Live Earth CD/DVD

POSTED: Thursday, January 3, 2008, 5:45 PM

Filed Under: Arts | DVD | Music Album

Saving the Earth through music. And a mass-produced plastic disc.

Al Gore says global warming is threatening our well-being and dammit we better listen. In order to make his point louder, he rounded up rockers from the past thirty years, and put a handful on each continent, except Antarctica. Europe had concerts in London and Hamburg to make up the difference. The CD/DVD, Live Earth: The Concerts for a Climate in Crisis, features performances from London, New Jersey, and Japan. The performances, overall, were above average, except for Madonna, but I'll get to that later. I found it interesting to see who aged well and who crossed into aging rocker territory.

I started with the second disc and watched Keith Urban and Alicia Keys cover "Gimme Shelter." I was disappointed with the sound quality. The guitar is overpowering and distorted, and Keys' voice is shaky.

New Jersey's homegrown '80s rocker, Jon Bon Jovi, jumped at the chance to play "Wanted Dead or Alive" for the world, and did so with open-shirted Richie Sambora belting out that solo just like he did back in '86. It was great to see The Police on stage together, and while the guy's are clearly much older, the music was still tight and Sting's voice is still on point. I was surprised the song, "Driven to Tears," was chosen, but after watching it, I realized how good it was. The Foo Fighters and Smashing Pumpkins had tight selections from their sets, and that made up for several other mediocre performances including Rihanna's lyrically astounding "Umbrella."

As for Madonna, it's always good to expand your musical horizons and show your musical diversity, but I will never understand why the producers close this DVD with Madonna's "La Isla Bonita" featuring Gogol Bordello. They took this '80s pop love song and turned it into an awkward gypsy dancing beast. The choreographed performance made me embarrassed for her. Somewhere between the Eastern European singing — done by Borat's doppelganger — and the shirtless African American dancer walking like an Egyptian, I lost interest.

With set drummers Chad Smith, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Roger Taylor, Queen, Taylor Hawkins, The Foo Fighters, and a hot mess of percussionists from all over the world, the SOS All-Stars opened the London show, and the first disc, with a cadence of global proportions. There were a few other gems on the first disc as well. Snow Patrol kicks out their catchy hit "Shut Your Eyes," and Britain'scutest rocker KT Tunstall, dressed in gold tights, and a t-shirt saying "Save the Future" played her hit, "Suddenly I See." The performance that I was most impressed with was Angelique Kidjo with her song "Tumba." It's very tribal sounding, and Kidjo's voice soars over the sizzling Afro-beat.

I'm sure Metallica meant well with their performance of "Sad But True," but a song that personifies hate and pain, doesn't exactly fit in with other tracks like "Where is the Love," by Black Eyed Peas, or, "What a Wonderful World," by Paolo Nutini. The only thing that is sad but true is watching a white-goateed James Hetfield struggle to hit all the notes.

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