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Live 8

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File:Live8.jpg
The Live 8 poster

Live 8 is a series of free concerts planned for July, 2005 in the G8 nations. It is timed to precede the G8 Conference and Summit held at Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire, Scotland in July 2005; it will also coincide with the 20th anniversary of Live Aid. In parallel with the UK's Make Poverty History campaign, the shows plan to pressure world leaders to drop the debt of the world's poorest nations, increase and improve aid, and negotiate fairer trade rules. As of June 16, Nine simultaneous concerts have been confirmed for July 2 and one for July 6.

Live Aid and Band Aid organizer Bob Geldof announced the event on May 31, 2005. Many former Live Aid acts have offered their services to the cause. Prior to the official announcement of the event many news sources (see e.g. [1] [2]) refered to the event as Live Aid 2. However Geldof and co-organiser Midge Ure have since explicitly said they don't think of the event as the same as Live Aid. Geldof said "This is not Live Aid 2. These concerts are the start point for The Long Walk To Justice, the one way we can all make our voices heard in unison." [3].

Some critics of Geldof, the concerts, and the political ideas they promote have described Live 8 being about promoting rich, white rock stars, and helping corrupt African governments, and not about helping the poor from this continent.

Locations and Performers

Performers at each venue have been organized in alphatbetical order. Past Live Aid perfomers are listed with an asterisk (*):

July 2, 2005

London, England, United Kingdom (Hyde Park)

The Spice Girls were originally on the list of performers, but were then removed. Organisers were reported to have stated that "their style of music did not fit in with the serious political message about world poverty the transatlantic event hopes to portray." (Daily Mirror, 31st May 2005). However in response to those claims Bob Geldof, speaking at a press conference to announce the event said that the Spice Girls may play after all.

After weeks of speculation, a reunited Pink Floyd, including Roger Waters has been added to the Live 8 London lineup. [4]

Rolling Stone reported on June 13, 2005 that The Who have signed up to appear at the concert in London. Radiohead have turned down an invitation to perform as Jonny Greenwood's wife has just given birth.

In response to rumours, Bob Geldof reiterated that the Michael Jackson (acquitted of child abuse charges three weeks prior to the concert) will not be invited to any of the Live 8 shows. Geldof told Reuters that even if Jackson approached him, "I'd say 'Dude, there's plenty of time. I don't think you should really put yourself through something as strenuous as Live 8 at such a fragile state in your life.'" Jackson was involved in the USA For Africa campaign in 1985 and sang on the group's song "We Are The World" [5]

The original line-up of Britain's legendary punk rockers, The Sex Pistols have agreed to reform for the concert. [6]

Bob Geldof has told the press that he will not be performing on stage at Live 8 London but rather be a Supervisor/Host of the event. "I would love to play on that stage, but as an artist I don't deserve to, so I am not going to." Geldof played with the Boomtown Rats at the original Live Aid in London [7]

Philadelphia, United States (Philadelphia Museum of Art)

Berlin, Germany (Brandenburg Gate)

Rome, Italy (Circus Maximus)

Paris, France (Palais de Versailles)

+ also performing on the London concert July 2nd 2005

Tokyo, Japan

Line-up and venue to be announced on June 21, 2005. [8]

Johannesburg, South Africa

Line-up and venue to be announced on June 21, 2005. [9]

Barrie, north of Toronto, Canada (Park Place, formerly Molson Park)


July 6, 2005

Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom (Murrayfield Stadium)

An additional concert, entitled "Edinburgh 50,000 - The Final Push" has been planned for this location, 4 days after the main concerts. [10]


+ Also performing at the London show on July 2, 2005

Key events in the build up

May 31, 2005: Official announcement of Live 8 concerts by Sir Bob Geldof

June 3, 2005: British Chancellor Gordon Brown announces that VAT will be waived on the cost of the London concert. He estimates that this will save the organisers £500,000. [11] He also supported Geldof's call for a peaceful protest rally in Scotland.

June 6, 2005: Text lottery launched in the UK for tickets for the London concert. 1.5 million texts are received in the first day.

June 7, 2005: Midge Ure announces a concert to be held in Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh, Scotland on July 6 as the climax to the proposed rally.

June 11, 2005: G8 finance ministers agree to cancel the debt owed by 18 of the poorest countries.

June 14, 2005: eBay anounce that they will block the selling-on of tickets after Geldof calles on the public to rally against the internet auction site.

June 15, 2005: It is announced that Peter Gabriel will organize a sixth simultaneous Live 8 concert dubbed "Africa Calling" featuring all African artists, to counter criticisms that most performers announced to date are white. The event is to be held in Cornwall, southwest England, on July 2. Senegalese musician Youssou N'Dour will host the event, which will also feature performances by African performers Maryam Mursal, Salif Keita and Thomas Mapfumo. [12]

June 16, 2005: Geldof announces three more concerts for July 2, to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa, Tokyo, Japan, and Toronto, Canada.

June 17, 2005: The LIVE 8 List, a petition to the G8 leaders launched.

June 21, 2005: Official Barrie announcement. [13]

Tickets

Although the concerts will be free, 66,500 pairs of tickets for the Hyde Park concert were allocated on June 13 to winners of a text message competition that began on Monday June 6, 2005. Entry involved sending the answer to a multiple choice question via a text message costing £1.50. Winners were drawn at random from those correctly answering the question. The concert is expected to have a capacity of 145,000 people. Over two million texts were sent during the competition, raising £3 million. Thus texters had a roughly one-in-28 chance of winning a pair of tickets. The first £1.6m raised is to be given to the Prince's Trust, who in turn will donate to the Help A London Child charity. The Prince's Trust usually host the Party in the Park concert in Hyde Park in July. This event was cancelled in 2005 to make way for Live 8. The £1.6m donation will act as a quid pro quo. Funds raised beyond the £1.6m "will go to pay for the costs of LIVE 8, as it is a free event," according to the Live 8 website.

Some people who won tickets immediately placed them for sale on internet auction site eBay, with the intention of making a profiit. This was heavily criticised by the organisers of the event, including Bob Geldof. Initially, eBay defended their decision to allow the auctions to go ahead, stating that there were no laws against their sale. They also promised to make a donation to Live 8 that would be "at least equal to any fees" they would be making for such sales. Many people, angered by others seemingly using Live 8 to make money, placed fake bids for millions of pounds for such auctions in an attempt to force the sellers to take them off sale. It was later announced that eBay, under pressure from the British government, the public, as well as Geldof himself, would withdraw all auctions of the tickets.

Free tickets for the Canadian show will be distributed on a first-come-first-serve basis via the Ticketmaster website on June 23, 2005. [14]

Criticisms

Failure to include African artists

London-based group Black Information Link described the list of performers at the Hyde Park event as "hideously white" [15], noting that Mariah Carey and Snoop Dogg are the only non-white performers scheduled to perform at the event. Damon Albarn re-iterated this criticism, saying that "This country [the UK] is incredibly diverse," he said. "More than ever, black culture is an integral part of society. So why is the bill so damn Anglo-Saxon?" [16]

A Live 8 spokeman said that a number of black performers had been approached to participate and that the event would feature a "large urban element", and pointed to the number of black / African-American artists such as Ms Dynamite and 50 Cent. However, Youssou N'Dour, remains the only African-born artists signed to perform at the main concerts. Bob Geldof originally said that this was because he had aimed for the biggest-selling, most popular artists to ensure a large television audience; but critics noted that even if this was acceptable as the sole criterion for inclusion, some of the minor white artists signed up were substantially less well-known than some major African artists. Bob Geldof has been accused of compounding the original error by announcing an entirely African line-up ("Africa Calling") at a concert to be held at the Eden Project in Cornwall on the same day as the main Live 8 concerts. [17] This "corralling" of the African artists away from the main concerts has been described as reminiscent of apartheid.

General

As with many charity events before it, Live 8 has come in for some criticism in the media. Most of these criticisms are not specific to Live 8 but representative of a particular point of view concerning western attitudes towards Africa and are part of an on-going moral argument.

Geldof is criticised for using Africa as "a catwalk" which is more about reviving the careers of ageing rock stars than about helping the poor in Africa. Many charities had been planning a rally on July 2 targetting the G8 summit and were apparently surprised at the Live 8 announcement, although, due to the common cause, protest has been muted. People have pointed out the absurdity of super-rich celebrities preaching about extreme poverty to the masses for a day, before returning to making and spending enormous profits. Damon Albarn also suggested that the performers' record labels should pay "a tariff" as the accompanying publicity would increase future record sales and hence their profits.

Many, especially in Africa itself, claim that Live 8 and Live Aid represent a Neocolonialist attitude, whereby Westerners feel obligated to help out a supposedly helpless and hapless Third World. The debt relief idea being promoted by Live 8 is seen as giving a blank cheque to governments, many of which are plagued by corruption, and in the past have used debt relief to increase their defence spending.

In the UK the police in Scotland have also expressed fears for people's safety if a large protest rally is held during the G8 summit.

Broadcasters

As with the original Live Aid concert, the BBC will handle the main broadcast feed for Live 8, and will air live in the UK.

As of June 3, 2005, the concert will air live in the U.S. via the Internet through America Online and will be available for viewing for six weeks following the shows; a domestic broadcast network has yet to acquire the television rights.

MTV has reported that they will follow in their past footsteps and broadcast Live 8 on July 2 starting at Noon ET, no word if they will broadcast the entire event. (Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1504207/20050616/50_cent.jhtml?headlines=true)

References

Wikinews
Wikinews
Wikinews stories:
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