Well, ummm… not exactly, but Sir Elton John, Patti LaBelle, Rufus Wainwright, and Brian Adams, put on on a terrific July 4th celebration here in Philly. I had to watch from home, but even from there, Patti LaBelle and Elton John were amazing. Turned out the concert had the duel purpose of celebrating our country’s birthday and raising awareness to fight HIV/AIDS. This angle of the concert was completely overshadowed by Live 8 arriving in town. In fact, until the concert, I didn’t know there was an HIV/AIDS awareness effort attached to this. Great job promoters. That didn’t seem to matter because it looked like the Parkway was packed yet again with concert goers.

Here is where to go to donate.

Oh, and unlike MTV’s coverage of Live 8, our local coverage of this concert was a-ok. No music interrupts. No cutting to commercial or to stupid commentators during songs. The music did the talking. Now if we could just get those amateurish audio problems solved. And why not have the Philly Pops play during the fireworks? It would have kicked ass.

So that’s two concerts on the Parkway, each way over a hundred thousand in attendance. Within three days time! Philly has every reason to be proud.

live8 philly