Dickwad tosses fireworks; drummer loses hand

Horrible news from San Francisco: Roisin Isner, who drummed for local band Tinkture, was the victim of a nasty piece of idiocy while watching the Fourth of July fireworks in Dolores Park. Someone threw a firework into her group of friends, with devastating results. Her father is trying to track down the person responsible:

Hello,
I am Roisin's father. July 4th, Roisin and friends were in Dolores Park watching fireworks. Some stupid piece of shit threw an M60 at them. It landed on Roisin's right hand and blew it apart. She will undego surgery later this morning but it doesn't look good. Most likely she will lose her index finger; second and third fingers will also be permanently impaired and disfigured. Needless to say, her musical career is over.

I want this fucker. Media attention will help flush him out. People know who did it and I'm offering $20,000 for a name. Please do whatever is necessary to get the story out. Do so and I will reward you as well.

Thank you,
Chris Isner
chrisisner@hotmail.com

The reward is impressive, but, frankly, if you know someone who had managed to blow off the hand of a sixteen year-old, you surely wouldn't need any further encouragement to do the right thing.

Nutini defends Live Earth

Before he'd even taken the stage, Paolo Nutini was declaring what a success Live Earth was:

"Some people are being cynical for the sake of it," Nutini told the Daily Star. "Of course the carbon emission will be high after the gig but the pay-off is lots of individuals and companies will want to make a change as a result. That's what's important."

Well, perhaps there are some people who would react with kneejerk cynicism. On the other hand, is it not valid, if one of the ideas of the Live Earth is to make people aware of our impact on the planet, for people to question the impact of the event?

And, more to the point, can Nutini explain clearly for us why some musicians playing songs would make a difference? We really, really don't understand why - when awareness of climate change is already pretty high - people who hitherto haven't seen the need to change their behaviour would do so simply because Paolo Nutini asks them to and sings four songs? Isn't this, in a nutshell, the arrogant heart of the event exposed?

Madonna does a cover of the Holby City song

So, yes, Hey You did turn out to be as bad as we feared it would be - not helped by having the lyrics flashed up behind Madge's head as she sang them. With the "S" replaced by dollar signs - do you see?.

And it did turn out that Gogol Bordello's role was to, somehow, represent the rest of the world - presumably, had the logistics team been able to work out a way to get two polar bears on the stage, the Gogols could have happily stayed at T in the Park for the evening. La Isla Bonita? It's not the worst part of the Madonna songbook, obviously, but good lord, surely this would have been the time and place for This Used To Be My Playground?

Ray of Light - which most climate scientists are agreed is almost certain to be the last great Madonna single - was slaughtered by Madonna sounding really, really ropey. It wasn't helped by her decision to play (sort of) the guitar which meant the one thing you really expect from Madonna - a bit of movement - was left to the backing dancers.

It turns out it was surprisingly apt when the cast of Holby City chose to do Hung Up for their Children In Need slot last year - listening to Madonna doing her song tonight, it really did sound like the sort of song a junior doctor who played in a covers band for fun might put together for a medical revue. Something that people would hear and say "that's good... for a junior doctor."

It wasn't just the end of the event, it was also the nadir - because, yes, Madonna did tell the audience to show they were worried about climate by... singing the refrain of Hung Up back to her. It had seemed a bit hopeful that this day would persuade anyone to cut their airtravel; by teatime there was still some hope we could get people to show their commitment by at least avoiding leaving their tellies on standby. By closedown, our hopes had been so reduced the best we were going to get was someone trilling along with Madonna as if that would do.

Earlier, Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters did a smashing set (again, another band who seem to thrive best, and only exist for, this sort of thing), although Grohl seemed to have won the lead in a revival of Jesus Christ Superstar.

Now, Kate Silverton - surprisingly - is in charge of the through-the-night coverage, apparently trying to avoid fighting over the remaining natural resources of the planet by having bought them up and made into one single, enormous necklace.

Twice in a day: How blessed we are

So, quickly over to BBC Three, where - oh, sweet joy - Razorlight have flown up to Scotland and are doing T in the Park. We imagine they'll be explaining away the private jet that little jaunt involved by saying it was for T in the Park and not for Live Earth, and so wasn't, strictly speaking, hypocritical.

Borrell is wearing the all-white outfit for this one, presumably to help viewers tell the difference between the otherwise indistinguishable sets.

John Mayer wouldn't normally do this sort of thing

John Mayer has been preparing for his role this evening by stressing how we shouldn't be cynical - after all, how can we be cynical in the face of so many wonderful people setting aside their egos:

"I hope that for all the cynicism that's existed around this subject, we can all uncross our arms long enough to give this event a chance to impact the world in the way that I'm beginning to feel that it could. Now isn't the time to dissect the rights and wrongs. (If you're hoping Live Earth doesn't work, you have a lot of soul-searching to do.)

With this kind of lineup, there's no cause or crisis that wouldn't be positively affected by an event of this scope. Live Earth isn't a show - it's a showing, a presentation of an idea. Artists like us don't just get together to each play 20 minute sets every weekend, you know. We're also usually pretty sensitive about the order in which we take the stage, and I've got no problems with my 5:12 PM set time. The Police, Bon Jovi, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, and yes, myself and my dumb face are all openers for the true headliner - the power to literally change the world's mind."

If we were truly cynical, we'd suggest this post sounds more like a man who's really pissed off at being asked to go on during the middle of the afternoon trying to at least market lemonade out of the lemon.

Swearing and spoofery

After all that unpleasantness with bad language during Live 8, the BBC production team must have been hoping that the message about keeping it clean had got through.

I think it was two minutes into the start of the BBC One segment that Russell Brand was yelling "Jesus Christ" after Jonathan Ross pretended he was drinking water he'd previously passed; if the production team had been hoping that crossing to the stage would prove safer, how they must have been delighted when Chris Rock came on and tried to get out of his first joke (about Paris Hilton playing Wembley next week) flopping like a jellyfish without a moral compass by throwing out a "motherfucker". Quickly, we found ourselves back in the BBC commentary box for apologies from Ross.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers - if you ignored the bizarre poncho Kiedis was wearing - turned in a fine set; it does seem that nowadays they exist almost solely to pop up in the middle of these monster gigs.

Coming back after spending some time up in the loft (don't ask) the somewhat pointless Spinal Tap set was winding up - if you didn't know it was a spoof, you'd be wondering why there was a not-especially good rock band so far up the bill; knowing it was a spoof it was even harder to work out what they were here for: is this a serious statement, or is this ironic detachment? - before going back for more apologies about bad language from Jonathan Ross.

It's impossible to tell if Ricky Gervais' tale of only doing the Diana Concert because "I'm a sucker for the personal touch, and William and Harry asked me" is the spoofy-starstruck persona he used for his first couple of Comic Relief films, or if it's more like the "big mates with Bono" stuff he was showing off in this year's Comic Relief contribution.

James Blunt is singing Wild World at the moment, with all the conviction of a man whose idea of wildness is sneaking into the ten items or less checkout with a dozen eggs.

It's the Little & Wise of UK music

Together, in what we have a horrible feeling might be not for the only time, David Gray and Damien Rice.

While Rice was doing Blower's Daughter, the close-up allowed us to read his face:

Bloody hell this is a slight song... I'm in front of an alleged two billion viewers singing a song which consists of me repeating 'I Can't take my eyes off of you' over and over and over, and even that's not an original line... bloody hell, are the cameras showing all those people leaving their seats?... I'm in front of two billion people, and all I'm doing is causing congestion at the toilets...

Then the pair of them did Que Sara Sara - why? What thought process led them to decide that a song which has the message "live for today, we can't even imagine what tomorrow will be like, let alone do anything about it" chimes well with an event that suggests we do the opposite?

Now they're being interviewed by Edith Bowman, although they're being drowned out by what seems to be the famous Willie On The Plonker from Gary Davies' show, in the corner of the backstage area. Willie On The Plonker, apparently, is in a state of mourning.

Johnny Borrell - he'll tell us what to do

Johnny Borrell and the Johnny Borrell Band are on at the moment - he's taken the 'wear a sweater' message to his heart, by actually wearing a top on stage today. Odd choice to do "In The Morning" - with its suggestion that whatever happens today will be forgotten almost as soon as it happens. And now America - which, besides pissing off the sort of average American who Gore needs to reach out to if this it to make any sort of success - also has the repeated refrain that there's nothing on the TV or radio worth believing in. Still, most people will just be gawping at the pretty dolphins behind his head, so that's alright, then.

Oh, Lord, he has just shouted "Wem-ber-leeeee... how you doin'", like Joey Tribiani fronting Bon Jovi.

You have to make your peace with the island

Is it just us, or has Phil Collins turned into a double of John Locke over the last couple of years. Perhaps that's why he wasn't so bothered about us all being saved during his news 24 interview.

Blimey... he's just sung "fuck" during Invisible Touch - "she'll fuck up your life." He did this with an air of a man who felt he was really showing somebody something. How fortunate no children would have been watching.

Bless him: while Phil's trying to prove he's just as hip as, ooh, Fred Durst, the giant screen behind him is flashing up the suggestion you should "put on a sweater" - just like your gran.

It looks like the fairly-empty Wembley Genesis started playing to was down to trouble simply getting the people in; the BBC are showing people still wandering in and Ross - who has a better view than us - reckons they're only 60% full so far.

Edith has just asked Phil backstage why he felt it was important for them to be there:
"Well... we were asked." Of course.