SYSTEM overload.
That's the only way to describe the pageantry of Live Earth. Al Gore and promoter Kevin Wall's continents-spanning music festival undoubtedly spiked awareness about environmentalist causes, but it paid off more directly as an experiment in cultural interconnection across time zones and in the floating realm of the Internet.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday July 10, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 44 words Type of Material: Correction
Al Gore lecture: Ann Powers' Critic's Notebook on Live Earth in Monday's Calendar section referred to a PowerPoint presentation used by Al Gore in the climate-change documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." The former vice president used Apple Inc.'s Keynote program for the presentation, not PowerPoint.
Nine concerts took place on seven continents, but the average Live Earth participant didn't make it down to a stadium. Her Saturday probably went something like mine: I jumped from bed to the computer, surfing to MSN.com's official Live Earth site (liveearth.msn.com), then switched on Bravo TV for daylong coverage, adding NBC's wrap-up show in the evening (a limited cable subscription curbed my channel surfing, at least). I plugged my household's other laptop into the stereo to enable another MSN.com stream, and then wandered from room to room, trying to catch as many highlights as I could.
The occasional twinge of guilt about how much globally warming juice was needed to feed all my electronics gave way with each freshly glimpsed performance, or commentary from concerned celebrities including Kevin Bacon and Cameron Diaz, or tips on how to "green" my house by adjusting my thermostat and reupholstering my chairs using old sweaters. With so much to absorb, reflection wasn't really an option.
Pondering Live Earth's messages can come during return visits to MSN.com's outstanding site -- highlights include short films at liveearth.msn.com/green/liveearthfilmproject by the likes of Sophie Muller and Rob Reiner (a reunion with Spinal Tap, which played at London's Wembley Stadium); interactive features including "Ask a Climate Expert"; and the video for Madonna's new inspirational anthem, "Hey You" (www.liveearth.msn.com/le/video), which she also performed as the London headliner -- backed, naturally, by a children's choir. As the spectacle unfolded in real time, though, thoughts of saving the Earth retreated in the face of astonishment at how small the planet has become.
In 1985, for Live Aid -- the famine-relief model now recast by Live Earth in hypertext -- Phil Collins jumped onto the Concorde at London's Heathrow after a performance at Wembley so he could also appear at Philadelphia's JFK Stadium. On Saturday, Collins reunited with his band Genesis and entered an endless loop in cyberspace alongside other such jet-setting artists as Rihanna, performing in Tokyo, and coloratura queen Sarah Brightman, who trilled in Shanghai.
