So, twenty years ago, we wanted to watch the original Live Aid on TV, but for whatever reason our mother insisted on going camping instead as a “family activity.” We were not, she said, staying home for some concert on TV. This met with precisely the sort of reaction from 15-year-old Heathen that you’d expect.

The new Live 8 is nice to see, twenty years later, but cannot be the cultural event the original was. We hope it’s more successful, though, since Geldof presumably has a bit more savvy and pull behind him now than he did then.

The most irritating thing about it, though, is the hopeless nature of the broadcast. Fundamentally, they’re not doing concert coverage; they’re doing some sort of awful meta-coverage. The direction is awful; for example, they managed to never have a camera on Pete Townshend when he pulled his signature windmill, for example. The on-air talent is pulled from that most vapid of all possible pools, MTV’s “veejays.” They keep referring to one-hit, current-hot bands as “amazing” and “incredible” as if they’d just seen Jesus on lead guitar. A more systemic problem lurks, though: the coverage is clearly tailored for an 8-year-old with ADD. Virtually no entire songs are shown, and we’re pretty sure the first time we’ve seen two songs in a row from the same act is now, with the much-ballyhooed Pink Floyd reunion (“Breathe” followed by “Money”) — and even then they interrupted “Comfortably Numb” to let some stupid twat babble over it.