Live Earth BBC

Now don't get me wrong, I think this concert was a good thing. A very good thing actually, to try and make some sort of change in people's mindsets, to live more ethically, be less wasteful and take more responsibility for our actions. It is, of course, very easy to be cynical about the reasons behind some of the acts on display taking part, and indeed there is an argument that the real fight against Climate Change needs to be done on a corporate level, but if some individuals choose to change their light bulbs, recycle their paper, or only fill the kettle as much as they need as a result then it is a positive thing.

So with that in mind my criticisms here are going to be almost entirely pointed at the way the BBC chose to cover the event.
I'll stress as well that a nine hour live event like this one is going to be difficult to cover and that the presenters (Ross, Norton and Bowman) actually did an admirable job in the circumstances.
My patience was lost throughout though because of some really awful editorial decisions.
Live Earth was obviously a global event - and there was a lot of footage from Sydney, Hamburg and across the world which the Beeb had access to - in fact they had another show for the world highlights after the live Wembley coverage. So why they felt the need amongst all the great music being played at Wembley - where they had a big live crew, to keep cutting to pre-recorded stuff from elsewhere was beyond me. I could understand it as filler between acts but they were consistently missing stuff being played at Wembley for guff like Rihanna elsewhere and they still had guests in the studio filling in between.

I know Auntie has a remit to be even handed with this sort of coverage, although in this case there weren't many dissenting voices to be heard, but surely the main point of them screening the event was to show the music.
They seemed to be more interested in the words of Zac Goldsmith talking to Graham Norton, letting him ramble on before they cut to the middle of John Legend's one and only solo song; just to rub salt in the wound the caption announcing his performance of "Ordinary People" read "Common People" which is one of those mistakes you almost want to take personally.
Captioning was an issue throughout with the wrong song being announced on several occasions - Spinal Tap having an instrumental break in "Stonehenge" obviously confused the poor chap in charge as "Warmer Than Hell" was displayed on screen.

I can almost forgive this though - in a live event it is always possible to miss the start of acts - but cutting away from Metallica as they start to play Enter Sandman to show Crowded House recorded in Sydney, or missing the last Spinal Tap number where they had a stage invasion of the other acts on the bill to show KT Tunstall or some other dross was unforgivable.
The BBC had to accept that this was a music event, and a rock gig - there was going to be some slightly more challenging music on show than James Blunt and unfortunately the director could clearly only cope with middle of the road blandness.

The swearing didn't bother me in the slightest although I mention it because it is linked with one of the funniest moments of the day for me. Jonathan Ross hands over to Edith Bowman who says Chris Moyles has just gone on stage to introduce who is going to introduce the Chili Peppers; cut to Moyles who announces "Chris Rock". Chris Rock appears and almost immediately shouts "Mother Fuckers" at which point we cut back to Ross in the studio. Genius.


The BBC should have kept this simple - show the acts performing at Wembley - show some of the videos that had clearly been ready made for the event rather than the stock Whale song shit that they did show us and make the message as clear as Al Gore's Seven point pledge.

Oh and more Russell Brand