So here we are, entering the final furlong of this marathon event, having watched countless top pop stars save the planet through rocking out, we've only two and a half hours of planet-saving stadiumised entertainment to go, and then the polar ice caps will be magically rubbed better. Yay!
It's been a marathon of live-blogging here on Guardian Unlimited too. The lovely Rosie Swash took you through the early stages, Alex Needham was with us in the dark times (of David Gray), Jon Wilde sparkled as ever, albeit through gritted teeth, and the marvellous Janine Gibson has been your guide for the star-packed last few hours, and I'll be with you to the bitter end. Hello.
9.20 So, what's going on? Oh, it's the Foo Fighters. Beard your blues away, and rock climate change away!
9.28: Though the Foo Fighters and I have never been close pals, they being quite shouty, I quite delicate and frail, I cannot deny that they're absolutely rocking Wembley. The audience, having been reasonably sedate for around 9 hours, seem to have found their lungs, and are roaring away happily.
And Dave Grohl looks more and more every day like Earl (of My Name Is fame), so I can turn the volume down a little and try and imagine just what the plot of THIS episode might be.
9.33: Dave, having introduced Times Like These with a bizarre little poem, he's now back to between-song banter that the crowd feel more comfortable with. Much more comfortable, in fact.
"I wanna play all night now! Shall we play all night?" "YES!" say the crowd, as one. "Please, Dave, for the love of god, don't leave us! Snow Patrol might come back!" they are shouting, in unison, all hundred thousand of them or whatever, in a deafening chorus "And they give us the creeps, Dave, they kind of do! Though not as much as that David Grey fella... Ooooh, *shudder*"
Cripes, I don't know where they got this rent-a-crowd, but they are TIGHT.
The Foo Fighters ("The Foos"? That sounds ridiculous) are crowd pleasing with 'Best of You', which was dedicated to "You know who" - though I haven't a clue. Who. Quite pleased that it made a nice little rhyming sentence, mind.
9.43: Mr Grohl has stopped shouting, which I like him for, and the lights are lowered (which is kind of good for the environment if they're just switched some of them off, but NOT good for the environment if they've got one of those fancy dimmer switches like my piano teacher did).
So we're getting to see all the Foo Fighters set, it seems, which is good, as they're extermely tight, and weirdly, like Rosie in the comment box below (hello!), I'm suddenly discovering I'm a bit of a fan. Which is odd, as I wasn't about ten minutes ago.
So what, is it just them for a while and then Madge for ages? Well, I can cope with...
Oh, hang on, that's torn it, as soon as I typed that he said 'Good night London!' and buggered off.
9.26: The BBC's Environment correspondent, who I'm going to call Graham, is being quite involved and perhaps quite partisan about the whole climate change thing. Or is he? I can't tell and don't really care, it's bloody dry, anyway.
Jonathan Ross has just informed me that there is just one planet earth, and it's our home. Thanks Jonathan. If we can just clear up the small matter of which planet your eyebrows are from, we can finally rest. Ooooh, penguins.
9.52: The Pussycat Dolls are on the sofa, lined up, looking remarkably more ropey close up than they do from far off, and Jonathan Ross, Chris Moyles and Graham Norton are on the other. While Ross bumbles, caling Schwarzenegger the Mayor of California and other, Norton mops up behind him, and Moyles sits dumb-founded between the two, looking for all the world like a puppet with no godlike hand to power him.
Quick, someone tell the producers to stick a hand up Chris Moyles' bottom immediately, he's dying up there.
There seems to be a film about polar bears and real estate, which is supposed to be amusing and poignant, but instead seems to be obvious, and long, and getting between us and our Madge.
So let me get this right - is Madonna going to be on for two hours? What more could there possibly be? Who could possibly follow? What's going on?
9.57: I was told we were getting the handy bendy queen of pop, and instead, I have Terence Stamp, quite literally droning. Drone drone drone. Like a big bumble bee. Nono, you know who you need when you want to deliver a message like this? Brian Bloody Blessed. THAT's who you need.
Big corporations are a problem, apparently. Says the big bee.
10.00: OH! Wembley's having a moment of darkness! So Will I! I'm going to turn off all my lights, and the computer. And turn the television off. I will be back when they are.
10.02:
10.03:
10.04:
10.05: Whoops. There was an obvious flaw to that plan. I clearly didn't think it through.
Now switched back on, and Madonna seems to be half way through a song. Or, in fact, at the end of her set, which is usually when you wheel the school-kids choir out, isn't it? Well, that and Christmas.
I like Madonna's dress.
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It's really nice.
10.08: And maybe I have spoken too soon. Thinking the gorgeous demure black number sported by her madgeness might stay that way the whole set is clearly too much to hope for. As MrsEmmaPeel points out in the coments, she's got some legging things going on under there. And a leotard, no doubt.
And RAy of Light, for which Madonna, not in a dancing mood, has donned an electric guitar, and is sticking her tongue out the side of her mouth as she tries to remember the chords. You watch, she'll start singing them instead of the actual words in a minute...
"Anna Friel, like I've just got D, Anna Friel, A minor, G, oh BOTHER..." Etc.
10.12: Madge has got those nice boys from The Hives to dance for her, and they're goosstepping around the stage, black shirts and white ties strapped to their bodies. I *think* there was just a bit of one armed saluting, but I think it's alright contextually as it's just the natural next natural step on from Vogueing.
10.15: Between Ray of Light and La Ista Bonita, Madonna thanks her friend Al (Gore) and says that global warming is bad.
"While we're on the subject of global warming, I'd like to introduce my Romany Gypsy friends..."
What, love? Well, we all know who Madge is blaming.
10.21: A long, perplexing version of "The Island of Good Eaters", with Madge all Eastern-Europicised, backed by Gogol Bordello. It's good, kind of, but there's a lot of random 'HOY'ing and 'HA!'ing, and as Gretchinthecity comments below: "Is it me or is this version of La Isla Bonita coming off as a Eurovision entry?"
Not just you. And CERTAINLY doesn't help that it segues straight into that one with the ABBA sample. Um. Hung up! With the sample from Gimme Gimme Gimme.
See? I can do music if I try!
Madonnas whipped her nice skirt off, and is now stood there in front of a big crowd of thousands of people with only shiny long johns on.
I've had that dream too.
10.26: Jesus. She's going to be 50 next year. Look at those f***ing legs. I'm going to be short, round and dumpy by then, with grey pubes and cellulite for Africa. Sigh. Damn her, she looks amazing.
As demonstrated by a mighty meaty handjive, though, she has got bingo wings. You can run, but you can't hide, Madge, sweetheart. Age gets us all in the end.
Well, that or climate change.
10.30: After a storming bouncy rendition of Hung Up, in which she neither plays the guitar, the romany or the ecowarrior, settling jsut for playing the Queen of Pop, as she does so well etc, there's a raggedy curtain call, and she sends us over to New York.
Um. Is that it? But I've only had an hour, and I've been waiting for this all bloody day! No fair!
Damnit, I'm staying for the New York bit after the news. And over to BBC3 for T In The Park until then, say I!
10.37: Over on BBC3 (I tell you, I'm waiting out the news and then covering whatever the hell they're showing from 11-12, I have a commission, goddamnit) My Chemical Romance are pleasing the Scots at T in the Park.
See, theyre good, musically, but sadly, they're clearly ecologically evil, because they're not at the same concert as we've been at, so we'll give the Chemical Romance boys 8 for musical effort and 2 Gore Points.
10.41: Apparently Live Earth Aid is carrying on via the medium of red button during the news, but I don't have a box clever enough to deal with anything as complex as the pleasures of red button-ness, so am stuck watching My Chemical Romance. Dressed all in black with black hair, and nails, and make up, they cut a dramatic figure in the bright afternoon sun, against the dark dark background of the stage. No, they don't. If we're not in close up you can't see them at all. Rubbish.
But, close up, they're quite winning, as ever. Even quite jolly. You know that new Irn Bru advert with the Goths being all happy and going for a holiday to the seaside? Yeah, well, it's that. EXACTLY that.
10.46: JosephKern's just informed me in the comments that it doesn't go on till 12, it goes on till 4am.
Hm. Am dedicated and determined, but not THAT dedicated. I go on till 12.
After getting led off and watching the news for a bit, back to BBC3. I'm squinting, and trying VERY hard to have my best music head on, but am lost. It's Simple Minds, is it?
10.49: Ah no, it's The Killers, sorry.
The Killers, and, I have to say, an awful lot of dry ice. Which is Very Bad for the environment indeed.
You know how they make dry ice? it is a chemical process which takes polar ice caps, and dessicates them, like enormous coconuts, then feeds them through those hoses in a fine powder.
It's terrible. You know who's to blame for climate change? Fucking Simple Minds.
No, sorry, the Killers.
Oh, and Bonnie Tyler.
1055: The Killers are singing that song about having soul but not being a soldier, which is an interesting philosophical premise. Rather than raise the energy to discuss it, mind, I am led off by the giant ferris wheel they have at T at The Park.
See, Wembley didn't have a ferris wheel, did it? And they're not ecologically bad at all. Well, not if you have enough hamsters, anyway.
I'm always wary of ferris wheels at festivals, though, after hearing one too many stories about drunken high people getting woozy and losing their doughnuts over the waiting queue below.
The lead singer of the Killers looks like a mild mannered Latin master.
Is Earth Aid back on yet?
11.03: Back to Live Earth! Live from Jo'burg, apparently.
There's someone with purple hair and gargantuan backing singers singing soul, so I assumed it must be our very own Joss Stone. But then she opened her mouth and out popped a born-and-raised down-home-USA accent, so yes, yes it is.
She does have a voice, I will give her that, but something about Ms Stone rankles, and always has. I just wish she sang something a little more ballsy than early-eighties Motown, I suppose.
Oh, and that she wasn't so annoying. As someone wise once said, she's like the pretty girl in school who got all the lead parts in all the plays and could never hide the fact that she was all smug about it.
11.11: Hang on, this is a highlights show. This is Crowded House from earlier in the day.
Bugger this for a plate of eggy dippers, I thought we were going to the live show in New York! I'm not staying sober on a Saturday night for a clips show, that's for damn sure.
Righ, one good song, just let me see one good song, and then I'll stop.
11.14: Now that's what I'm talking about. Speak of the One-Good-Song-devil, and she/it shall appear. Sorry, that didn't work at all. And it sounded like 'shit shall appear'. Um.
SOS by Rhianna! Now THAT's a pop song. But live? Well, ouch. A bit. But no matter, it fulfils my criterion.
I'm off. Thank you and good night.
[Presumptuously, on behalf of all the Arts Blog bloggerers this afternoon, I'd like to say thanks to everyone who has taken the time to read, comment and contribute today. Now stop repeat-boiling the kettle for fun and go and turn your lights out. All of them. Go on. Al said.]
