Live Earth: Snap Reviews

The concert yesterday rocked! Of course it would - the lineup was amazing, but the performances uneven (like me). The only real problem was that the artists only played 4-6 songs each.


The Police - Started off with a strong performance of Roxanne, and then seemed to play the order of their set list from the their 1980s best of albumn. Their solid performance definitely earns them a strong recommendation that you see them at Pimlico for the Virgin Festival on August 4th.

Roger Waters - First time I've seen him perform, and it was excellent. His superb performance of Us and Them seemed to be especially attuned to the current zeitgeist. For the less intelligent in the crowd, he beat them over the head by mixing the final juxtaposiiton of the song and war images with that of President Bush in a flight suit and the Mission Accomplished banner in the background.

Smashing Pumpkins - Gave a strong performance out of the gate with a lot of guitar gnashing before going into a new song from their next albumn (Zeigeist, out on Tuesday). Great performances of crowd pleasers Bullet with Butterfly Wings and Today. Based on this performance, I highly recommend you buy tix to their Tuesday show at the 930 Club, and see their August 5th performance at Pimlico during The Virgin Festival, on August 5th.

Bon Jovi - Obviously, the hometown favorite, after all the Meadowlands is actually in New Jersey. Added thousands of new faces that he's rocked at the concert. Ok, he spent his alotted time mostly playing from Slippery When Wet, and seriously rocked the stadium with Dead or Alive , which was one of the highlights of the night. The rumors of a surprise Bruce Springsteen appearance to paly with Bon Jovi proved unfounded. Unfortunately.

Kelly Clarkson - Put on a solid perfomance and really moved the crowd with Since You've Been Gone. Her newer music didn't sound as good.

Akon - Definitely won new fans with his great performance.

Dave Mattews Band - Not as strong as other performances I've seen. Mostly focused on early favorites that seemed to especially please the folks who came up from Virginiga. a surprisingly high number of the much younger fans could sing along to the early favorites too.

Missed John Mayer and Alicia Keys, both to my chagrin. Also missed Melissa Ethridge - a good artist, i just felt like eating instead.