Mick Jagger | Sting
Mick M.I.A. at Live 8; Styler Wins $30K Bet
So much more to report from the London Live 8 concert, both from backstage and all around.
But the big question remains: What happened to Mick Jagger?
He was supposed to appear at the end of the show with Paul McCartney. But Jagger was a complete no-show, never setting foot in Hyde Park.
McCartney, meanwhile, changed his planned set at the last minute, adding “Drive My Car,” with George Michael on vocals, and “Helter Skelter.”
The latter was a surprise and a weird choice, since it was embraced by monstrous serial killer Charles Manson.
I know McCartney likes people to think he’s edgy, but really, “Long Tall Sally” would have been better suited to the occasion.
So what of Mick? He was seen in the first-class section of a New York-to-London flight earlier in the week, working hard on a laptop computer.
Maybe he’s finally remembered enough anecdotes to put together an autobiography. Or he’s putting the finishing touches on the new Stones album.
In any case, I’m told he was very amused by the goings-on in his first-class cabin concerning our very own Mariah Carey.
Now, mind you, at Live 8 I had an extremely pleasant time with Carey in her dressing-room area, where she entertained fans seeking autographs, as well as Snoop Dogg and the legendary Charlie Wilson of the Gap Band.
She also played hostess to Bob Geldof, who stopped in to thank her for coming such a long distance. (Carey had a July 4th gig in the U.S. that she couldn’t miss, which meant an instant turnaround.)
Here’s the thing about Mariah: She is a diva, and she doesn’t even know it.
While I sat with her, she sent back her spaghetti-and-meat-sauce dinner three times — because it had cheese on it.
It’s not like she’s allergic to cheese, either. It’s that she could smell that the grated parmesan came from a jar and wasn’t fresh. (“It’s a thing I’ve had since fourth grade,” she said.) It was kind of hilarious.
On the other hand, Mariah’s performance at Live 8 was, I thought, spectacular. And by the way, did you notice that Randy Jackson of “American Idol” fame, her longtime producer, was her bandleader for the night?
On “Hero,” Mariah went into what I would call a triple lutz, a complicated, fluttering note that sent goosebumps into the audience. The British fans loved her, no matter what their critics say. I was standing in the middle of a crowd, including Oscar-winning actress Faye Dunaway, that could not get enough of her.
But Mariah is Mariah. She was supposed to sing “Vision of Love,” not “Hero,” but changed her mind at the last minute.
The reason? She told me she wanted to accommodate the African Children’s Choir, and with “Hero” they could get more singing time.
And Carey — unlike Madonna and many other stars — stuck around and participated in the big finale. She gets credit for that in abundance.
But I digress. Back on the flight, where Mick was furiously word-processing, Carey — my spies reveal — did not like the placement of her first-class seat.
She felt on inspection that Jeff Kwatinetz, owner of the Hollywood management company The Firm, had the better set-up. So she politely asked if she could change with him.
Kwatinetz was sitting with his colleague, Peter Katsis, who complied with Carey. That left the singer sitting with Kwatinetz for six hours, while her own manager — the incomparable Benny Medina — was left to his own devices.
Making Mariah’s presence in the first-class section even more interesting was her personal entourage, who apparently did not leave her unattended for a minute of the six-hour flight.
“Even Mick looked a little shocked that there was always a circle of people around Mariah,” my spy observed. A circle — and a cloud of powder.
Mariah, meantime, gets the last laugh. She has the No. 1 album of the summer, two hit singles (and maybe two or three more to come) and can look forward to a passel of Grammy nominations and lots of other less reputable but highly publicize-able awards when the fall season kicks in.
She’s off to the island of Capri for part of the summer, but not before Island/DefJam’s L.A. Reid charters a yacht for her, Medina, their gang and his family to float around the Mediterranean and celebrate “The Emancipation of Mimi.”
I just hope Benny checks later to make the boat isn’t charged against the album. And that Jeff Kwatinetz isn’t one of the waiters.
Sting and Trudie: Money on the Right Horse
The outdoor encampment backstage at Hyde Park on Saturday was really a series of temporary huts that turned into mini-villages, each reigned over by a different monarch. You had to check the signs on the doors of each one to see whose country you’d stumbled into.
Of course, the most fun kingdom belonged to Sting and Trudie Styler, who’d actually set up a circle of plastic chairs in front of their hut for the purposes of entertaining.
Their guest of honor was none other than Bill Gates, who was rumored to have underwritten a sizeable chunk of the day’s events. This might have accounted for Geldof’s onstage introduction of him as “the greatest philanthropist of all time.”
At Casa Sting, however, Gates seemed the normal drop-in neighbor, wearing a light blue polo shirt, chinos and tennis sneakers.
Styler, the rock-and-roll equivalent of Dorothy Parker, immediately got him into an informal interview to find about more about him. It wasn’t so easy to hear, since on the other side of me I had Sir Ian McKellen and Sting in their own chat, not to mention Annie Lennox in the background.
Eventually, though, we learned that Gates had been good in school “in math and science.”
I told him that Windows Media 10 had recently recognized my digital camera on its own, without any other software.
“It works?” he said. “That’s good to hear.” He looked relieved. “Thank you.”
After Gates left, though, we got the big headline of the day. It turns out the ever enterprising Styler won $30,000 on the Kentucky Derby first-place-finish horse, Giacomo.
She’d bet $600 on the long shot because owner Jerry Moss — for whose record company, A&M, Sting recorded until it was sold — had named the 3-year-old horse for the couple’s 9-year-old son. The horse was listed at 50-to-1 odds.
Trudie’s winnings will no doubt be reinvested in either the Rainforest Foundation, a Gaultier couture outfit or a combination of the two.
Sting, meantime, gave one of the strongest and most passionate performances of the Hyde Park event, performing the same three songs he played 20 years ago at Live Aid: “Message in a Bottle,” “Driven to Tears” and “Every Breath You Take.”
The song choices made the most sense politically, and he and his group delivered them as if they were newly relevant and deeply felt.
There’s a great picture of Sting on stage — arms outstretched with pleasure, head cocked back and looking like’s about to fly — that’s circulating on the wires.
You can see what he meant when he told me later, “It was like falling down an elevator shaft and waking up afterward.”
Leave a Reply