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Paul McCartney, Bob Geldof, Madonna, Pink Floyd, U2, Coldplay, Elton John, Green Day, Annie Lennox

Did you feel that cold breeze from under your feet? That was Hell freezing over. I’m sure that Hell didn’t trade hot air for the cool breeze. It was doubt and paid for with a good cause in mind. Pink Floyd broke up amid accusations, recriminations and acrimonious charges of betrayal and anger after they completed their last album “The Final Cut” in 1984. Things festered further when guitarist David Gilmour continued Pink Floyd without main songwriter Roger Waters (he called the band’s “reunion” album “a forgery” claiming that Gilmour, Dave Mason and Rick Wright were “only in it in the money. It seemed unikely that one of the most popular rock bands of the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s would ever reunite. How a little suffering and a good cause can change things. The original line up became THE event of Live 8 for rock fans. Here they are playing together as if things never changed along with 79 other artists for aid to Africa’s starving and poorly treated masses. It was the right thing to do and the least they could do. ***

This 4 DVD set captures the highlights of the concert with over 10 hours of music performed by some of the most important music stars of the 60’s (Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Brian Wilson), 70’s (Pink Floyd, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Roxy Music), 80’s (The Pet Shop Boys, Sting), 90’s (REM, U2, Madonna, Alicia Keys) through to today. The wonderful thing about this set is that there’s truly something for everybody and while most bands only get one or two tracks the biggest performers here get to perform generous handful (Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney, Elton John, U2, Robbie Williams) of their most memorable classics. Sure, it’s stacked a bit more in favor of rock but just about every musical genre is sampled and this is th first time that hip-hop and country music plays a part of the mix as well. By the way there is a separate set for “Live 8 at Eden-Africa Calling” organized by Peter Gabriel and his Womad festival. The set consists of two discs and consists of performances by leading musicians from Africa (that will be covered in a separate review). ---

“Live 8” looks remarkable on DVD. There are occasional bits of video noise that crop up now and again but it’s infrequent and isn’t a distraction. Overall the show looks marvelous regardless of the time of day of the performance. The 5.1 sound mix sounds remarkably clear with nice use of the format and the performances are also offered in 2.0 stereo as well. ---

There are a number of extra performances on the last disc but the highlight for Pink Floyd fans will be the rehearsal of “Wish You Were Here” and the interview with the band members. Roger Waters relates how they were reunited—Bob Geldof wanted them to appear and requested that he call his former band mate David Gilmour to see if Pink Floyd might reform for Live 8. They hadn’t spoken in more than a decade and hadn’t performed together in 22 years. Waters recalls that “Dave was a bit surprised when the phone rang and it was me…and he said he’d think about it…and called me back 24 hours later”. Gilmour states “ I was looking forward to it…I’d proably regret it if I didn’t do it..this one off date…the first day was very entertaining”. Waters seems relaxed which is quite a change for him and actually makes a comment during the performance about how great it is to be performing with his former band mates again. So those folks looking for a Pink Floyd studio album may have to wait a bit as it doesn’t appear that this is anything permanent. Still, it’s a thrill to hear these guys run through a handful of their best songs together onstage after so much acrimony. ---

A terrific set that offers a nice selection of the performances from Live 8 I only wish that those bands that only get 1 song here could have had a separate DVD release with their full performances. Floyd sounds great even in the relaxed rehearsal footage. Unfortunately, there aren’t any other Floyd songs performed from the set and we only see “Wish You Were Here” in rehearsal. A pity as I’d be curious to hear if they jammed on any of their older material or any oldies. My guess is that none of the songs were post-Waters Floyd songs or Waters solo hits.