Live 8

I'm watching it now. It floors me that it was 20 years ago this month Live Aid took place. I remember watching much of it on TV and enjoying the cross section of pop and rock artists performing. All for a good cause.

But good intentions aside, there is something else wonderful about these multi-act gatherings. It becomes sort of a class picture of music as it is at a particular point in time. Woodstock, Altamont, Live Aid, later Woodstocks and now Live 8 all reveal a lot about what we are listening too and capture the artists as they are in a kind of time capsule. I'm thinking of buying the Live Aid DVD and if I do, I'm sure I'll be shocked by how young the artists look. At the time, of course, they were who they were and it wasn't a distraction. Looking back, we realized how they, and we, have aged. Some artists, who we took for granted at the time may no longer be recording or, worse, may have already passed on. It just reminds me how important it is to enjoy the now. Like John Lennon said, "Life is what happens when you're busy making plans."