Swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year

Pink Floyd, "Wish You Were Here"
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I hope you caught the broadcast of Pink Floyd's reunion performance in Hyde Park in London as part of the Live8 concert series. VH1 cut it off short so that they could cut to Stevie Wonder's performance... and then cut that one off, too! I was disappointed in how it ended, but I have to say that it was totally moving. It started off with "Breathe", complete with a backdrop of a projection of the floating pig. Next, appropriately, was "Money." I can only imagine the euphoria of hearing something as mundane as a register drawer opening and a receipt tearing. Next was a pretty cool version of "Wish You Were Here", which began with Roger Waters giving a shout out to Syd Barrett. David Gilmour also sang along with the acoustic guitar, mimicking a wah pedal. Awesome stuff. The corporate heads won out in the middle of "Comfortably Numb", at which point the producers managed to ruin both the Pink Floyd and Stevie Wonder performances. If anyone can find video archived footage of the whole performance, please drop a comment.

I think what they should have done was have Stevie (Philadelphia) on MTV, with Pink Floyd (London) on VH1. Hell, I would have liked to have seen Shakira (Paris) or Green Day (Berlin) on MTV2 or something. Completely misplayed. And Pink Floyd didn't even close out the London show: afterwards, Sir Paul McCartney took the stage for "Get Back", "Baby You Can Drive My Car" (featuring George Michael on backup vocals). And then they cut him off! Misplayed. In addition, all the VJs were total ditzes that ruined an otherwise enjoyable concert series. I mean, I understand that Viacom has to pander to the lowest common denominator of their viewership, but these VJs probably couldn't even spell G8.

At the top of all the stages was a scrolling marquee. For most of the performance, it had information like websites and phone numbers and messages. During Pink Floyd's performance, it stayed static with the message, "No More Excuses."