground music and DIY ideals, into thinking that the general ethos of this label, and Minor Threat in particular, can somehow be linked to Nike's mission. In any regard, we would like to thank the many people who have written to us in the last several days to express their outrage, support and encouragement.

There's an easy-to-use Contact Nike page on the shoe company's website. On the other hand, you might just want to make a pair of shoes with a stylised tick on them. Seems to be what Nike would do.

music nike minor threat

REVIEW OVERVIEWS

If you've been ploughing through the Guardian coverage wondering "where is Petridis?", it seems he was keeping his poweder as dry as possible in the cirucmstances: his review appears today. He suggests that - what with all the rain and cold - you want a "chuckle" and so, for the first and possibly last time in history, novelty Welsh rappers Goldie Lookin' Chain seem more appealing than the White Stripes. Really? It had rained, Alexis; the world hadn't wobbled off its axis and gone careering through space.

Mind you, the Stripes fell a bit short, he reckons - caught in a "difficult stage" and unable to touch the audience:

even when Jack White apologises for the inclement weather, he does so through an electronic device that makes him sound like a Dalek announcing Earth's imminent destruction.

At this point in the day, the rest of the Guardian team, and the NME crew, haven't yet updated their site with a Sunday round-up.

music glastonbury festivals

GOOD NEWS FROM EDWYN COLLINS

It's been a while since we've had an official update from Edwyn Collins; but in this case, no news is indeed good news: he's slowly improving and being allowed home for short visits.

music edwyn collins

A LATE-NIGHT WHIP-ROUND SCAN OF THE BLOGS

There's a lovely post over on GlastoBlog from the front of the Garbage set:

My God, Shirley Manson put some effort in. Note to self: buy new Garbage album. She asked a man in the audience why he would bring a blow-up doll along with him as this advertised the fact that he didn't "get fucked very often".

It seems that you got a whole different perspective on Brian Wilson if you were in the field: The Guardian's Imogen Tilden seemed to feel touched by greatness. Meanwhile, The BBC's Ian Youngs reports the last few hours of the festival still sees man doing battle with the forces of nature in general, and mud, in particular.

What we really wonder is: did the sad news of Richard Whiteley's death make it to Somerset in time for it to be dismissed as another Glastonbury rumour?

music glastonbury festivals

MONKEY MAGIC

He's dressed like he went on a shopping spree with Jimmy Saville, he dances like he's waiting for a hip operation, and he couldn't carry a tune if it came pre-packed in a holdall, so what is it about watching Ian Brown run through the Stone Roses back catalogue that makes it so compelling? And no, it's just not because all the while he's doing Stone Roses stuff he's not working his way through his own back catalogue.

Oh. Spoke too soon.

Meanwhile, over on BBC TWO, Basement Jaxx are... how can we put this gently? Demonstrating why they were third choice for the headline slot.

It's been a bit of a quiet Glastonbury this year - when people are suggesting that a dull band doing a pop cover might be the key moment, it's a clear sign that nobody's bothered to try very hard. 2004 had some moments burned into the retinas - Alison Goldfrapp's tail, for example - but there's not really been much to do that in 2005. Apart from the natural elements, of course. The image of 2005 will be that bloke swimming to get his car keys back.

music basement jaxx ian brown glastonbury

THIS WEEK, WE PLUGGED...

Our tempting and thinly-veiled attempts to get you to spend your money with the good people at Amazon this week were:



Christ - Patrick Duff, from Strangelove and the past, seems to have accepted he'll never be Doctor Who and returned to music


Two Pulps live for the price of... well, one and a half on DVD from 1995 & 1998

THESE CHARMING MEN

Ricky from the Kaiser Chiefs seems to have lost something at Glastonbury; with Colin and Edith he had the excuse of having been hanging around for 24 hours to explain why he looked dishevelled; but he'd looked a site when he was actually playing, too. And they had the VT to prove it. The other notable thing about the Kaiser Chief's Saturday set is that when Ricky went crowd surfing, the security guards looked a lot less bothered about trying to get him back than they did when Pete Doherty went into the crowd. In fact, they looked more worried when the giant inflatable dinosaur went into the audience.

Brian Wilson - who cropped up rather a lot in the early part of this evening - differed from Paul McCartney's set last year quite crucially. McCartney clearly wanted to be loved, and was desperate to touch each and every person from the front of the stage right back to the people already queueing to leave the car park. You could see it his eyes. Wilson, though, had the air of a man who, happy to have had his air ticket paid for and was running through the options he'd seen on the Holiday Inn tea menu for when he got back.

The really frightening thing about Rufus Wainwright is that he doesn't look like his Dad. Except when he sings. As he starts to sing, he morphs into the young Loudon. Then he stops singing, and he turns back into Rufus. It's uncanny. To make it easier for us to tell the difference, though, he wore some flowery pyjamas on stage.

Earlier in the day: Steve Lamacq told 6Music's The Music Week that the Futureheads doing Hounds of Love was the "best thing I've ever heard."

music glastonbury kaiser chiefs ricky wilson rufus wainwright brian wilson

GLSTNBRY

Primal Scream have been having something of a night of it; starting by swearing their arsecheeks off on TV and ending being escorted from the stage in a storm of boos.

BBC THREE were always playing with fire having Mani and Bobby on - Bobby didn't seem to know he was on live television; Mani didn't care, wearing his strange hat which made him look like Fozzie Bear running an on-course bookies and swearing like a drunk uncle at his nephew's wedding. Apologies are made on their behalf.

Then it's over for them taking the stage. Still pre-watershed, Mani swears even before the band are on the stage properly. (They come on to, but don't play, Come Together). Bobby throws more fucks around as part of a set of attrition - goading the audience, spitting into the lens of a camera, goading the crowd some more.

The trouble is, there's not really any point to the swearing other than it being there for its own sake, and far from adding a sense of rock and roll to the proceedings, it undermines it a little, just as their sub-Stones posturing clutters their performance and stops them from being truly mind-blowing.

We do wonder if Gillespie has more in common with Ronald Reagan than you'd think. Reagan, as he got closer and closer towards putting his faith to the ultimate test, was basically a shambling shell of a man who only came alive when given the chance to perform. Off-stage, Bobby seems to be able to do little more than gasp through the motions, but on-stage, he's full of vim. A front man able to distract attention from the middle-aged spread of much of his henchmen; capable and ready to deliver.

And, musically, the Primals are now at a point in their career where they have more than enough great moments to fill any set, even though you don't/can't get the full hit through the television. As with a good joke, you had to be there.

But the Primals haven't got to survive this long without turning into U2 without knowing how to shoot themselves in the feet, over and over again, and tonight they do it again. It's probably only TV viewers who see the moment in Swastika Eyes where Bobby stands, staring into the camera with, I swear, actual demon in him, before giving a seig heil salute. It's only as he gets his hand to his upper lip to add a Hitler moustache that he seems to come to, realises he's the wrong side of an acceptable line, and quickly goes back to thrashing his arms around.

It's the crowd in the field who get the full force of Bobby's ability to just piss everyone off, though: having called them hippies all set long, he suddenly decides he wants to stay and entertain. Glastonbury, however, want him off so Basement Jaxx can come on. Bobby tries to bargain with the audience, and attempts to launch into another song. Security intervene and gently unpack the primals from the stage. Gillespie's microphone, stand and all, ends up flying towards the crowd. It's hard to tell if the boos running through the audience are showing their disapproval of the Primal's attitude, or at their forced removal, but it seems to be more the former than the latter.

Either way: the bad tempered ending and the general petulance throughout managed to downgrade what could have been one of those Glasto moments everyone hopes for into something a little less comfortable. In the wrong ways.

music glastonbury primal scream bobby gillespie

THE LAST SUNSET

Inexplicably, and rather frustratingly, instead of giving us the joys of a Glastomultiscreen tonight, BBC THREE is sticking with the Best of Three offering - ho bloody ra; another chance to see Little Britain ("I am the only programme on the network") again and again instead of the stuff culled from around the fields.

True, there is the option of BBC FOUR, although their first offering of the evening is Jools Holland and his boogie woogie piano, as if the BBC doesn't cover Holland more than enough when he enforces his tinkling over the Later guests. If you stay up past Aubrey Manning's Landscape Mysteries, though, you can see Fema Kuti around midnight, one of the African artists who Bob Geldof imagines the global TV audience won't tune into. Watch it just to click BARB upwards and piss him off. Do it for us.

music glastonbury festivals

THE LAST NIGHT AT THE FAIR

Is it our imagination or has Edith left Colin to run things on his own? He seems to be way overexcited at the news that the bassist of some band has taken all his clothes off, promising we can see the genitalia after 9pm. We can't think of a single bassist whose bollocks would induce anything other than a desperate scramble to get some other screen on. Press red indeed.

Then it's over to Brian Wilson - shots of the audience suggest he's mainly being watched by puzzled young people: who is this bloke with his tribute-to-a-wedding-band band playing rather mid-market covers of Beach Boys songs?

Mercifully, we're saved by the appearance of Garbage on the other stage - where Interpol were undermined by having to appear in the daylight, Garbage have brought their own darkness; wearing a short, diagonally black-white slashed dress and hair firmly back to red, Shirley Manson prowls , flirts and stomps an audience (or at least the front bit of it) into squishy submission. It's in the fields of Somerset that bands are tested, and often it's the quality of their frontman which sets the memorable apart from the merely talented.

Oh, it looks like Edith's returned now.

music glastonbury festivals garbage shirley manson brian wilson beach boys

REVIEW OVERVIEWS: SATURDAY

We were a bit pissed off last night that BBCi's coverage of the night promised Ash, but then kept dropping them from the line-up of coming next attractions. We're relying totally on NME's Priya Elan:

Ash played a mainly greatest hits set, featuring the likes of 'Girl From Mars', 'Shining Light' and 'Goldfinger'. The band did a stripped down version of 'Teenage Kicks', dedicating it to John Peel and Joe Strummer. Before the classic 'Kung Fu' Tim Wheeler told the assembled throng to check out Thai rock god Sek Loso on the John Peel stage tomorrow

Cat Goodwin was muted in her praise for Keane (Pompous onstage gushes from Chaplin aside ("It’s amazing to see the spirit of you people"), it must still be said that the piano-rock shenanigans of the melodic Keane are making grown men cry here.), but seemed warmer by the time Coldplay came on:
Lingering among the fading fireworks of a glorious ‘Fix You’ is feeling that here is a band who, with their mix of simplistic intensity, human universalism and pure grace, could unite a whole generation. Or, at the absolute least, define the sound of Glastonbury 2005.

Hmm... is it us, or have fireworks at the end become a bit of a dull, routine thing to do at festivals now? Jesus, even Green Day set off some rockets and a couple of bangers at the MK bowl last week.

We're still trying to work out if Dan Martin really thought describing KT Tunstall as "Norah Jones meets the Levellers" was a positive thing to do. Alex Needham, meanwhile, blows one of the fastest growing Glasto myths out the skies:

The compere announces the Bob Geldof is on site, to loud boos from the audience.

So, not wall-to-wall quiet nodding in agreement, then.

Over in The Guardian, Betty Clarke finds Kasabian polarising the basis of their very existence:

For some, their Madchester beats and clunky way with words is testament to their limited talents; others simply throw their hands in the air and dance themselves silly.

Razorlight, you'll recall, were widely tipped (not least by us) as band least likely to make it through the year. Clarke's report of their set leaves us more convinced than ever:

Razorlight have become an impressively tight band, every note perfectly placed and with nothing left to chance. The problem is, both music and mood revolve around Borrell. A spotlight hovers over him at all times. Then there's that white outfit, which leaves him standing out like a light sabre against his anonymous band mates. They just don't get a look in. When one of the band does attempt to speak to the crowd, Borrell quickly steps in and talks over him.

Dorain Lynskey proved he was all man by volunteering for the Keane-to-Coldplay shift in front of the Pyramid stage. For him, Keane was the hardest to bear:

To me, every song sounds like it should be soundtracking slow-motion footage of a weeping child, but even some way up the hill, fans are mouthing every word of Everybody's Changing and Somewhere Only We Know. Chaplin's obvious elation at being here is admittedly endearing. "Man, I could get used to this," he gasps. "It's such a ridiculous sight." In a way, Keane are a radical proposition, stripping rock music of its guitar, bass, funk, muscle, wit, flamboyance: basically, everything people usually want from it. They're the world's biggest piano recital and people love them.

He did get New Order as a treat, though: he even didn't mind the business with Keith Allen riding a pantomime horse.

In the end, though, it takes James Smart to give us a sense of what went on with Ash:

They don't quite catch today, held back by a set that is a little too heavy on their weaker recent material and an eddying wind that makes it sound like someone is fiddling with a giant fader switch... the fact that a large chunk of the crowd are more interested in watching two people wrestling in mud by the side of the stage speaks volumes.

music glastonbury festivals reviews

GLASTONBURY BLOG ROUND-UP

Interestingly, even after the site had disappeared under a large swathe of water, the international press' main perspective on the festival was still lifted from the press releases: it was all about the silent disco. Last night, the Guardian's Sean Clarke finally went to hear the music in his head. An hour to get in; another thirty minute wait while they tried to fix a bug in the system (so far, so silent):

The experience is undeniably odd, not least because the headsets have two channels, and there are two competing DJs at the front of the tent. This means that you can be shuffling around to the fade-out of the song you're dancing to, and find that the person next to you is jumping up and down and punching the air as his tune reaches its climax.

The parade of guest bloggers parading through the Culture Vulture blog doesn't let up - indeed, now it's stopped pissing down in Somerset, they seem to be careering through in greater numbers. Here's The Libertines' Gary Powell (Me, Carl, and Anthony from the band, we were possibly going to do something impromptu, kind of guerilla style - after all, we started the whole guerilla thing anyway, but Karl's had to go back to London because his girlfriend's ill.); and here's Charlie and Bryan from the Dead 60s ("This is first time at Glastonbury, for both of us, but because of weather we haven't really made it out of the main stages area. But we want to go to the stone circle and the teepee field. We need a bit of chanting.")

Glastoblog went to see Chas and Dave - they blew the roof off, apparently - and, also, heard that people had made it in over the fence on Friday night. Glastonbury rumour - or a sign that no fence can keep determind people out?



On Friday, the Guardian Review was shaking its head over the poor quality of Chris Martin's songwriting; the BBC glastonbury blog stayed up late to type up the full text of his introduction to one song:

"This is for Johnny Cash," he began solemnly. "And my dad also. And for Gay Dad, who played here some years ago. And for My Two Dads - remember My Two Dads?"

Yes, Greg Evigan and the one from Mad About You. We remember My Two Dads, and we can picture the face the Judge would be making if you tried to get stuff like this past her. There's a fine line between surreal genius and meanignless babbling, and Chris Martin is not even anywhere near that fine line. Indeed, he would have to hire a taxi to even get him anywhere near it.

More importantly, Ian Youngs has spotted further creeping evidence that Glastonbury isn't what it was. Chairs.

As well as the Cath Kidston tents, the other must-have accessory for this year's discerning festival-goer appears to be a folding camping chair. There are ranks of them on the Pyramid field. It reminds me of seaside towns where ageing folk sit in rows of deckchairs in front of a bandstand.

Now, when I was young and happy to squelch in mud, you'd get the odd joker with a deckchair hanging about, but it was considered very bad manners indeed to put a chair down in front of a stage - after all, it's meant to be a massing throng of bodies and it's hard to cram people in and mosh if there's someone sat in the middle of a field with a shooting stick, a full picnic basket and a travel blanket, rooting about in their belongings to find the travel Scrabble and their Anne Tyler novel. It's the festival equivalent of getting on the tube with a backpack on. If you want a nice sit down, try Glyndebourne.

Largehearted Boy records the speed with which the Elvis Costello set was made available in DVD quality bittorrent - very fast, indeed.

Back in the South West, Soundgenerator stood in the drizzle to watch Keane play:

The proverbial 'couples' band play a hits laden set in overcast conditions, and there's a certain degree of emotion that follows the three-piece around. Much seems to rub off on tonight's 50,000 or so. 'You're amazing, you really are' says a clearly overwhelmed Tom Chaplin.

Want to see a huge pantomime horse? RobertPrice has been hooking his Nokia up to a blogging tool and snapping the site's sights left and right.

As you might expect, the Oxfam generation Y blog is a little bit more worthy with its spotting:



Joss Stone in Make Poverty History pants; Avid Merrion wearing MPH wristbands; that sort of thing. That'll get the four horsemen of the Apocalypse nervous.

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COLDPLAY ARE THE BEST

Michael Eavis has just done his press conference, covered by 6Music, and he sounds a lot more knackered than he usually does at this point in proceedings - very stuttering and faltering, which really isn't characteristic. The floods seem to have hit for six, really, and if he hadn't already announced there's no festival next year, we guess he'd be saying it now.

Picking his highlight, inevitably, he goes for Coldplay, enthusing over them that "there's something very clever and powerful" about them, and then, adding overstatement to hyperbole, that they're quite unlike anything else we've ever seen in fifty years of rock and roll. (Clearly, he's not heard Travis, then).

Prodded for suggestions as to who might be sat atop the Pyramid stage when the festival returns in 2007, he throws around names - "Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight Bloc Party... one will be a headliner eventually." He also reckons he'd not turn down U2 if they asked to play, but "I'm not going to ring them any more." We're having hazy visions here that Bono will just turn up in two years time and commander the main stage, citing this and the power granted him by Billy Graham.

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DEAD MAN NAMED

Avon and Somerset Police have named the 25 year-old who died on site on Friday evening as Benjamin Shepherd. They're still waiting the results of a post-mortem to determine the exact cause of death.

His family have requested that Basement Jaxx dedicate a song to him tonight "to help them in their grieving"; it's not known if the band will respond but they'd have to be pretty cold-hearted not to.

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IT'S A WONDER IT DOESN'T HAPPEN MORE

What with the Festival organisers running around trying to discourage people from mucking about in the mud, what with it being full of squit and dysentry, it's surprising that more bands haven't fallen unwell - and we're not saying that the illness making Hard-Fi pull their set is down to poisoning, but something has made them so ill they've gone home instead of doing this evening's business on the Peel stage.

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A QUICK LOOK AT THIS MORNING'S FRONT PAGES

It might be slightly alarming for Bob Geldof to discover that his epoch-defining hand-holding at Glastonbury has been met, largely, with a few yawns and very little attention - only the Indpendent on Sunday puts the story on its front page, and it's not exactly the most central of papers to British everyday life:



What if you threw a generation defining moment, and nobody in the generation was that bothered?

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WE'RE ALSO A COVERS BAND

The sad washback from Coldplay covering Kylie: they clearly think by doing this, they're lifting Kylie's pop onto their plane of furrowed brow existence; in fact, of course, they're merely dragging her transcendence down into the world where everything is measured, weighed and priced.

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