There's too much to say about Live 8 so I'm not even going to try and do it justice. Suffice it to say that the aesthetic and political issues raised are so manifold and so juicy that I've been daydreaming of writing a proper study of it.

In the meantime, one of the more minor, yet still interesting issues about the event, was the comparative lack of hard rock and Metal. Now I'm not expecting or insisting that there should have been - no special pleading here! However, it is clear that hard rock/Metal was judged to somehow not fit into the spirit of the day. There were exceptions: Velvet Revolver  played a blistering set in London too mass incomprehension [reasonably enough - they aren't that big in the UK] , Bon Jovi and Def Leppard played in Philadelphia. The first Live Aid - in an admittedly very different musical environment - featured reunions by Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin.

At mega events like Live 8, Metal tends to be judged as too much of a minority taste to contribute. But more than this, in an event that stressed positivity, Metal is disturbingly dark and nihilistic.

Hard rock/ Metal is also marginalised in the UK more than elsewhere. The Glastonbury festival never features acts of this kind, whereas equivalent festivals elsewhere in Europe such as Roskilde, are much more welcoming.

Is this a problem? Probably not...

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