The horror, the horror.
“Do They Know It’s Christmas 30” is here and it is, if anything, worse than the first one. They are both egocentric nasty nasty nasty pieces of work, but 1984 had David Bowie, Paul McCartney , Sting –you know, heavy weights to help out Geldof in the stargazing. In 2014? Bono is back though they ridiculously change the only smart line “Thank God it’s them instead of you” –the only glimpse of self awareness in the overbearing piece of blather, to the terrible “tonight we’re reaching out and turn to you”. Surely if they are reaching out why do they need to turn to? No No, please, I’m keen to guess.
It opens with the stars trickling in, you know, like a TMZ clip or something and soon Ed Sheeran, who should be banned from sincerity forever –one “The A Team” in a life is enough. is emoting and it doesn’t end till the end. Sam Smith and the bloke from Elbow, Chris Martin and Bono, and we aren’t two minutes in, have all done the worst work of their careers.
Ellie Golding followed by Sinead O’Connor, I guess some people are none to fond of Ellie because Sinead is the only one who sounds remotely good in the entire enterprise. Bono gets the hook. Boy bands get the bridge. Is that Ed Sheeran hugging Ellie, er no, in fact the two are miles apart as the anticlimactic “Do They Know It’s Christmas Time” brings it all back home –howling and screaming.
God bless Adele, who isn’t on the song because, as Geldof said to the Sun: “”Adele is doing nothing, she’s not answering the phone… she’s not writing, she’s not recording. She doesn’t want to be bothered by anyone. She won’t pick up the phone to her manager. She’s bringing up a family, you know.”
As The Guardian reports, a spokesperson for the singer has now said that Adele chose to support the cause with a donation, adding: “Bob and the organisers spoke directly with her management but at no point was she confirmed.”
Translation? Go fuck yourself.
I appreciate Geldof’s good intention (though isn’t Ebola over with now? What? Are we giving $50K a victim?) but not at this price. This is purely brutal. Feed the rich, torture the poor… 30 years later
Read em and weep:
Midge Ure
Clean Bandit
Sam Smith
One Direction
Ellie Goulding
Sinead O’Connor
Underworld
Roger Taylor
Paul Epworth
Ed Sheeran
Robert Plant
Disclosure
Olly Murs
Jimmy Napes
Elbow
Emeli Sande
Angélique Kidjo
Rita Ora
Paloma Faith
Chris Martin
Bono
Bastille
Jessie Ware
Fuse ODG
Seal
Grade: D
