Fergie was in; Ricky Gervais was out. Nelly Furtado was in; Lily Allen was out. So were Kanye West, Bryan Ferry, and the English National Ballet — at least in NBC's world, where their much-touted highlight broadcast of last night's "Concert For Diana" was an incomplete, seemingly random selection of acts from the full 6-plus hour programme. Hosted by Matt Lauer in the spirit of the Thanksgiving Day Parade (think glib, goofy puns and forced segues), the hour-long event was basically a straight cut-and-paste job of performances by Elton John, Duran Duran, Fergie, Rod Stewart, Nelly Furtado, P. Diddy, Joss Stone and Tom Jones — an impressive lineup but actually representing a fraction of who else crossed the stage. There wasn't even a brief news report about what other artists performed or what other features were mounted. If this was part of the deal to score that interview with the Princes, we'd say their royal Highnesses got royally screwed.

Case in point: According to Lauer, the show opened with Elton John performing "Your Song" against a backdrop of a smiling Princess Diana, who would have turned 46 yesterday, before welcoming Prince William and Prince Harry to the stage. "This evening is about all that our mother loved in life: her music, her dance, her charities, her family and friends," said William to the crowd — not that the crowd at home watching NBC would know what those were, since none of her charities were named and "her dance," presumably performed by the English National Ballet, was not included in the broadcast.

Also not included — but shown in real-time on VH1, unedited — were presenters like Dennis Hopper and Sienna Miller introducing Lily Allen and Ben Stiller introducing Ricky Gervais — only the creator of one of the network's top shows — who, according to ETP afternoon-television correspondent Michelle Kung apparently killed time for a late Elton finale by doing his famously loose-limbed 'David Brent' dance and teasing Harry about how his army mates are apparently not allowed to curse in front of him. NBC also did not show, highlight or otherwise refer to the "Diana & Me" segments that ran throughout the day, pre-recorded segments wherein regular citizens spoke about how Diana had touched their lives (Kung cites the example of deaf citizens signing about Diana learning sign language, with clips — way to remember her good works, NBC!).

What NBC did show: Joss Stone and Tom Jones (but, alas, no Jones covering the Arctic Monkeys); Duran Duran; Elton John opening and closing; Fergie with the word "Glamorous" shilling for her single and arguably about as incongruous as that word could ever be applied to her, considering the juxtaposition; Rod Stewart in a very girly scarf looking bizarrely like Hillary Clinton (seriously, it's true, look here and here too &mdash); Nelly Furtado (who apparently sang the super-appropriate "Maneater"); and P. Diddy in a should-have-been-over-the-top- mawkish-but-was-actually- surprisingly-compelling performance of "I'll Be Missing You." Perhaps in a kneejerk attempt to form habit, NBC cut Kanye West's "Gold Digger" (even with the airwaves-appropriate "broke/broke" line). In place of the other acts, NBC viewers were treated to cutting-edge analysis from Lauer, like "It's one of the eternal questions of pop music: Do ya think I'm sexy?" Clearly he was there on behalf of NBC's entertainment, not news, division. One hopes.

NBC also showed the never-before seen footage from Diana's childhood of a toddler and little girl from long ago — though it was definitely moving, it likely could have used a touch more editing, as elaborated on below.

Other odd moments, shown above, included John's "Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting" — perhaps a weird choice given that the fatal crash that took Diana's life occurred after a Saturday night on the town.

Perhaps the cruelest and most uncaring edit on NBC's part was to provide no answer to the question on everyone's mind: Did Kate Middleton end up joining Wills in the family box? Alas, the NBC viewer was teased, with shots of Wills and Kate each, both forlorn and alone amongst friends, even while Harry made quick work of drawing bombshell girlfriend Chelsy Davy to his side (see vid above and pics below). That, however, is all NBC showed; only the next morning, with the help of Google, was ETP able to ascertain that, yes, Middleton did join the Prince (YAY! THEY STILL LOVE EACH OTHER!). For NBC to leave that all-important detail up in the air is just frankly shoddy journalism, or even shoddy event coverage.

The nicest part of the show was arguably seeing the Princes so publicly at ease, in general and with their mother's memory, relaxed enough to shout out "Hello Wembley!" (Harry) and to wish the crowd an "awesome" time (William) but nervous enough to both surreptitiously be reading off a palmed sheet of paper. Harry's introductory shout-out to his squadron in Iraq was also genuine and warm, an example of what The Guardian called a "tiny, breathtaking flash of their mother's spontaneous capacity to connect."

In other news, apparently Nick Rhodes needed a little prompt on "Rio," their 20-plus year-old hit;

Though Simon Le Bon is still pretty damn bon, former pretty-boy John Taylor shows that wild boys do, in fact, lose it;

Scrambled eggs, oh my darling, Joss Stone has lovely legs;

And, once again, we think that newsreel of footage of the childhood Diana could have used a touch more editing.

Comments for this post are now closed