I tuned in to AOL Music today for Live 8, the music moment for our generation. If you missed it, shame on you. If you recall, it wasn’t long ago that I purchased the Live Aid DVD, the 20-year-old predecessor to Live 8. Having recently watched that, today was like a continuous set of before & after shots (hmm seems AOL had the same idea, saves me some work). Bob Geldof has not changed…at all. Bono definitely made some positive upgrades.

Anyway, my personal fave moments:

• Sir Paul & U2 - Sgt. Peppers (See video (IE)). Apparently ppl are freaking out about this, but i thought it was very cool.
• Pink Floyd - reunited and they rocked
• Green Day covering “We are the Champions”
• Muse & Razorlight...awesome to see them live again so soon
• REM, Stereophonics, Scissor Sisters, and Travis were all fantastic. First time seeing Travis live and they were SO good. Covering Stayin’ Alive at that octave and live was just gutsy. Rock on.
• Madonna...well, she’s just awesome. Say what you will. Prolly one of the highest quality live performers. Same goes for Sting.
• Seeing Bill Gates amongst these ppl. It was just weird, but I kindly thank him for allowing me to view & switch feeds online to my lil heart’s content for free.
• Coldplay & Richard Ashcroft playing Bittersweet Symphony was enjoyable, but also most unexpected.

My one disappointment was Deep Purple, but The Who rocked as always. That Peter Kay that opened was pretty funny as well. It also worked out well that I’ve seen some Little Britain episodes. Otherwise, their act would have totally gone over my head. The London stage just rocked in general the whole fricken day, music & comedy.

I was thinking how cool it must be to a musician for events like this. I mean 3+ billion people seeing/hearing your every word. Oh, and you can say whatever the hell you want. Yeah, I can’t think of another profession with those possibilities. It was all just very cool. I can only imagine what it was like to be in the crowd. My one gripe with the entire show was the fans. They aired some amazing promo pieces, very well done, but the crowd seemed more concerned with cheering for their fave celebrity whose face flashed than what they were actually saying. That disappointed me.

I was very thankful to be able to witness the whole event in some way though. I’m currently taping whatever they’re airing on ABC, just in case it’s another 20 years before they release this on video. I just can’t fully express how much I appreciate artist collaboration such as this. Seeing so many talented persons playing/singing each other’s songs is just so cool to me. People can diss this and other such events all they want, but even if they don’t completely fulfill their specific goals, at the very least they bring people all over the world together for a day, bring light to world problems, and provide some enjoyment for everyone. Hopefully, it even makes everyone care a little more for everyone else or at least more for a cause.

And if you haven’t yet,  add your name. As of the last flash I caught on screen, the number of names was well over 27 million.