I Love the Internet

On Saturday night, I posted something about how great the U2/Mary J. Blige duet of "One" was at the "Shelter from the Storm" Hurricane Katrina telethon. Maybe you've heard something about the performance from someone else in the past two days; apparently, more than 23 million people watched it. Mary J. Blige totally revitalized that song, with the same kind of powerful, emotional performance she gave at the Grammy Awards in 2004 when she sang "No More Drama." In this case, saying it was a "typical" performance is a compliment.

Anyway, it took less than two days for my posting to be picked up at a blog-watching site and for someone I don't even know to send me a link to an MP3 of the performance. Amazing how the Internet works sometimes.

If you've got the bandwidth, I strongly suggest downloading this track. It's free. Just follow the link, scroll down to the very bottom, and click on the "free" button. Then scroll down to the bottom again, wait for the countdown clock in the next-to-last paragraph to expire, and click on the Download link. And if you go to this guy's site, you'll find other downloads from Friday's telethon, including Neil Young's "When God Made Me" and Foo Fighters' "Born on the Bayou," plus the "When the Saints Go Marching In" finale from last week's show.

In related news, have also found an MP3 of Kelly Clarkson performing the Ray LaMontagne song "Shelter," at the MTV/VH1/CMT telethon Saturday night. Want to hear? Just click on the link at this fan site, under the heading for "React Now: Music & Relief."

Ah yes, the Internet is a wonderful thing.