Backstage Pass

OK, Sundance Channel, let's get it together. Right now, Rihanna is rocking out in Tokyo, but I've now sat through Wolfmother (on tape) and a slew of these pro-environment videos and Robert Redford commercials. Why aren't you live with her? She's closing out Tokyo, which will leave China as the only running show, so there will be plenty of time to fill soon.

[Man, "Breaking Dishes" is even better live than on record.]

While we're on the complaining tip, why can't the individual sets run without commercial interruption? Or at least without breaks between every song? There's no way a set can build up any steam. I'm hoping this isn't the way it will work the rest of the day or on the rest of the NBC/Universal family of cable networks.

[Rihanna is now sweetly covering Bob Marley's "Is This Love?" but Jack Johnson on tape is on Sundance.]

If this is how it's gonna work, more and more people -- especially the young ones -- are going to tune out and just watch it online. Don't forget the MTV mess-up of Live 8 in 2005, where all the talking heads and crazy cutting back and forth resulted in complaints and a huge do-over the following weekend (which was actually well done the second time.) Hopefully, NBC will learn from the others' mistakes.

PHOTO: Def Jam Records