5 Live Aid (pt II) Concerts/ JULY 2005

[Slim K team]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4597363.stm

Live Aid (pt II)/ JULY 2005
^{by By Ian Youngs /BBC News entertainment reporter}

New Live Aid concerts under the Live 8 banner are happening ahead of the G8 summit in July - 20 years after the original Live Aid and weeks after organiser Bob Geldof said another one would happen "over my dead body".


^{Bob Geldof (right), Midge Ure (centre) and Elton John are involved}

Until now, Geldof has refused to repeat the events of 1985, when the first Live Aid was part of the campaign to combat famine in Ethiopia.

That event was "almost perfect in what it achieved", Geldof said.

"I couldn't see how anything could possibly be better than that glorious day 20 years ago."

But the situation in Africa has not improved and there is now a "unique opportunity" to permanently solve the problem, he says.

Top of Geldof's reasons for returning are figures that estimate 50,000 people in Africa die unnecessarily every day as a result of extreme poverty.

It would take the G8 world leaders - from the world's leading industrialised nations plus Russia - "moments" to solve the problem, he argues.

He is also frustrated at seeing his Commission For Africa report, which was published in March and recommends debt cancellation, increased aid and fairer trade laws, "gather dust on the shelf".

The G8 gathering gives him the perfect opportunity to step up the pressure to get those plans put into action.

The 20th anniversary of the original Live Aid is a fortuitous coincidence.

U2 singer Bono and campaigner Richard Curtis - who wrote films such as Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral - persuaded him to take up the project, Geldof said.

"It seemed to be that we could gather together again - this time not for charity but for political justice," he said.

The concerts in London, Philadelphia, Rome, Paris and Berlin will be free, raising pressure on the leaders instead of money.

Expanding on the reasons behind the concerts, Geldof said more people die of hunger every year in Africa than die of Aids, TB, malaria, polio and conflict combined.

European governments give poor person in Africa 0.65 euros (£0.44) a year each compared with 848 euros (£572) for every surplus cow, he told reporters.

"Still 20 years on, it strikes me as morally repulsive and intellectually absurd that people die of want in a world of surplus," he said.

He urged the public to send a message to leaders that they cared about the issue - and told the leaders they must be prepared to do something.

"We know what it costs. In the global economic scale, it is absolutely nothing," he said.

"We can't live like this. We cannot live like this. We just can't, not at the beginning of this century.

"We've never been wealthier, we've never been healthier, we know what it costs, we know what to do - do it. Do it."

Curtis has been at the forefront of the Make Poverty History campaign and added his voice to the arguments.

Some 70 million people have died of Aids in Africa, he said. "We've got our own private holocaust going on now."

If 50,000 people a day died in Europe, leaders would "find the money to solve that particular problem as they walked from the front door at Gleneagles to the reception", he said.

"It absolutely can be done. In terms of the global scale of finances, it is a tiny amount of money."

Geldof wants a million people to travel to Edinburgh for the summit to make their voices heard, Geldof said.

"What Live Aid did, joyously and enthusiastically, was open up the avenues of possibility," he said. "Finally Live 8 invites you to walk down them."



Former Ultravox singer Midge Ure, who helped organise Live Aid and Band Aid, is among those co-ordinating the gathering in Edinburgh.

It would be "something special", he said, urging everybody to "be part of it" and telling Edinburgh residents to play their part.

"It may never happen again, we may never have the opportunity of having these people on our shores and we can tell them what we want," he said.

"We want people to stand up and be counted. We want every church, chapel, synagogue, mosque to open their doors and let these people in.

"We are big-hearted, we mean well. Let these people into your garage, your spare room, your garden - whatever it happens to be.

"They are going to come, whether we ask them or not, they are going to be there. It's going to be amazing."

[Slim K team]

[glow=red,2,300]Live 8 rocks the globe[/glow]



Concerts from Tokyo to Johannesburg highlight African poverty

LONDON, England (AP) -- Bono effortlessly worked the crowd. Half a globe away, Bjork strutted the stage. Bill Gates was cheered like a rock star. And on the continent that inspired Saturday's unprecedented Live 8 extravaganza, Nelson Mandela outshone them all.

<sup>From Johannesburg to Philadelphia, Berlin to Tokyo, Rome to Moscow, hundreds of the world's top musicians and more than 1 million of their fans gathered for a music marathon designed to pressure the world's most powerful leaders into fighting African poverty.

Twenty years after he masterminded the legendary Live Aid concerts, rocker Bob Geldof promised to deliver "the greatest concert ever," broadcast live around the world on television and the Internet. His goal: to squeeze $25 billion in African aid out of next week's Group of Eight summit meeting in Scotland. (Interactive: Live 8 explainer)

On Independence Day weekend in the United States actor Will Smith, host of the Philadelphia show, said people had united for a "declaration of inter-dependence."

"Today we hold this truth to be self-evident: We are all in this together," Smith said. Via satellite he led the global audience in snapping their fingers every three seconds, signifying the child death rate in Africa.

Taking the stage in Johannesburg, Nelson Mandela received a five-minute ovation.

"History and the generations to come will judge our leaders by the decisions they make in the coming weeks," Mandela told the crowd of more than 8,000 people. "I say to all those leaders: Do not look the other way, do not hesitate ... It is within your power to prevent a genocide."

In London's Hyde Park, Paul McCartney and U2 opened the flagship show of the free 10-concert festival with a rousing performance of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." A thunderous roar erupted from the crowd of about 200,000, as the two icons belted out the first line: "It was 20 years ago today..." -- a nod to the mammoth Live Aid benefit that raised millions for African famine relief in 1985.

Bono, dressed in black and wearing his trademark wraparound shades, wrapped the crowd around his finger, enticing tens of thousands to sing along to the anthemic "One" and "Beautiful Day." The crowd cheered when a flock of white doves was released overhead.

"So this is our moment. This is our time. This is our chance to stand up for what's right," Bono said.

"We're not looking for charity. We're looking for justice. We cannot fix every problem. But the ones we can, we must."

Geldof appeared onstage to introduce Microsoft billionaire and philanthropist Gates, whom the crowd greeted with a rock star's roar.

"We can do this, and when we do it will be the best thing that humanity has ever done," Gates said.

The crowd joined in as REM sang "Man on the Moon," then heard U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan declare: "This is really the United Nations ... The whole world has come together in solidarity with the poor."

Geldof's claim that 3 billion people around the world were watching Saturday seemed overblown, as did talk in Philadelphia that a million people were on hand. But Live 8 was huge nonetheless, with a mile-long crowd stretching from the front steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and more than 5 million page views on America Online's music site, www.aolmusic.com, which broadcast all 10 concerts in their entirety.

AOL said more than 150,000 people simultaneously streamed its video, the most in Internet history.
Voices 'round the world

The first concert kicked off in Japan, where Bjork and Good Charlotte joined local bands for a show that failed to generate much interest in Asia's only G-8 nation. Despite Bjork's making her first live performance in two years, the crowd of 10,000 people was only half of what the hall in the Tokyo suburb of Makuhari could hold.

Still, "we believe passionately in what this is about," Bjork said. "Just the acknowledgment of the problem is an important step."

Live 8 then rolled on to Johannesburg. That show, plus one featuring African artists in southwestern England, were organized following criticism that African artists had been left out of an event aimed at their own continent.

"Africans are involved in helping Africa, which doesn't happen too often," Cameroonian singer Coco Mbassi said before the England show. "We're presenting a different image of Africa -- showing that Africa has good things to give."

Near Paris an eclectic lineup, including Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli and Goth-rockers The Cure, played to a crowd of 100,000 at the 17th-century Palace of Versailles. Faith Hill and Duran Duran joined Italian stars in Rome for a concert at the ancient Circus Maximus, which was packed with about 200,000 fans.

German crowd-pleasers Die Toten Hosen kicked off Berlin's show -- which attracted about 150,000 people -- with a string of power anthems while reminding revelers that helping Africa stood above the music.

"This is no rock concert, it's a reminder about next Wednesday," singer Campino told the crowds, referring to the G-8 meeting.

Canadian favorite Tom Cochrane started that country's concert with "Life is a Highway" before 35,000 roaring fans on a crisp sunny morning in Barrie, Ontario.

And in Moscow, where 20 years ago residents heard little or nothing about Live Aid because of tight Soviet information controls, tens of thousands jammed a square in the shadows of the Kremlin.

In an open letter to the G-8 leaders that appeared in several British newspapers Saturday, Geldof said the summit would disappoint the world if it fails to deliver an extra $25 billion in aid to Africa.

"We will not applaud half-measures, or politics as usual. This must be a historic breakthrough," the letter said. "Today there will be noise and music and joy, the joy of exuberant possibility. On Friday (the end of the summit) there will be great silence, as the world awaits your verdict. Do not disappoint us. Do not create a generation of cynics."

London concertgoer Tula Contostavlos, 19, said she was there to see Mariah Carey -- and to send a political message.

"Obviously some people are here for just music," she said, "but they're forgetting what's important and what they're here for."</sup>

[Slim K team]

[glow=red,2,300]Live 8 von Berlin bis Tokio /
Der Rock-Marathon der guten Herzen[/glow]

Berlin – „Make Poverty History“ – unter diesem Motto fand gestern Live 8, das größte Musikspektakel aller Zeiten, statt. Stars wie Paul McCartney, „Destiny’s Child“, Shakira, Elton John, Madonna und Robbie Williams standen in Tokio, Philadelphia, Rom, London, Berlin, Johannesburg, Barrie und Paris auf den Bühnen.



Sie alle waren Bob Geldofs Aufruf gefolgt, mit ihren Stimmen gegen den Hunger und die Armut in Afrika zu demonstrieren.

Beim Berliner Konzert fiel wie geplant Punkt 14 Uhr der Startschuß. Die „Toten Hosen“ eröffneten mit dem Song „Wünsch dir was“ das Konzert an der Siegessäule.

Frontmann Campino (43) heizte nicht nur den Fans von der Bühne aus ein, sondern machte danach auch den Politikern im Interview mit Anne Will (39) kräftig Feuer.

Das Ziel seines Angriffs: der Regierende Bürgermeister von Berlin, Klaus Wowereit (51).

Campino beschwerte sich darüber, daß die meisten Menschen auf der Straße des 17. Juni nichts sehen konnten, brüllte ins Mikrofon der völlig verdutzten „Tagesthemen“-Moderatorin:

„Fragt doch diesen Idioten von Wowereit, warum er so dumm ist, dieses Konzert nicht an die Siegessäule zu verlegen.“ Was der „Hosen“-Frontmann meinte:




Wowereit hatte den Konzertorganisatoren verboten, die Künstler in Richtung des Regierungsviertels spielen zu lassen. Dort, auf der anderen Seite der Siegessäule, wäre die Bühne für alle gut sichtbar gewesen – so verstopften weit über 150 000 Menschen die Straße zum Brandenburger Tor.

In London hätte Campino kein Problem mit der Organisation gehabt: In der britischen Hauptstadt lief die Show viel professioneller und entspannter als bei uns. Um 15 Uhr startete das dortige Live-8-Konzert im Hydepark mit „U2“. Die Iren sangen gemeinsam mit Paul McCartney den „Beatles“-Klassiker „Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band“.

Während des Auftritts der englischen Band „Coldplay“ übergab deren Sänger Chris Martin (28) sein Mikrofon zwischenzeitlich sogar an „The-Verve“-Sänger Richard Ashcroft (33). Ganz unkompliziert teilten sie sich nicht nur Gitarren und Schlagzeug, sie sangen auch zusammen Ashcrofts Hit „Bittersweet Symphony“.

Nur süß dagegen: Im VIP-Bereich schunkelte Martins Ehefrau, „Oscar“-Gewinnerin Gwyneth Paltrow (32) mit Töchterchen Apple (13 Monate). Die Kleine trug zum Schutz für ihre empfindlichen Ohren pinkfarbene Ohrenschützer.

200000 Zuschauer konnten in London danach noch Superstars wie Elton John („Don’t Go Breaking My Heart“), Dido („White Flag“) und „R. E. M.“ („Everybody Hurts“) bejubeln.

Und auch in Berlin war trotz mancher Pannen die Stimmung prima. Zwischendurch schalteten die Organisatoren immer wieder zu den Veranstaltungen nach Rom und Paris.

Weltweit waren zwei Millionen Musikfans bei den Konzerten, über zwei Milliarden verfolgten das Spektakel zu Hause vor den Bildschirmen. Gegen 18 Uhr unserer Zeit ging es dann auch in Philadelphia (USA) und Barrie (Kanada) los.

UN-Generalsekretär Kofi Annan (67), der die Show live in London sah, war beeindruckt von dem Zusammenschluß der Musiker und dankte allen: „Ich glaube, daß Ereignisse wie diese wirklich dazu beitragen können, die Welt zu verändern.“