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Here is my recap of the 12-12-12 Concert for Hurricane Sandy Relief recap, which almost didn't happen because I came really close to not watching it.  The basic reason why was when I heard that there would be a "Nirvana reunion with Paul McCartney" my soul died a little, but more on that in a minute.  If you missed the show, or just want to see how your impressions of it compare to mine, then here you go.

I did miss the start of the show, so there's no review/recap of Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, or Eddie Vedder and Roger Waters doing things together.  I don't think they actually sung together, I think it was just a short film of them doing every day activities like going to the grocery store.

I picked it up at the end of the Rolling Stones performance, and I just have to ask: are we sure Keith isn't dead?  HD is not his friend.  The roughly sixty seconds I heard sounded good though.

After the Stones was Alicia Keys.  She made sure to point out multiple times that New York is indeed her city.  Seriously, it's her city.  She also wants you to put your cell phone in the air for at least five minutes, so I hope you charged it up.  Okay, joking aside, she was really great.  Fun fact: she was the only female performer.  Not sure why.

Next up were The Who and they were FAN-TAS-TIC.  I literally had goose bumps from the first arm windmill all the way through the end.  Granted, they can't hit the high notes like they used to, but WHO CARES?!?  It was awesome!  They slipped two f-bombs by the censors too, which is always fun.

Kanye West came out next and almost broke Twitter.  He performed in - you ready for this? - a leather skirt with leggings underneath.  Not even kidding.  The audience seemed to be, shall we say less than enthusiastic, about Kanye and I'll let you figure out why.  My thoughts: dude is like Tom Cruise.  They may be fairly weird/obnoxious outside of their work, but they ALWAYS bring 100% to their performances, and Kanye brought it.  Great mix of hits and dude was crazy sweaty at the end.  I guess leather skirts don't breathe all that well.

Billy Joel came next and blew the place away.  Billy is, of course, a New Yorker so the crowd loved him before he sang a note.  Despite having half the hair and being twice the size he was twenty years ago (the same can be said about me), he can still sing.  Everyone on Twitter complained that he didn't play (insert song title here) so clearly he can put out like eight greatest hits albums, and that's impressive.

Chris Martin - not all of Coldplay mind you, just Chris - had to follow Billy Joel, and I felt bad for him.  He couldn't win.  He looked absolutely terrified, so he get second sweatiest of the night behind Kanye.  For his second song he brought out Michael Stipe from R.E.M. and they did "Losing My Religion" which was cool.  Other than that, all I can say about Chris Martin is that he was there.

Finally, we got Paul McCartney.  He came out and played "Helter Skelter" which was flat out awesome.  What I really enjoyed was that his performance was almost all upbeat songs.  It would have been really easy to do "Let It Be" given the circumstances - and no one would have complained - but he stayed positive, which I admired.  Let's cut to the big question: how did he do singing with Nirvana?

Flat.  Out.  Rocked it.

They did a song that the four of them (Paul, Dave Grohl, Krist Novocelic, and Pat Smear) had written together.  What was hilarious was how many people thought it was a "not very well known Nirvana song."  It wasn't, but it did kind of sound like Nirvana, and delighted me.  For the record: two of my all time favorite bands are The Beatles and Nirvana, and I'm very protective of both.  This mash-up had me way nervous, but it was great.

Nirvana left after the song, and Paul closed with "Live and Let Die" (AWESOME) and almost got blown up.  He was a little too close to the pyro, but he didn't miss a note.  I would have screamed and run away, but not Paul. That's why he's a knight and I'm not, I guess.

Overall I thought it was a great show that really did a good thing.  Most of us - myself included - just kind of assume it's over now, but as we saw with Katrina, this is a LOOOOOONG process of rebuilding.  Here is a great way to help:

You can pre-order the album of last night's concert on iTunes for $12.99.  The money will go straight to Robin Hood - the foundation the concert raised funds for - and will help with the rebuilding efforts.  It's a total win-win.  You get a couple hours worth of awesome music and you help out at the same time.