Does anyone else feel that the Live Earth concert (at least the one in Wembley) was a somewhat damp squib? Oh, the weather was surprisingly nice and the stadium seemed quite full... it was the concert itself that fell short. If you asked me exactly what was lacking, I'd be hard put to pinpoint it - but on the whole, I think what was missing was conviction. Spirit.
Which doesnt surprise me. For all that it was supposed to be about raising awareness for the environment and saving Earth from ourselves, hardly any of those interviewed (apart from "green" journalists and the like) seemed to know exactly what was happening, or why. Or even how they, through the concert(s), were supposed to be helping. Jonathan Ross and the more media-savvy of his interviewees made tongue-in-cheek jokes all the time, and none of them seemed convinced about the urgency of saving Earth.
One Green journalist - I cant remember her name, sadly - said it was wonderful that celebrities were actually coming out and linking themselves with the Green Movement when even 5 years back they wouldnt have bothered. Well, five years back the Green Movement wasnt cool enough! Besides, anybody can SAY anything, especially if if means TV time. The question is, what do they do when the cameras are off. Do they actually fly cattle class, or do they hire their own private jet to get from one place to another? Call me cynical, but until I have proof that the super-rich are actually being forced to give up their carbon-printing lifestyle, I'm not about to give up air travel or do anything else that the rabid Greens are advocating for us hoi polloi. (Yes, I've said this before - you arent experiencing deja vu!)
I wish the music groups would just be honest and admit that they were happy to play their music and get more exposure for themselves, instead of playing along with one rabid "do-good" organisation or the other. Does NOBODY in the Green Environmentalist belt realise the supreme irony of trying to raise Green awareness by - wait for it - the expenditure of HUGE amounts of energy via wiring up enormous open stadia for sound? By flying in bands and pop/rock/whatever groups all across the world JUST for that one day? What about CO2 emissions, or does that not matter when it's for a "good cause"? Could not a few hundred villages have run an entire year on the energy used for a one-day concert?
Oh, and of course the previous concerts to rid the world of poverty and disease have done their work. The people of the Third World have been saved by a few concerts held in the First World, yeah? I guess that's why we are all now busily trying to save Earth itself.
I'm a cynic. I admit it. But it's only because of what's happening in the world, because of the huge gap between the preachers and the preachees. As one of Jonathan Ross' interviewees said, if we could only harness the power of cynicism, the world's energy crisis would have a permanent solution.
