Live Earth's experiment in cultural interconnection is as big as a planet, small as a PC.

[DeepModem Mom]

LAT: POP MUSIC CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK
Live Earth: big as a planet, small as a PC
Live Earth's experiment in cultural interconnection is as big as a planet, small as a PC.
By Ann Powers, Times Staff Writer
July 9, 2007

SYSTEM overload.

That's the only way to describe the pageantry of Live Earth. Al Gore and promoter Kevin Wall's continents-spanning music festival undoubtedly spiked awareness about environmentalist causes, but it paid off more directly as an experiment in cultural interconnection across time zones and in the floating realm of the Internet.

Nine concerts took place on seven continents, but the average Live Earth participant didn't make it down to a stadium. Her Saturday probably went something like mine: I jumped from bed to the computer, surfing to MSN.com's official Live Earth site (liveearth.msn.com), then switched on Bravo TV for daylong coverage, adding NBC's wrap-up show in the evening (a limited cable subscription curbed my channel surfing, at least). I plugged my household's other laptop into the stereo to enable another MSN.com stream, and then wandered from room to room, trying to catch as many highlights as I could.

The occasional twinge of guilt about how much globally warming juice was needed to feed all my electronics gave way with each freshly glimpsed performance, or commentary from concerned celebrities including Kevin Bacon and Cameron Diaz, or tips on how to "green" my house by adjusting my thermostat and reupholstering my chairs using old sweaters. With so much to absorb, reflection wasn't really an option.

Pondering Live Earth's messages can come during return visits to MSN.com's outstanding site — highlights include short films at liveearth.msn.com/green/liveearthfilmproject by the likes of Sophie Muller and Rob Reiner (a reunion with Spinal Tap, which played at London's Wembley Stadium); interactive features including "Ask a Climate Expert"; and the video for Madonna's new inspirational anthem, "Hey You" (www.liveearth.msn.com/le/video), which she also performed as the London headliner — backed, naturally, by a children's choir. As the spectacle unfolded in real time, though, thoughts of saving the Earth retreated in the face of astonishment at how small the planet has become....

***

This window into globalism, not Live Earth's political message or the performances of its headliners, was the festival's true innovation. Worldwide in scope but as manageable as a mouse-equipped desktop, Live Earth offered a vision of pop's future that argued for a kind of cosmic diversity....

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/music/la-et-liveearth9jul09,0,1913603.story?coll=la-home-entertainment

[stellanoir]

1. That was so much fun. . .surfing around the world. . .hearing and seeing

phenomenal performances.

The technology is amazing.

The penguins in Antarctica who had great rhythm were perhaps my fave.

Still can't figure how that band managed to play without gloves on down there.

Or could that have been attributed to. . .global warming or something. . .?

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Hi, stella! I loved the penguins, too. I heard that the band said in an interview...

that they could do only the one song outside, before they retreated inside to warm up!

[stellanoir]

4. Hey DMM . . .I got the chills watching the sax player. . .

the stringed instruments must have been cold enough but metal. . .in those temps. . . ?

Yikes.

Hope no one got frostbite.

[wiggs]

2. Brilliant event. nt