It was a busy weekend music wise, of course, what with T In The Park and the briefly aforementioned Oxegen Festival in Ireland. Plus, of course, there were the Live Earth concerts all over the world. A last minute addition of a Washington leg meant that the final concert count came in at nine, despite the previously reported cancellation of the Istanbul concert and some attempts to stop the Rio de Janeiro event.
There seems to have been mixed opinions in the media regarding the success of the event, perhaps unsurprising given the politics of it all (which is slightly more contentious than 'lets feed starving poor people' which, providing you don't go into the specifics of 'how, exactly?', is a pretty hard political agenda to oppose). Personally I think it was a huge success - I mean, the weather in London has been all kinds of screwy these last few weeks, whereas this morning it's a lovely summers day. Job done I say.
Speaking for the opposition, George Marshall of the Climate Outreach Information Network summarised much of what critics of the event had been saying when he told the BBC: "Having the richest people in the world saying, 'Hey! We all need to cut back a bit!' is, let's face it, absurd".
But Duran Duran's Simon Le Bon was keen to stress he wasn't a hypocrite, by asking his audience "Everyone who did not arrive on a private jet put your hands in the air", before raising his own hand.
Snow Patrol's Gary Lightbody, meanwhile, told Radio 1: "We're here to learn how to make our tours cleaner. We already offset our travel on our touring, but our shows themselves are quite far behind. We're not the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who've been offsetting for years - and more power to them".
Though none of that stopped several British newspapers focusing on the life and business empire of the headline act for the UK Live Earth gig - Madonna - who, with her nine houses, fleet of cars, private jet and production heavy Confessions tour, was described by the News Of The World as a "climate-change catastrophe". The Sunday Telegraph, meanwhile, reported on allegations that Madonna has financial links to a number of companies accused of being major polluters.
Madge's UK spokesman was unavailable for comment, but her US publicist said: "Madonna's agreeing to sing at the Live Earth Event is merely one of the first steps in her commitment towards being environmentally responsible".
Away from the politics, the Beeb were forced to apologise after both Johnny Borrell and that notorious swearer Phil Collins both sang lyrics containing the word 'fuck' on prime time BBC1, though compared to the Snoop Dogg 'mother fucker' incident at Live 8 it was hardly that big a deal. But Live Earth host Jonathan Ross apologised nevertheless. Though given that he then promised to give Collins and Borrell a "talking to", I'm not sure it was the world's sincerest apology.