George Best Week'end': All This And More

To Barcelona, now, for another slice of - ahem - crowd-sourced footage of the 20th anniversary tour:



[Part of the George Best weekend]

A Singer Must Die, but not yet: Cohen is fine

Wobbly moment last night when Leonard Cohen collapsed on stage mid-Bird On A Wire.

He was taken to hospital in Valencia, where he was given an all-clear and is intending to be back on stage in Barcelona on Monday.

"Food poisoning" is the official line, but that's what they always say, isn't it?

U2 waving into space

More coverage of the start of the U2 tour, with the Guardian reading the Spanish press, who seem bedazzled by Bono's wiles:

Spanish reviewers were overwhelmed by the "rock power" display and struggled desperately to interpret the message in a show that featured astronauts, a video of Desmond Tutu, football, and, significantly, a Michael Jackson tribute, with Bono dedicating Angel of Harlem to the King of Pop, before playing Man In the Mirror and Don't Stop Till You Get Enough.

"This is rock designed to move both mountains and consciousnesses," concluded El Periódico newspaper.

The conversation between Bono and the space station commander was perhaps the most bizarre element of the evening. "Commander, can you see Barcelona?" Bono asked the man floating near the microphone. "Right now, the most beautiful sight in our cosmos is the blue planet earth," came the answer.

"We must look very insignificant from up there," noted the critic for El País newspaper.

It's unclear if he means from space, or from whatever ego-cloud Bono is sitting on.

Trouble is, with all this guff - designed to showcase how powerful Bono is and what his connections can do - they seem to overlooked one key aspect of a gig: being any good at music:

Most disappointing for El Pais readers was Bono fluffing two classics, One and With or Without You.

"The truth is that it was disappointing, especially compared to previous tours, full of mistakes and bad songs (from the last album)," said Alex, a reader-reviewer for El País. "To say that Bono wrecked two major songs like One and With or Without You tells you more than enough."

But who cares, eh? Look! Look! It's a spaceman on a telephone!

[Thanks to James M for the story]

Gordon in the morning: A beautiful day

You know what Gordon loves? Writing lots and lots and lots about Michael Jackson?

You know what else Gordon loves? Fawning over Bono.

With the first night of U2's world tour, Gordon gets to do both:

And they used the occasion to pay a surprise tribute to King Of Pop MICHAEL JACKSON.

Singer Bono dedicated Angel Of Harlem, originally written about BILLIE HOLIDAY, to Jacko, saying: "We met Michael Jackson many times over the years and he was an unspeakable talent."

Personally, I'd have tried to come up with a form of words which didn't leave it open to the interpretation that I thought he was unspeakably bad, but I guess it's the thought that counts.