Before that though; rant. This was one of the worst recieved gigs I have ever been to. The crowd sucked. Period. Making it a free concert meant that there were far, far too many people who just didn't care, or obviously knew nothing about either gigs or music. Evidence includes people rushing to the front on gates, and then spreading out a groundsheet and picnic, wondering why people were crowding around them and getting angry, an irish woman similarly close to the front who got aggressive at anyone who touched her, and the number of people who left before Pink Floyd and McCartney. Anyway, onward.

U2 w/ McCartney: Pretty cool rendition of 'Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band' set the day up nicely, but you can't help but wonder if it was more a photographers opportunity than anything else. McCartney then pissed off backstage to drink a free bar all day, and left us to U2 to open up proceedings for real. 'Elevation' and 'Vertigo' sounded pretty immense, and 'One' sounded nicely appropriate. So, off to a good start then.

Coldplay w/ Richard Ashcroft: By-numbers rendition of 'In My Place', apart from a little bit where Chris Martin broke into 'Rockin' All Over The World'. Please, leave the Quo out of this, cheeseball. Anyway, Ashcroft came from nowhere, unannounced, to sing 'Bittersweet Symphony',which had been somewhat unusually introduced by Martin as "the best song ever written". We'd see about that later, but Ashcrofts stage presense was pretty awesome. 'Fix You' ended Coldplays short stint on stage, a good song, if not amazing.

Sir Elton John w/ Pete Doherty: LEGEND! Sir Elton is a fucking boss, and he showed it by storming through 'The Bitch Is Back' and 'Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting' before he allowed a completely crack-eyed and drunken-stepped Doherty to completely butcher a version of T-Rexs 'Children of the Revolution'. He seems to be forgetting that, first and foremost, he has to be a musician, rather than a legend, does our Pete. My dad was amazed when I informed him that he's shagging Kate Moss. I guess being a shit singer and hammered is cool. Sir Elton looked embarrased. So was I. Not Mr Dohertys finest hour.

Dido: Meh. Go away. You're not very good, and you're even worse live. Youssu N'Dour or whoever it was you invited on to sing with you was far better, so you restricted him to a few token lines of 'New Africaaaa'. Go away.

Stereophonics: No pretence, no message to the crowd, nothing quite like it yet. 'The Bartender and the Theif', 'Dakota' and 'Local Boy In The Photograph' were ripped through at breakneck speed, probably best summed up by the way the former became 'Ace of Spades', and for a few blissful seconds I anticipated the emergence of Lemmy. It was not to be, but the 'Phonics were far better (and cooler looking) than I had expected.

REM : Oi! Stipe! No! What is that blue thing over your eyes? 'Everybody Hurts' got the kind of arms in the air response from the crowd you'd expect, and 'Man On The Moon' sounds as amazing as ever. Everything was so predictable and uninteresting in that special REM way, though. And things were about to get far, FAR worse.

Ms. Dynamite: Go away.

Keane: Good singer, but go away.

Travis: Go away, your time is up.

Some time around now Geldof came out to sing the requisite rendition of 'I Don't Like Mondays'. He'd promised not to. He should have stuck to his promise.

Annie Lennox : 'Why?' was the first truly touching song of the afternoon. Combine this with a rendition of 'Sweet Dreams', and you have the recipe for a good, but not spectacular, set that went especially well recieved by the 30+ section of the crowd, even if the tens-and-unders had no idea who she was.

UB40: Surprise hit of the day #1. Played a medley of their brilliant back catalogue, including 'Red Red Wine', and 'I Cant Help Falling In Love With You'. Don't laugh. It's summer! And when you can see men, 25 years and 23 albums into their career still enjoying themselves as much as these Brummies, you can't help but enjoy yourself too. After all, Bob Marley is the only Reggae artist to sell more records in history. Didn't know that, did you?

SNOOOOP DOOOOGG: What is this? An enjoyable Rap act? Snoop got the crowd going, although I think it was a bit of irony that allowed me to dance like a gangsta' and inform the star of the show that his name was "Snoop Doggy Dogg". He even had me chanting "Bow wow wow dippyogg dippyay". Still, he's a legend, and had some hot women dancing with him. Light relief ahead of...

Razorlight: Go away Borell. Your speech about poverty was the worst of the afternoon. The rest of the band can stay. It's a shame they chose to play 'Somewhere Else', which is crap, because 'Golden Touch' and their finale 'In The City' weren't bad on the current scale of things. Problem was, they had no real opposition playing around about the same time, so they probably looked better than they were.

Madonna : Go away. The way she spent four minutes trying to get the crowd to sing 'Music Makes The People Come Together' was painful. Wasn't it obvious we didn't want to?

Snow Patrol: Decent enough, seemed like something broke during 'Run&' though, meaning it wasn't as good as it should have been. Still, better than Madonna, but not as hot as...

Joss Stone: Hot, good singer, but very disposable. Spent her set looking at her legs, thus have no idea what it was like.

Scissor Sisters: Beginning to lose interest...

The Killers: Mercifully stayed on for only one song. I hate this band. Interest = lost.

Velvet Revolver: SLASH! INTEREST = REVITALISED!!!! Slash is a fucking legend, and even if Scott Weiland pranced around the stage like a gimp for fifteen minutes, it couldn't detract from the fact that Slash himself was guitarist. At the end of their set, it was telling that the band got polite applause from the masses (who didn't really know who they were) but a massive cheer went up for Slash.

Sting:Another legend, but this guy never really interested me. Still, "Message in a Bottle" and "Every Breath You Take" are legendary tracks, and Sting, being the musician he is, pulled them off flawlessly. Crowd liked.

Mariah Carey: You suck. Get off the fucking stage. Only act all day and all night to be booed, as much for her lack of singing talent as for her shitty diva behaviour.

Robbie Williams : The worlds best showman at the worlds biggest show. Only one thing could happen, and it did. Carnage. 'Let Me Entertain You' got the crowd going more than any other song (weird considering it was billed as a "rock" concert) and 'Angels' was, of course, the biggest sing along of the entire day. What amazes me the most about Robbie, though, is that he continues to be the only man who can pull off a Queen cover. Very, very entertaining, and signalled the start of the awesome conclusion to the days proceedings.

The Who: How good? They look like your friendly uncles, but they rock like MOTHERFUCKERS still. Pete Townshend took the award from Slash for best guitarist of the day with this performance, but I feel kind of sorry for The Who. As amazing as they were, I just wanted them to get off stage because next up was...

Pink Floyd: This was the moment I had waited all day for. This was the moment I realised how long I had wanted to see this. Dave Gilmour, Nick Mason, Richard Wright, and most of all, Roger Waters. Pink Floyd, with their classic lineup together for the first time in over two decades, set about showing everybody under 25 exactly what they had missed by not being born. I don't really know how to describe the perfection of the moment; I'm sat here two days after hearing them, and the thought of one of the best bands ever to walk the earth playing, in the dark, before 200,000 people, is still giving me goosebumps. The best song of the entire Live 8 gig so far was 'Wish You Were Here'... it was STAGGERINGLY BRILLIANT. Then they played 'Comfortably Numb', and it was better. Better than the best thing I had ever seen on a stage. The brilliance of the band was summed up when Dave said "We had no rehearsal time, it was just assumed everyone remembered how the songs went". The fact that they not only remembered, but pulled off something incredible, is testament to the band. All we can do now is hope for them to tour, even if just once, with this lineup.

McCartney: Always was going to be an anti-climax after Pink Floyd, but what an awesome anticlimax. Never mind his age, 'Drive My Car', 'Get Back' and 'Helter Skelter' were played with all the gusto of a snotty nosed teenage punk moshing to the Pistols. All this was merely a setup for the "magical moment", the thing the whole event will be remembered by in future years. 'The Long and Winding Road' segued into 'Hey Jude', and everyone who performed all day joined Paul, and a randomly appearing George Michael, for the sing-along.

So the day overall? Started brilliantly, ended phenomenally, and left enough crap in the middle to make sure you could get fed and watered without missing anything good. It worked out brilliantly like that. We can only hope the G8 summit works out as perfectly.

Ben Johnston