The Living Rockumentary

What a weird Grammys. Prince, whose performance kicked off the show, was both restrained and explosive, looking and sounding amazing with Beyonce by his side. Maybe the little guy will make a grand comeback this year and my 30+ Prince cd collection won't look quite so silly. A whole bunch of uninspired performances followed, especially the Beatles' tribute with Sting, Dave Matthews, Vince Gill and Pharell Williams. When the highlight of a tribute to the Beatles is watching the drummer, it's pretty bad. The White Stripes were wild and exciting, an energy matched later in the show by the pairings of Justin Timberlake and Arturo Sandoval (spicy), then Chick Corea and the Foo Fighters (strange). This seemed to be the Grammys' only method of showcasing jazz lions: stick 'em next to a young, hip pop artist and hope for the best. Dave Grohl is looking especially like Clapton these days, but sounding more like Bon Jovi. I would have picked Coldplay (who won best album production, and who had the best quip of the night: "this is for John Kerry, who I hope will be your next president") as a much more interesting band to work with Corea.

The funk extravaganza was lots of fun to watch, especially for a bassist. Earth Wind and Fire had a muppet on bass. Robert Randolph, who I was unfamiliar with, channeled Fishbone and featured an amazing bassist. George Clinton and the P-Funk crowd were disappointing, but at least Bootsy was in tow. Outkast were smashing, although we had to sit through the excruciatingly boring speech by the president of the RIAA to get to "Hey Ya". Our boys in Fountains Of Wayne didn't win, sigh, but we did see Chris and Linda in the audience. Sarah Mclachlan wore the ugliest dress; Sting wore the most elegant. Dead people (June Cash, Warren Zevon) won, as well as a stroke victim (Luther Vandross). Bands who will soon be forgotten in place of their frontwomen: No Doubt, Evanesence. Funniest moment: when Celine Dion couldn't get her mic to work (though I'm sure we were also watching a bunch of people being fired on the spot). Ok, that wasn't as funny as the RIAA's new 'education center', whatsthedownload.com. Guaranteed to be the most ignored website in America.