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Call the “12-12-12” benefit show “The Concert for New York City” 2.0. Eleven years after the benefit concert in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was held at Madison Square Garden, many of the same top musicians came together to raise money for those suffering from Superstorm Sandy, including Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, Billy Joel, The Who, Eric Clapton and Bon Jovi.

Those singers set a serious tone Wednesday night, wearing mostly black and gray onstage as they encouraged people to call and donate money to those affected by the devastating storm that took place in late October, killing about 140 people and damaging millions of homes and properties in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and other areas.



Alicia Keys, who grew up in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen, closed the night with her New York anthem “Empire State of Mind,” as doctors, nurses, firefighters, police officers and others joined the piano-playing singer onstage. They ended the night chanting “U.S.A.”

Keys was one of two women who performed at “The Concert for Sandy Relief.” Diana Krall backed McCartney, who sang his solo songs, Beatles songs and played the role of Kurt Cobain with Nirvana members Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear during the nearly six-hour show.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band kicked off the night, performing songs like “My City of Ruins,” “Born to Run” with Bon Jovi and some of Tom Waits' “Jersey Girl.”

“I pray that that characteristic remains along the Jersey shore because that's what makes it special,” the New Jersey-born rocker said.

E Street band guitarist Steven Van Zandt said backstage that musicians and entertainers always show up when tragedy hits.

“It's more personal because literally the Jersey Shore is where we grew up … but we'd be here anyway,” he said. “You don't see oil companies here, you don't see insurance companies here, the Wall Street guys, with all due respect, they're not waiting in line to help anybody, so we're here.”

The sold-out show was televised live, streamed online, played on the radio and shown in theaters all over the world. Producers said up to 2 billion people were able to experience it live.

But the night wasn't all serious: Comedy helped break up the weightiness of Sandy's devastation, including jokes from Jon Stewart, Chris Rock, Stephen Colbert and Adam Sandler, who performed a hilarious parody of Leonard Cohen's “Hallelujah.” Even Coldplay's Chris Martin brought on the jokes.

“I know you really wanted One Direction,” Martin said of the popular British boy band. “But it's way past their bedtime.”

Martin was joined onstage by Michael Stipe, as they sang R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion.” And there was another collaboration with Roger Waters and Eddie Vedder on “Comfortably Numb.”

The participants, many natives of the area and others who know it well, struck a defiant tone in asking for help to rebuild sections of the New York metropolitan area devastated by the storm. About half of the performers were British.

“This has got to be the largest collection of old English musicians ever assembled in Madison Square Garden,” said Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones, who performed two songs. “If it rains in London, you've got to come and help us.”

Waters, who has lived in New York for 11 years, said “there's a great feeling of camaraderie” backstage and that he's excited he could help those who are suffering.

Most of the acts performed about four tunes. McCartney performed for 40 minutes and The Who were onstage for 30. They weaved Sandy into their set, showing pictures of storm devastation on video screens during “Pinball Wizard.” Pete Townshend made a quick revision to the lyrics of “Baba O'Riley,” changing “teenage wasteland” to “Sandy wasteland.”

Joel performed one of the last century's favorites, “New York State of Mind.” Joel's “Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)” sounded prescient, with new Sandy-fueled lyrics smoothly fitting in. He was also the only artist to mark the season, working in a little of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

Kanye West's performance gave the crowd a different sound, as the music lineup was heavily weighted toward classic rock, which has the type of fans able to afford a show for which ticket prices ranged from $150 to $2,500. Even with those prices, people with tickets have been offering them for more on broker sites such as StubHub, an attempt at profiteering that producers fumed was “despicable.”

To help with the fundraising, celebrities such as Kristen Stewart, Jake Gyllenhaal, Chelsea Clinton and Billy Crystal took part in a telethon during the concert.

Comedian Adam Sandler took the stage for a Sandy-themed spoof on Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," rhyming the title with "Sandy, Screw Ya!"

Backstage, actress Susan Sarandon recounted losing power in her New York home but said that was a small hardship compared with the real victims who lost their homes.

Proceeds will go to the Robin Hood Foundation, which said it raised $30 million from ticket sales and sponsors ahead of the concert. The organization also stressed that the earnings will get to those who need assistance.

“We will make sure that that money goes out right away to the most affected (places) in New York City, New Jersey, Long Island, Connecticut,” David Saltzman, the organization's executive director, said backstage. “The money that we raised from this concert will be distributed in the days, weeks and months, not years.”

The sold-out “12-12-12” concert was being shown on 37 television stations in the United States and more than 200 others worldwide. It was to be streamed on 30 websites, including YouTube and Yahoo. The theaters showing it included 27 in the New York region.
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I love Anne Hathaway. And it's not because she's a remarkably talented performer—though she is. It's because people like her could save Hollywood.

Hathaway has endured some of the worst impulses of the entertainment industry, and has flourished anyway. She's a solid actor and has a Metropolitan Opera-worthy voice. Still, Hollywood looked at the young and adorable Hathaway and decided she was most bankable as a Disney cutie. She did it—well, actually—but still managed to break out of the cute-girl mode and show her stuff as a well-rounded and nuanced performer. This is no small accomplishment, since Hollywood doesn't care if an actor grows professionally.

The town doesn't care about making art so much as it cares about making money, and keeping Hathaway in Disney sweetheart clothes until they replaced her with another pretty girl would be a predictable strategy. Hathaway smartly found ways to showcase the breadth of her talent before her princess expiration date.

Now, Hathaway is in the role of her career (so far), playing Fantine in the film Les Miserables. She had to diet her already small frame down to nothing for the role of a starving girl, and she refreshingly didn't tell magazines that gosh, she doesn't really like to diet and exercise, so she just gave up her daily In-and-Out burger and lo and behold, her weight got down to double digits. Hathaway lived off of unappetizing oat cakes to make weight, and she made no pretenses that it was easy.

At a premier recently, Hathaway fell victim to an unfortunate "wardrobe malfunction." She was wearing a close-fitting dress, apparently decided to forgo undergarments to keep from destroying the lines of the dress, and a photographer got a picture of her privates as she stepped out of a car.

The behavior of the photographer, who had no moral or ethical problem with selling the photo, is reprehensible. So it is even more impressive to note the response of Hathaway when she was on The Today Show:

It was obviously an unfortunate incident. It kind of made me sad that we live in an age when someone takes a picture of another person in a vulnerable moment and, rather than delete it, sells it. I'm sorry that we live in a culture that commodifies sexuality upon unwilling participants. Which brings us back to Les Mis because that's who my character is. She is someone who is forced to sell sex to benefit her child because she has nothing. So let's get back to Les Mis.

The fact that Hathaway was able to bring the question back to the reason she got up before the crack of dawn to begin with—to peddle the movie, as the studio expects her to do—was impressive. The fact that she drew attention to the boorishness of paparazzi—especially considering that they will be more predatory with uncooperative victims—is even more laudable.

Famous actors have always had to put up with a certain amount of unwanted attention (and some of it, of course, is indeed wanted). But the demand for embarrassing photos—and the high price paid for them—has turned photographers into professional harassers. It's not just the camera stuck directly into the face. It's the paparazzi who scream insults at a female actor, trying to provoke the man she is with, so they can get him on camera doing or saying something angry in response. It makes for a better photo and more money.

Hathaway was a money-maker for Hollywood as a Disney princess. Now that she's shown how much more she can do, she's a money-maker for the paparazzi hoping to get an embarrassing picture of her. The only people who should be embarrassed are those who feed off other people's celebrity. The rest of us should look forward to plunking down 12 bucks to hear Hathaway's captivating voice on screen.

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Whoopsies!

Hollywood sweetheart Anne Hathaway could probably use some sympathy after her mortifying wardrobe malfunction earlier this week, but she wasn’t getting any from Matt Lauer during her Wednesday “Today” show appearance.

“We’ve seen a lot of you lately,” Lauer quipped as he opened the segment with the actress, who was there to talk about her performance in “Les Miserables.”

Lauer was referring to a moment on Monday night that Anne is likely trying to forget, when she hopped out of a car at the “Les Mis” premiere and flashed photographers sans underwear.

“I’d be happy to stay home,” an embarrassed Hathaway said. “But the film…

"It was obviously an unfortunate incident," she continued. "It kind of made me sad on two accounts. One was that I was very sad that we live in an age when someone takes a picture of another person in a vulnerable moment and rather than delete it--and do the decent thing--sells it. And I’m sorry that we live in a culture that commodifies sexuality of unwilling participants, which brings us back to 'Les Mis,' that's what my character is, she is someone who is forced to sell sex to benefit her child because she has nothing and there's no social safety net.

“Yeah so let’s get back to ‘Les Mis,’” the actress concluded.

Hathaway’s creative turn of Lauer’s question didn’t go unnoticed, and though she seemed somewhat unfazed by the tough question, her fans immediately came to her defense. Viewers seemed to widely agree that Lauer took it too far both with his question and his joke.

“Props to Anne Hathaway for standing up to Matt Lauer and his inappropriate line of questioning,” one user wrote on Twitter.

“Who treats Anne Hathaway like that??? She’s a lady. She [should have] slapped Matt Lauer…” another fumed.

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 A set of letters written by Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger to a secret lover in the late 1960s sold big at a London auction Wednesday, with a buyer dropping more than 187,250 pounds ($301,000) on the notes.
The collection of 10 letters, dated from the summer of 1969 (when Jagger was just 25), were on the auction block at Sotheby's in London.

Jagger’s love notes were written to the American-born singer Marsha Hunt while he was in Australia filming "Ned Kelly."

Hunt, believed to be the inspiration for the band's 1971 hit "Brown Sugar," put the notes -- which included song lyrics and a Rolling Stones playlist -- up for sale because “the passage of time has given these letters a place in our cultural history,” according to the Guardian newspaper. She also said she needed the cash to pay bills.

Jagger's relationship with Hunt was largely kept secret. In 1970, she gave birth to the rock star's first child, Karis Jagger Hunt.

As for the buyer? It’s reported to be a private collector.

Below, watch a clip of the band performing "Brown Sugar" in 1971

Mick Jagger has many Twitter users crying foul when he seemingly compared Hurricane Sandy to rain during the "12-12-12" Sandy benefit concert at Madison Square Garden Thursday.

Twitter users got no satisfaction from Mick Jagger Wednesday night after the Rolling Stones front man cracked a joke about Hurricane Sandy during the 12-12-12 Concert for Sandy Relief.

During the band’s two-song set, Jagger had many fans fuming when he seemingly compared the deadly storm to just a bit of bad weather, CBS New York reported.

“This has got to be the largest collection of old English musicians ever assembled in Madison Square Garden,” he said. “But I’ve got to say, if it rains in London, you’ve got to come and help us, OK?”

Many shocked fans hit the 140-character platform to blast the British rocker’s poorly drawn comparison.

The Rolling Stone frontman and Keith Richards rock out on stage at Madison Square Garden. 
“He know it was more than rain, right?” @jimmyrooster tweeted.

“Not gonna lie when jagger said "better help us out if it ever rains in England" I got a little angry,” @mcavs wrote.

“did jagger just say if it rains in london we have to help them? we bailed them out in WW2. REMEMBER? You're welcome,” @naflotteron added.

But the Stones didn’t seem to notice the controversy.

A social media account for the famed band tweeted out the quote that evening – and even Jagger later tweeted about how well the concert went.

The famed British band played two songs, "You Got Me Rocking" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash." 
“#121212concert had a great time at#madisonsquare really good crowd and wonderful atmosphere now home watching #indiavsengland #testmatch,” @MickJagger wrote, referring to a cricket match between India and England.

Indeed, some fans simply laughed off the questionable remark.

“In Jagger's defense, doesn't it always rain in London? (or fog)... I think it was just a joke, relax, and focus on Kanye, LoL!” @JerseyJ0E wrote.

Jagger wasn’t in New York during the superstorm, which claimed at least 125 lives and left over $70 billion worth of damage in its wake.

However, he said in an interview before Wednesday’s show that his apartment was flooded with 2 feet of water.

Innocent Barbados man walks free after two women convinced that police had got the wrong man sprang to his defence

The "Sirvana" performance at the Hurricane Sandy benefit concert successfully trolled the internet—and then turned out to be a well-rehearsed show by seasoned performers.


In the hours before Wednesday's "12-12-12" Sandy benefit concert, a disproportionate amount of the internet's workday was spent devising portmanteaus for the announced collaboration between Paul McCartney and two-thirds of the classic Nirvana lineup: drummer Dave Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic. (Pat Smear, a onetime Germ—and sometime Nirvana and Foo Fighters touring guitarist—also rounded out the group.)


 McVana. Sirvana. You get the idea.

Part of the web-froth was no doubt due to a background suspicion or hope that these boldface names would somehow botch the job of tending to their respective legacies. Self-appointed Nirvana priests rended garments; how dare the bandmembers sully their legacy by ... collaborating with a Beatle? There were some LOLs over a weird-sounding bit of McCartney's promotional patter that made it sound as if he didn't know anything about Nirvana—as though Macca had been old and out-of-it for decades—mostly seized on by people you'd have to expect missed out on Sir Paul's last several strong recordings. (One of those, Electric Arguments, by his side project The Firemen, rocked harder than most of 2008's critical darlings).

As it happened, the mates didn't just happen to get together "to jam." They had already produced a new song, "Cut Me Some Slack," which (carelessly cliché title and all) was closer to the living solo-McCartney blueprint than Nirvana's impossible-to-recapture one. Outside of its potential charity-donation impact, you'd be hard pressed to call the track life-changing. But it was more than acceptable. Like many of McCartney's recent good-but-not great projects, there were minor delights to be found in it.

McCartney brought you your blues courtesy of an electric slide-guitar part, while Grohl pushed the medium-tempo groove with unflagging energy (and a particularly strong finish). Novoselic's bass part featured a stray figure that periodically moved away from Macca's line in a way that recalled Nirvana's adventurism in the search of new riffs, but it wasn't as though you could close your eyes and trick yourself into thinking it was the old band up there. How could it be so? The musicians knew this, and played their way around it, even as they talked of a "Nirvana reunion."

The Internet probably should have expected this modicum of competence from these artists. In recent years, Sir Paul has specialized in well-considered collaborations with his juniors that might at first blush have seemed ill-advised. The Electric Arguments record was his third in collaboration with the musician Youth. And when McCartney announced, in 2005, that he had been working with Radiohead and Beck producer Nigel Godrich, you could almost hear people whispering "stunt" along the sidelines. But rather than delivering some trend-chasing flop, McCartney gave us the modest accomplishments of Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, an album that recalled of the small-scale charms of his first solo outing more than it did any of Godrich's other recording clients.

Likewise, from the erstwhile-Nirvana camp, a presumption of sagacity might have easily applied in this case. (Whatever else you think of Foo Fighters, it's clear Grohl has been one of rock's most reliable pros.) Despite McCartney's on-stage patter about his jam-mates not having played together in oh-so-many seasons—"And in the middle of [jamming] these guys kept sayin', you know, well, 'we haven't played together for years, you know?'"—this was actually the second time so far this decade that Novoselic and Grohl collaborated on a new song.

All the way back in 2011, Novoselic appeared with Grohl's Foo Fighters on the song "I Should Have Known." The unveiling of his presence is (rightly) treated like a momentous occasion, appearing as it does after a couple verses and choruses of bland, modern-rock-radio moodiness. The moment of overdrive comes at the 2:53 mark, when Novoselic's part is highlighted with a dry layer of distortion that harkens back to the crisp aggression of '80s-era hardcore bands that Kurt Cobain and his bass player once bonded over. The song itself has proved less immediately memorable than their new McCartney-co-written number, but as far as shadows of the old Nirvana energy go, it's the more convincing ghost by far.

For all the "Nirvana reunion" buzz of the charity one-off promotion, the real story here might be how little this was about Nirvana. Afterward, Grohl confirmed that the WTF-generating quartet was not even a spontaneous, Sandy-reactive entity; they'd actually written and recorded this song in one studio rehearsal day about half a year ago, as part of a documentary Grohl has been working on.

That helped explain why the performance wasn't a disaster. While it would hardly have served the requirements of pre-game drama, it turns out "noted professionals to debut a well-workshopped number" would have been the more accurate news for the web to chew over during the day. But then, the web doesn't thrive on stories of basic workmanlike competence. The quality of a new song aside, it's better, if you can manage it, to stir up a culturally conservative backlash based on sacred-cow guarding and debates about the inviolability of the canon. That McCartney and the surviving members of Nirvana knew exactly how to do that just means that they've adapted to yet another era of pop.

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