Paul McCartney's set served as the finale for the London incarnation of Live 8, but his performance (though a strong one) paled in comparison to the act that immediately preceded him on the Hyde Park stage: Pink Floyd. The recently reunited band opened with "Breathe" and "Money," both from the "Dark Side of the Moon" LP. Bassist Roger Waters then dedicated their performance of "Wish You Were Here" to everyone who couldn't be at the show "but particularly, of course, for Syd," a moving tip of the hat to the band's founder and former front man, Syd Barrett. They wrapped up a remarkably polished set with "Comfortably Numb." While their performance was most notable for the fact that Waters was playing with the band for the first time in over 20 years, it was guitarist David Gilmour who stole the show. He sang most of the set's lead vocals and turned in some truly stunning instrumental work. Keyboardist Rick Wright and drummer Nick Mason were also in top form, but the TV camera operators in Hyde Park seemed to forget they were there, instead focusing their lenses almost exclusively on Waters and Gilmour.

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If you watched today's concerts, I certainly hope you didn't make the same mistake I did: turning on the television. MTV's coverage of the shows (also shown on VH1 and MTVU) was absolutely horrendous. The vast majority of the broadcast consisted of talking heads and commercials (I wonder who gets all that ad revenue? MTV or Live 8?). Only about a third of the air time was spent showing actual concert footage. All too frequently, the hosts would spend time talking about how great the show was -- or worse, interviewing audience members -- while someone was performing on the stage directly behind them. They might mention the act in passing or show a few seconds of live footage, but that's about it. Then, about 30 minutes later, they'd finally show a one song snippet of the performer's 4 song set -- on tape. And that's only for the performers and venues MTV even bothered to show. Countless others never even made the broadcast. The real place to be today was in front of your computer. AOL's Live 8 Music Channel provided complete live broadcasts from 6 different venues: Paris, London, Berlin, Toronto, Philadelphia, and Rome. And as the live shows came to an end, AOL immediately began rebroadcasting each in its entirety. This means that I'll probably spend much of the remaining holiday weekend catching up on the many artists I missed out on completely, like a-ha, Brian Wilson, Crosby Stills & Nash, Scissor Sisters, Travis, Duran Duran, The Bachman Cummings Band (aka The Guess Who), and Jet. Because of MTV's heavily edited broadcast, I'll also be re-watching many of the acts whose performances I was only allowed to see a small portion of, such as Green Day (one of the day's standout performances, based on the two songs I did see), Coldplay, Joss Stone, Keane (their phenomenal set should have made them huge U.S. stars -- and it would have, if MTV hadn't cut it down to about 30 seconds), The Killers, R.E.M., U2, The Who, and The Dave Matthews Band. I finally switched to the AOL broadcast midway through The Who's set in London, mere minutes before Pink Floyd took the stage. My fear was that if I stayed in front of the television, I wouldn't get to see the entire Floyd set live. My fears were well-founded, as it turned out. MTV actually broadcast the band's first three songs live, but cut away halfway through "Comfortably Numb" for a commercial break. If it was worth staying with for three and a half songs, you'd think it was worth staying with until the end. Apparently not by MTV standards. Perhaps the most underhanded aspect of MTV's television broadcast was the fact that their TV hosts repeatedly directed viewers who wanted to hear more music and less talk to visit the MTV News website. Problem is, while MTV's website had news and photos from Live 8, it certainly did not have live audio and video from the actual concerts. The only place you could find those on the web was AOL. Needless to say, while the timing of this post should have made it my post-Live 8 wrap-up, I now realize it will be a few more days before I'll actually see everything I want to see.

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Proof that the people running the Music Television network know nothing about music: The biggest music group in the world right now is probably Coldplay, yet the only video clip from the band's set that MTV aired during 8 hours of coverage was one in which Chris Martin and company merely serve as backing musicians for former Verve singer Richard Ashcroft on the 1997 hit song "Bittersweet Symphony."

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It's not much, but my own personal protest of the commercial-heavy, performance-light MTV broadcast will be to stop watching all of Viacom's music networks (MTV, VH1, CMT, etc.) completely. Granted, given the quality of programming typically broadcast on these channels, it won't be much of a sacrifice. But it does mean I won't be watching "Best Week Ever" anymore. Kiss my ass goodbye, MTV.

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Why, exactly, did the Philadelphia show end before the one in London? Last time I checked Philadelphia was 5 hours behind London. The Hyde Park show went on well into the night, but Philly wrapped things up before the sun even started to go down. Back in 1985, at the original Live Aid, the Philadelphia show went on for several hours after the London finale. I might understand the early wrap-up if the intent was to have all the shows end nearly simultaneously, but that couldn't have been the case given that the Toronto show continued for about an hour and a half after Philly, thus allowing the worldwide spotlight to shine exclusively on DMC (of rap group Run-DMC), Barenaked Ladies, and Neil Young (the three acts that took the Canadian stage after Stevie Wonder's show-ending set in Philadelphia, though none of them actually made it on to the MTV broadcast).

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Speaking of the Toronto show, could someone please explain to me why one of the dudes from "CSI" was rapping on stage with DMC?

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All of my silly bitching aside, this has been a truly great day for pop music and for the fight against poverty. Don't forget to visit http://www.live8list/ to add your voice to the fight.