Oh Internet

The centre of London is, uh, somewhat packed today. Let’s see, we have:

• Live8
• Pride March
• Cricket test
• Wimbledon ladies’ singles final

The police are saying that there are around 500,000 to 750,000 extra people in London today. It’s almost impossible to move anywhere just north of the river.

I wandered around Hyde park for a while earlier, but couldn’t really get close enough to anything to hear anything other than thumping bass, never mind figuring out who was playing. So I’ve been alternating between the pub and my flat to watch the concert. I probably would have tried harder to get into the concert itself, but the only band I actually wanted to see in London was Pink Floyd (go ahead, laugh.)

The TV coverage seems to be trading too much on the original Live Aid concert, rather than promoting the current one, and from the TV pictures the crowd seem weirdly subdued. This could be related to a comment I saw somewhere on the web from someone who got tickets:

Ooh, I’ve never been to a concert before, I hope it’s fun!

…And there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Hopefully the people there are enjoying it more than it looks like they are.

I’m sort of annoyed that I’m not still living in Edinburgh and that I missed the march, but there you go. It should be interesting watching any fallout from all of this.

Update: The more crowd-panning shots that are shown, the more I’m convinced that half of the audience at Hyde park have never been to a concert before in their lives, and are just standing around confused by all the loud noises and flashing lights. I know the cause is meant to be the more important than the music, but still, they could have given the tickets to people who would have actually enjoyed the experience.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 2nd, 2005 at 7:28 pm and is filed under The Big Room. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.