Beyonce fans burned

More pyrotechnic trouble from US gigs: Beyonce's show-opening fireworks fell into the audience at St Louis, sending two fans to hospital. In a bid to head off liability lawsuits ("in a gesture of concern") Beyonce spent forty-five minutes visiting them while they received treatment, repors E!.

Jane suck

What's the opposite of a flurry of launches? Because that's what's been happening in the US recently, as first Teen People, then Elle Girl and now Jane Magazine getting shuttered.

Conde Nast have been struggling to find a direction for the magazine for a couple of years; it's original mix of pop culture and accessible fashion had long since been given one New Coke reworking after another. Still, as Pop Candy points out, there's still always Bust.

We know how Velvet Revolver feel

Who knew that even Velvet Revolver find themselves tiresome? Duff McKagan says it's so:

"We had come off the road after touring for 18 months. I don't care who you are, if you're five guys on the road that long you are going to get sick of each other.

"So we took some time off and it was hard getting started again. We don't talk a lot."

Good lord, poor lamb. We find five minutes of Velvet Revolver more than enough; making through 18 months must take either superhuman control or bovine levels of disassociation.

Musicmatch users up for a fight

Musicmatch - one of the most venerable music services on the net - is about to disappear, as current owners Yahoo want to force all users to "upgrade" to Yahoo Jukebox.

That's upgrade as in move downwards, of course, and Musicmatch subscribers aren't happy. There's talk of a class action suit, not least because, as Yahoo's FAQs hint, the new service lacks some of Musicmatch's functionality:

What if I choose not to do this migration process? Can I stay with Musicmatch?

Musicmatch services will be discontinued at some point in the future. Many of the features you have now with Musicmatch are offered with Yahoo! Music, as well as new ones, plus a much larger library of music.

Emphasis added.

Hutz signs on for more work with Madonna

As if blowing out T in the Park in order for three minutes flunkeying to Madonna wasn't enough, Eugene Hutz of Gogol Bordello has picked up a bit more work from Madge: he's got a bit in Filth and Wisdom. Hutz loves working with Madonna:

"I think [Madonna] was fantastic. She's such a dynamic force. You can always measure a director by how specific he is or she is, and she was very specific.

"She had very energetic visions but at the same time there was a lot of room for me to do my own thing," he told Billboard.

"It was super fun and perfectly respectable, and it ended up being quite a collaborative project."

So, simultaneously, she's a collaborative director who has very specific ideas about what she wants. Surprising, but then since she can churn out the same CO₂ as 1000 other people and be an eco warrior at the same time, who knows what other paradoxes she can power?

Did Clay run to the FBI because he got shoved?

Somehow, the FBI got themselves involved in a spat between Clay Aiken - that's American for "Gareth Gates" - and a woman during a flight to Oklahoma. It seems Aiken had shoved his feet on a woman's armrest; when she pointed out how boorish that was, a dispute occurred which ended up with Clay getting gently shoved and the FBI called to meet the plane.

It's good to know that the worst security threat you face in American airspace is gameshow losers behaving like they own the joint. This all sounds rather economy class, doesn't it?

Chrissie Hynde: We suspect she's not making the food

A few years ago, Chrissie Hynde got herself in trouble when she suggested firebombing McDonalds. Let's hope that Ronald doesn't take the chance for revenge now that Hynde is opening a restaurant in Akron, Ohio:

The long-time animal rights activist will be nixing all meat off the menu as VegeTerranean opens its doors on September 15 with a free performance by Hynde (backed by an acoustic act) followed by the grand opening of the Mediterranean/vegetarian digs. The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame inductee will partner up with Dan Duplain, owner of the Fedeli restaurant, to keep the restaurant running while she is at her home in London.

That's lucky, otherwise it would be a bit of commute.

HMV realises unable to beat them; join them

Last week, HMV was one of a bunch of record shops wailing about plans by Prince to give away his new album with copies of the Mail On Sunday - "absolutely nuts" was HMV chief eexcutive Simon Fox's response.

This week, they've decided to turn themselves into a newsagent and flog copies of the paper instead.

Virgin are livid:

HMV's move was attacked today by rival Virgin Megastores, which "expressed disbelief" at the company's decision.

"We're stunned that HMV has decided to take what appears to be a complete U-turn on their stance towards covermounts and particularly in this case, as only a week ago they were so vocal about the damage it will cause," said Simon Douglas, Virgin Retail managing director. "Simon Fox [HMV chief executive] labelled the Mail on Sunday deal as 'devaluing music' and 'absolute madness', now they appear to have joined forces to sell more copies of the very same paper," Mr Douglas added.

"It's not only retailers that suffer; the public will suffer in the long term by restricting choice on the high street. Of course people will take a free CD by a platinum-selling artist like Prince but you only need to look at what's happened to Fopp going into administration to get an idea of the potential long-term impact."

We're surprised to hear the impact of the Prince deal was so enormous that it managed to bring Fopp to its knees a month before it even happened, but those, we guess, are the apocalyptic forces we're dealing with here.

To be honest, we don't quite see why HMV is bothering - it's not like people are going to go out their way to buy the paper at HMV - "we could stroll into the village and get the paper, but instead let's drive to town and fight our way through the crowd of goths to get it"; they may pick up a few sales from people impulse-buying the paper at the checkouts, but we're not sure how many of HMV's customer base would be interested enough in Prince to buy the Mail On Sunday on a whim. Still, it's nice to see yet more consistent and joined-up policy thinking in the music industry.

The police sent in to stop Prince

Prince's Minnesota gig at the weekend was halted when police went in and asked him to let the people go to sleep. Which we mention only in the hope that, having had police stop a Prince gig, the universe will balance this by having Charles Windsor march on stage and demand Sting and his reunited bleachblonds stop their racket, too.

They did get Al Capone for tax evasion

Pete Doherty's seeming ability to keep himself out of jail might be about to desert him, as he's pushed the police a little too far this time:

Smoking during his T in the Park set:

Councillor Alan Grant, convener of the Perth and Kinross Council environment committee, said Doherty could face prosecution.

He said: "The point of the legislation is to protect the public's health and I would expect performers not to smoke on stage, though where the stage is open it is a moot point.

"The idea is not to put other people's health at risk and I am afraid in these circumstances Mr Doherty would be doing so."

He might just get away with it, though: from the looks of Scotland On Sunday's report, he gave a cunning false name to police.

Get a date with Adam Levine

Obviously, not with him, as who'd want that? No, the Maroon Five singer has given his tips to American teens about how to get a date:

"Say or do something that's out of the ordinary... It's not about what perfume you're wearing or if your shoes are cute. If you do something with purpose that is different than what everybody else does, then it makes you stand out."

Of course, coming from a man whose band dribbles out a dirge so conservative even David Cameron's big tent would find it difficult to contain it, the advice to "stand out" is strange - and, of course, what could be better advice to teens who are already so badly in need of advice about how to get a date that they're turning to him that acting out of the ordinary is a great idea. Oh, yes, American High Schools are known for their tender embrace of the unusual, the quirky, the other, aren't they?

Paolo Nutini: A Leon Rosselson for our times

Paolo Nutini is not a happy man. Personally, if we'd managed to get so many glowing column inches despite a fairly slight talent, we'd figure the press has given us more than an even break, but Nutini feels somewhat hard done by, and has decided the best way to express his anger at a certain tabloid is to write a song about it.

You'd have thought he'd have learned by now that isn't his metier - he'd have been better off making an angry clay pot, or doodling on a pad by the telephone. But, no, song it was - titled The Sun Can Kiss My Ass:

They say things that are meant to bring you down
they put you up on your high horse and rock you til you're down
They say I hate the Pope and that I love dope
These things are meant to bring me down but The Sun can kiss my ass

We seem to have missed the coverage of Nutini's alleged marijuana-fuelled anti-Papist behaviour, but it's duly noted; we're more worried by Nutini's poor grasp of the English language, confusing "a pedestal" with a "high horse". Is it even possible for someone to put another person on a high-horse?

And, if he isn't even bovvered, why write a ditty about it?

Chris Evans and Shed Seven will save the UK music scene

Chris Evans, of course, is back on radio these days, and now - making Helen Love's Long Live The UK Music Scene a contemporary commentary once more - Shed Seven are getting back together.

Like the Spice Girls, of course, they're doing it for the fans:

[Rick] Witter said: "We have almost constantly been asked by the loyal shed heads to reform for a few gigs since the split, but we felt we needed a well earned break.

"However, after four years we feel that going out for a two week tour, playing all the hits without any outside pressure will be a great way to end 2007, plus having Paul back in the line up for the first time in eight years will make it extra special. See you down the front."

The dates:
Aberdeen Music Hall – November 27
Inverness Ironworks - 28
Glasgow Barrowlands - 29
Newcastle Academy – December 1
Liverpool Academy - 2
Nottingham Rock City - 3
Sheffield Leadmill - 4
Birmingham Academy - 6
Manchester Academy - 7
Leeds Met Uni - 8
Norwich UEA - 10
Oxford Academy - 11
Portsmouth Pyramid - 12
London Shepherd’s Bush Empire - 14

Pleas to cool global warming fail to set world alight

The audience figures for Live Earth in the UK suggest the much-touted "two billion viewers" target will need all of China to have been watching: the peak audience for BBC1's coverage was 3.1 million - about a third of the audience the piano-playing Princes managed for their Diana tribute. Or about a half of what Casualty would have got.

Indeed, they might have been better off simply running Casualty with a global warming storyline:

- "this is just the start of what rising sealevels will do to Holby, Charlie"
- "I'll pop the kettle on - but only enough for two cups..."

In other broadcast-related news, roughly six times as many people - over 600, in fact - complained about Metallica's set being cut off to show a recording of Crowded House than complained about the language.

Ferry nearly sinks Editors

Playing two festivals on two different landmasses nearly did for the Editors: their equipment got stuck between Oxegen and T in the Park:

The band, one of several playing Oxegen prior to their T appearance, revealed their instruments and backline had failed to make it to the ferry to Britain. Drummer Ed Lay said: "The van with all the equipment was waiting to go on the ferry but they started allowing vehicles on in reverse order."

Rather oddly, the Daily Record doesn't bother to reveal what happened in the end, so we're going to assume they went onstage using Twangers (as seen on Rainbow) and drums made from boxes.

Groovy, man: 3AM save the world

Today's 3AM Girls column bizarrely is subtitled "VIP backstage at Live Earth", as if they've got themselves confused with the Sunday People's column. But even more puzzlingly, they've started writing like they're Ed Sullivan:

JOHNNY Borrell looked less than pleased when Razorlight's stage monitors failed in the middle of their set. He told the crowd: "Sorry, you can hear us but we can't hear ourselves."

Well we can assure you, Johnny, you were simply fab.

Fab? Fab?

There's also a bizarre piece about Justin Timberlake:

OH Lordy! Whatever happened to Justin Timberlake's appearance on stage?

Our ill-informed rivals claimed that JT was going to appear on stage with Duran Duran. Sorry, but it was never going to happen.

Well done, 3Amies, for, erm, reporting that something didn't happen in front of hundreds of millions people and trying to spin that as somehow proving that they're in the know.

We can all do that: I can exclusively reveal there was never any chance that Phil Collins would bring Sonia on stage to do Somewhere Over The Rainbow. The possibility that a naked Anna Friel would dance to the sound of panpipes on the Wembley stage? That was never, ever going to happen.

Still, the 3AMies did do some useful poking about backstage:

PRIZE for the most exotic dressing room goes to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It was like a boudoir with incense, drapes and Afghan rugs.

All, we're certain, carbon-offset. We bet.

Victoria Newton has won prizes for gossiping

Well, that was a busy weekend - Live Earth, T in the Park, Oxegen, and the F1 race and the tennis match. Clearly, with all the celebrities off doing stuff all over the place, Victoria Newton's column today must be groaning at the seams with A-list filth.

IT'S hardly the fussiest of demands but NATASHA BEDINGFIELD proved she was a cool customer at the British Grand Prix - by sending a waitress to fetch her an ice-cream cone.

While the VIP hospitality tent only had posh sorbet, Nat decided she'd rather have two scoops leaving one poor sole [sic] to trudge to another tent and bring back the dessert.

Newton deems minor celeb asks for ice cream so important she gives it an "exclusive" tag. Although the apparent claim it was a fish which went to fetch the ice-cream is mildly impressive.

Avril: "I ripped off the Ramones and Stones, too"

Avril Lavigne has issued an angry statement denying ripping off I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend for her song Girlfriend. Apparently, it's all a terrible misunderstanding because of the limits of the English language:

"You may have heard some news that two guys who wrote for some band from the 1970s I have never in my life heard of called the "Rubinoos" are trying to sue me. They have a song called "I Want To Be Your Boyfriend" that has no musical similarities to the song "Girlfriend" that Luke Gottwald and I wrote together. They claim that a small part of the lyrics are the same and are saying that I took these from them. I had never heard this song in my life and their claim is based on 5 words! All songs share similar lyrics and emotions. As humans we speak one language.

Off the top of my head, two other songs that I can immediately think of with this type of lyric are "Hey, hey, you, you get off of my cloud" by the Rolling Stones and "Hey little girl I want to be your boyfriend" by the Ramones. Simply put, I have been falsely accused of ripping their song off. Luke and I have done nothing wrong and there is no merit to their claim."

To us, that sounds like the remaining and estates of The Ramones and Mick and Keith should probably be ringing up their lawyers, too. Not only because of the admission of similarity, but also because we'd love to see someone in court explaining that their song sounds the same because "all songs share similar lyrics" - which, at last, explains why Michael Rowed The Boat Ashore and Cop Killer are so alike.

Vanished Brown

Foxy Brown - who, it turns out, might have had "troubled rapper" formally adopted as her first names - has gone missing. Her lawyer, family and friends are all said to be "concerned". The last anyone saw her was causing a comotion on a flight to London on the 29th, when she held up the plane for an hour as her entourage slowly climbed onboard.

Perhaps the most worrying sign of pop in decline

Apart from the usual "this week's chart news" filings, Rhianna's been number one for eight weeks now, and nobody seems in the least bit interested. Even in the way that the chart was supposed to be all exciting nowadays with downloads and everything included, and yet it's delivered a number one which - let's be honest - isn't that good - that's become immovable at the top of the listings.

It's not a eight-week stretch at the top that's worrying; it's the lack of interest in that run which is alarming.

Snow Patrol prove they can get themselves arrested

Somewhere between their Live Earth performance and their scheduled slot at T in the Park, Tom Simpson got arrested. The Snow Patrol keyboardist had his collar felt on matters arising from a non-appearance in court at Glasgow.

Luckily, he was released in time for the band to appear at T - I say luckily, obviosuly that's from the perspective of someone who doesn't have to stand in a field watching them.

Amy Winehouse, though, has cancelled, due to "exhaustion", although it's not clear if that's the sort of exhaustion you get when you spend all day in a bar, like the exhaustion that did for her Liverpool date.

REM: Pay to watch our practice

The music industry is always looking for new ways to squeeze a few quid out of people - but who knew that REM would come up with a new way of fleecing the audience: they're charging fans to watch them rehearse.

As the Guardian blog observes, while even a warming-up REM might be worth watching, it's a little bit alarming as a precedent - if, say, Dave Matthews sees Michael Stipe opening up this new revenue stream, how long will it be before there's a charge to watch his guitar tech putting towels on the amps?

[Ta again to James McCabe]

Go around the UK

The Go Team have lined up a small packet of UK dates for September:

12 London, Electric Ballroom
13 Manchester, Ritz
14 Glasgow, ABC

You're GoodBooked

GoodBooks have lined up a residency at the Buffalo Bar for July and August, and they're even running a loyalty scheme like the McDonalds coffee one, where you get a lovely prize if you collect a stamp at each event:

Thurs 12th July

GoodBooks (Live)
Fear Of Flying (Live)
+ Guests (Live)

Weds 25th July

GoodBooks (Live)
Sky Larkin (Live)
Drowned In Sound DJs

Thurs 9th August

GoodBooks (Live)
My Luminaries (Live)

Weds 22nd August

GoodBooks (Live)
Frank Musik (Live)
+ Special guest DJs

Ratcheting up the ticket price

James P has sent us an interesting report from the LA Times on ticket prices in the US. The most eye-catching detail is that Prince followed the same pricing logic for Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel as he has for his forthcoming Millennium Dome gigs, taking the 3121 title of his album as a starting point. Only, rather than making them £31.21, he went with $3121. No, there's no missing decimal point there, but at least it was three grand for two tickets. He's all heart.

This is against a background of escalating ticket charges in the US - suddenly, all pop stars are Gordon Gekko:

"In the past, artists have been more sensitive to not wanting to be perceived as charging high ticket prices," said Don Passman, a Los Angeles attorney and author of "All You Need to Know About the Music Business."

"The stigma on that has changed."

The average concert ticket price climbed to $61.58 last year from $25.81 in 1996. Tickets are generally priced based on the acts — and the demographics of their fans. The Cheetah Girls, for example, sold their tickets for an average of $35; Fallout Boy, $27. Seeing Barbra Streisand cost an average of $298.

While the Prince tickets were eye-watering, compared with the top-end of the market that's virtually charitable:

This summer, folks willing to pony up $15,000 for a ticket can see Prince, Billy Joel, Tom Petty, James Taylor and Dave Matthews in a five-concert, 1,000-seat series in the Hamptons in New York. Guests will dine on food prepared by what organizers call "celebrated chefs," peruse art exhibits and be entertained before the concert by illusionist and stuntman David Blaine. And they promise no long waits for the bathroom.

And what's the logic behind charging fifteen grand for Matthews and Joel?

Well, you remember how in the Commons this week Harvey Goldsmith was explaining how promoters carefully set their prices to be fair rather than grabbing the gig-goer by the testicles and shaking like the secondary marketeers do? Apparently, American promoters don't feel the same:

"Our clients told us over and over that they wanted to see the big names perform but didn't want the hassle that came along with attending a concert in a big stadium," said Joe Meli, chief executive of Bulldog Entertainment, the "Hampton Social" promoter.

"We believe our ticket price is in line with what ticket-reselling websites such as StubHub already get for high-profile events."

That makes a certain, ruthless, business logic - although with the built-in risk of pricing acts like Joel out of the mass market at a time when their largest sales come through the three-ninetynine CD bins in petrol stations - but does mean that, in future, promoters can hardly use "secondary sales rip people off by charging higher prices" as a line of attack, can they?

Madonna: Hiding strawberries behind fine words

Madonna has, apparently, been so upset by people constantly pointing out she produces 100 times as much carbon than the average, that she decided to issue a statement defending herself. We presume she sent it the Independent On Sunday because it's a smaller paper with a low readership and so requires less trees every Sunday:

Yesterday, so stung was she by the criticism, that she released a statement to the Independent on Sunday pledging to take substantial steps towards meeting Live Earth's guidelines for its star performers. "Madonna's agreeing to sing at the Live Earth Event is merely one of the first steps in her commitment toward being environmentally responsible," said her New York spokeswoman. "She is educating herself and her family and has begun to make changes around her that reflect her awareness and concern for the future of the planet."

Even for a vaguely-worded press release, that's pretty lame response.

Even the Sindy suggested that Madonna's self-education has a way to go:

Clearly Madonna has not got off to the best of starts. Instead of the eco-rider suggested by the organisers - the 49-year-old's dressing room demands for last night's Wembley concert reportedly focused on full-length mirrors and strawberries.

Undeterred, Live Earth organisers are offering Madonna carbon coaching to help her become greener. She is being encouraged to talk about her personal motivation and inspiration but warned that "speaking out comes with responsibilities - you must do more than what you ask others to do".

No wonder they were trying to find someone else to close the show.

[Thanks to James McCabe for the link]

Pete: "other" woman speaks

The Sunday Mirror this morning has a splashy interview with the most recent of Pete Doherty's other women:

I SPLIT KATE & PETE
EXCLUSIVE: MODEL WHO SPLIT PETE & KATE It was wild night of passion I felt like I was cheating on Kate, but had to do it Pete is a very sexy guy ...he was a fantastic lover

We're trying to picture a world in which having sex with Pete Doherty might be some sort of compulsion - surely the only time someone has to have sex with Doherty is if you're Carl Barat, and appearing in some slashfiction?

So, how do we know about this? It's the guilt talking:

Now 29-year-old South African Lindi Hingston - who lists Hollywood actor Jared Leto and Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose among her previous lovers - is consumed by guilt.

Lindi, from Cape Town, has always idolised supermodel Kate, who she met nine years ago. But now she is racked by guilt over the one-night stand with Pete.

"I felt like I was cheating on Kate, but I just had to do it," she told a friend of her fling with Doherty, after meeting him in a London nightclub 10 days ago.

This is something of a first, surely - a drunken post-club bunk-up where the guilt at cheating on the cuckolded one isn't from the person actively shagging around.

A close friend of the model said: "Pete told Lindi he was single. She said he made her laugh. There is something different about him, she said."

Odd, that if she believed Pete was single she'd have felt like she was cheating on Kate. Perhaps she felt she was cheating on the ghost of Kate Moss.

You, YouTube and The Music: Live Earth

Some Live Earth videos from YouTube, of varying attractiveness:

Al Gore talking
Somewhere Only We Know - Keane
Hips Don't Lie - Shakira
Beastie Boys - Sabotage
Yusuf Islam - Wild World (hopefully wiping the James Blunt version)
Nunatak's Antarctic leg
Crowded House winding up Sydney
Barriers collapsing during the Linkin Park Tokyo set

Hot In Here: The papers cover Live Earth

The News of the World doesn't bother itself with getting its Live Earth coverage bogged down in fretting about polar bears drowning or displaced people fighting over the last remaining popsicle. Oh, no, their report is split into two bits: stunning pics for her and for him. The girls get Johnny Borrell; the boys have that really disturbing moment when Madonna was dry-humping the monitor. (What was going through her head at that point? "At least it doesn't keep murmuring 'no, please not'", presumably.)

This is how the NOTW describes the opening minutes of the concert:

The crowd, which expected to swell to 70,000 by the close, then rose to its feet as the reunited Genesis used their hit Land Of Confusion to send an environmental message.

Singer Phil Collins urged the crowd to make the world "a place worth living in".

The Wembley show was closed by Madonna, who earlier set the stage alight with a dazzling rehearsal of classic hits La Isla Bonita and Hung Up, as well as new song Hey You penned especially for the event.

Is it just us, or does that whole section sound like it was written by someone in German and then translated back into English. Almost.?

And every time the paper tried to make it sound like a star-studded event of a generation, it somehow managed to sound like its tongue was in its cheek:

Throughout the day, the 70,000 crowd was shown sketches from stars including Cameron Diaz and Anna Friel encouraging people to make small changes to become greener such as installing energy-efficient bulbs. Celebrities in the crowd included Liam Gallagher and missus Nicole Appleton, his ex Patsy Kensit and Myleene Klass.

When you're reduced to mentioning the presence of Nicole Appleton, and Myleene Klass, you're grubbing at the bottom of a very empty celebrity barrel. Even the Diana concert managed to rope in Arfur Edwards.

Spice Girl Geri Halliwell was sensationally booed for her corny introduction for Duran Duran.

Referring to her newly-reunited group's hit Wannabe, she said: "I know this is a bit cheesy but I'll tell you what I really, really, really want is to introduce a legendary band that have been going much longer than the Spice Girls, for over 20 years."

Actually, she'd probably have got away with it if she hadn't mentioned how cheesy it was in the first place.

Zoe from the Sunday Mirror knows whereof she speaks, skewering David Gray for the most dunderheaded observation of the day:

"The campaign is like in 1938 when Britain had an army coming at it from France. We knew what we had to do then and we know what we've got to do now."

Good lord - how lucky we defeated that army to be ready for the Second World War a year later.

The Mirror took four people to contribute a single story - surely a shining use of scarce resources, although they seemed to have done little more than rewind their Sky+ to scribble down some quotes:

Razorlight's Johnny Borrell said: "There are people who work day in, day out for things like Stop Climate Chaos, organisations like that, and Live Earth, out of the belief that they want to make the world a better place. And those people are heroes."

Which, as his private jet waiting to whisk him up to T in the Park, was a bit like BP hailing the people who wash spilled oil off cormorants.

The People, tucked away in a report about a child murderer, throws in a surprising glimpse of some more of the hypocrisy at the heart of Live Earth: for many of those involved, it formed a jolly weekend double with watching motor racing slowly depleting the planet:

Celebs at yesterday's Live Earth concert are among those expected at the [Silverstone Grand Prix]. Selected guests are given the packs containing programmes, glossy brochures and details of special offers and information.

You might wonder if anyone felt anything more than a slight pang of pity when Phil Collins swore. Alice Doonan insists people were:

Billions of TV viewers around the globe heard a string of four-letter filth from Genesis frontman Phil Collins and US band Black Eyed Peas.

And presenters Jonathan Ross and Graham Norton were both forced to make grovelling apologies for the stars' foulmouthed outbursts.

Wrinkly rocker Collins shocked show producers by changing a line in the hit single Invisible Touch from "She will mess up your life" to "She will fuck up your life".

Clearly, Doonan couldn't have been watching the coverage if she thought that Ross was "grovelling" with his apologies; it's not clear, either, how she assumed that "billions" of people saw Collins' pottymouth - wouldn't it have been about six in the morning in the US?

Kitty Empire filed a review for The Observer which suggested it all hung on Madonna:

The night, however, belongs to Madonna. If Live Earth is a spectacle as much as a wake-up call, pop's queen bee has the massed children's choirs, dancers and carbon-quota-busting light show to make Live Earth historic.

Her progress from Material Girl to planet custodian has been an unlikely one - not least because it involves Gogol Bordello playing 'La Isla Bonita' at punk speed tonight. But perhaps Live Earth's most potent message is that if Madonna - one of pop's most inveterate megalomaniacs - can give a stuff about the future of the planet, than so can we.

Except, of course, as both the Mail and the NOTW have published detailed breakdowns of just what an environment depletion monster Madonna is, building the show on her shoulders looks a little ill-judged. Like MacMillan telling the poor they've never had it so good.

The Sunday Times' Robert Sandall was one of the few journalists to suggest that, actually, it was all somewhat less than half cock:

As a concert, Live Earth was not the repeat of Live Aid/Live 8 it clearly wanted to be. Unlike the events organised by the charismatic Sir Bob Geldof – upon which this one modelled itself closely, right down to its choice of name – the acts who answered the call from Al Gore’s people to play at Wembley Stadium were a bit short on superstar clout.

It was Geldof’s legendarily persuasive powers which got Pink Floyd to abandon a 20-year feud and re-form for Live 8 in Hyde Park in 2005. There was nothing on the Live Earth London bill to command that level of anticipation and potential drama.

With the exception of the closing act Madonna – who played next door at Wembley Arena only last summer – there was nobody on the Stadium bill with the cross-generational appeal, and catalogue of monster hits, to supply the great unifying moments which event gigs need to make their message stick in the mind.

Back to Madonna, though, for the Sunday Telegraph. They've dug deeper than just calculating how many lightbulbs she gets through, and found that even Ray Of Light, the song she did on stage last night, has a dirty little secret:

The Ray of Light Foundation, a charitable fund established by the star to support her favourite causes and named after one of her biggest selling hits, has $4.2 million (£2.1 million) of shares in a string of companies including Alcoa, the American aluminium giant, the Ford Motor Company and Weyerhaeuser, an international forest products company. All have been criticised by environmentalists.

You see what you can do if you don't restrict your coverage to 'sitting in front of the TV with a notepad'?

The disclosure was made by America's Fox News network, which obtained the foundation's most recent tax returns for 2005.

Oh.

This week just gone

The last week on No Rock and Roll Fun.

The ten most-fascinating stories according to what's been read:
1. Lily Allen changes her trousers
2. R Kelly's "under-age" sex video will appear in court
3. RIP: Tony Thompson
4. Diana Memorial Concert
5. Unveiled and proud: the naked Britney Spears statue
6. Live Earth concerts
7. Beth Ditto gets naked
8. KT Tunstall's sexuality dissected
9. Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo try to block sex pics. Might have been easier to close the curtains
10. Talinda Bentley's Chester Bennington stalker hobby gets her in trouble

Also this week: T in the Park got off to a muddy start; Matt Groening revealed a bad review of Oingo Boingo nearly cost the Simpsons its theme tune; Lily Allen to quit sometime before 2022; David Cameron rolled over for the BPI; the Department of Culture, Media and Sport heard evidence on ticket touting and Africa asked Bono to stop.

You can read the whole week on one page;
or skim the week before in one post

Five years ago, we upset Rockbitch by suggesting their rock-shock-by numbers was dull - they posted a response on their website suggesting we 'didn't get it'; 1Xtra stopped using the Urban tag; the Essential Festival cancelled, blaming the gays for having mushed up the venue the weekend before; James Shaffer of Korn tried to explain that when he said Hitler had gone to heaven, he didn't mean Nazis were good; a letter to the NME said stewards had kept people on the site due to "riots" outside the fence; the pension funds expressed doubts about the running of EMI; Neal Pearson, drummer with Travis, broke his back in a swimming-pool accident; the Oasis Finsbury Park gigs were soured by the boorish crowd while Noel Gallagher insisted George Michael's political opinions were invalid because he'd "lied" about his sexuality for so long; Michael Jackson suggested Sony Records' Tony Mottola was a bigot


Datarock's Datarock Datarock - data? Rock!


Stripey tights and twisted knives: Dresden Dolls live in London DVD


Not quite the event they once were: Chemical Brothers release We Are The Night


Happy Mondays explore self-parody as an alternative to a pension scheme


A "collectors edition" of Eat To The Beat (i.e. 'buy it again, please')


The Crimea's "give it away" approach to the album replaced by a less-thrilling "sell it for money" approach


We love the way Amazon list "starring Tom Baker" as if his contribution to the Five Doctors was more than a massive strop and only appear as a photo


If this story of a mentally ill man kept in enforced childhood by a domineering mother had subtitles rather than a laughtrack, it'd be hailed a lost classic. Sorry.


In Status Quo and The Kangaroo, Jon Holmes destroys rock mythology, one apocryphal tale at a time


Simon Reynolds' deft overview of the on-off romance of white indie-boy rock and black street sounds