|
Stages set for Live 8, the 'greatest concert ever'
A worker cleans the stage for the upcoming Live 8 concert inside Rome's ancient Circus Maximus,.
By Mike Collett-White
LONDON (Reuters) - Final preparations were under way on Friday for what organizers promised would be the greatest music show on Earth, with pop stars leaving their egos backstage to raise awareness of poverty in Africa.
Irish rocker and organizer Bob Geldof believes Saturday's Live 8 event will eclipse Live Aid 20 years ago, when 1.5 billion people tuned in to see the likes of U2, David Bowie and Mick Jagger perform to raise money for Ethiopia's famine.
This time it is about people power, with organizers hoping that huge crowds at the venues and a television and Internet audience in the billions will put pressure on world leaders meeting next week in Scotland to do more to fight poverty.
"I tell you something ... You will never see it again. It will be the greatest concert ever," Geldof told an audience of young people on the MTV channel.
In an open letter from Live 8 appearing in The Times newspaper on Saturday, organizers made a final plea to governments to meet their demands to end poverty.
"Just as people demanded an end to slavery, demanded women's suffrage, demanded the end of apartheid - we now call for an end to the unjust absurdity of extreme poverty that is killing 50,000 people every day in the 21st Century," it said.
Concerts will be held in all the Group of Eight industrialized nations, plus one in Johannesburg and another featuring African acts in southwest England.
Tokyo will open proceedings in the east and the event winds up in North America.
OUTCOME UNCERTAIN
The initiative, costing an estimated 25 million pounds ($45 million) to stage, has been widely praised by aid groups, and Geldof can point to a recent $40 billion debt forgiveness deal and U.S. pledges to double aid to Africa as signs of progress.
"We're on the way," he said. "It's incredible to think after 20 years we're almost there."
The Live 8 concerts are linked to the Make Poverty History campaign, which hopes up to 100,000 people will march through Edinburgh on Saturday.
"There is suddenly a real chance -- the sort that comes but once in a generation -- for Africa to reverse its three decades of stagnation," said Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.
Not everyone is sure Live 8 will directly affect the outcome of the G8 meeting near Edinburgh on July 6-8.
There are also question marks over how smoothly Live 8 will run. Organizers say they have had eight weeks to plan a show on a par with the Olympic Games in terms of the complexity of the technology and size of the potential audience.
Promoters in Johannesburg have done little to publicise the gig, and few music fans interviewed in South Africa's commercial hub were even aware it was happening.
Some of those who plan to attend the Johannesburg concert, which will feature mostly local acts and few big names, were skeptical about whether it would change their lives.
"I've got hope the concert tomorrow will bring nice things to Africa but they keep promising things and they don't happen," said Bafana Konyama, who sells fake designer trainers from his street stall in the city center.
London, at least, is set to be a sell-out.
More than 200,000 people are expected in Hyde Park to hear the all-star cast including Elton John, Madonna, and a re-formed Pink Floyd. Paul McCartney and U2 are due to open proceedings with a rendition of "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
(Additional reporting by Andrew Gray in London, Jeremy Lovell in Edinburgh and Rebecca Harrison in Johannesburg)
PLANNED LIVE 8 PLAYLIST
HYDE PARK LONDON
2pm GMT Start
Paul McCartney/U2
Sgt Peppers lonley hearts band
U2
One
Bono Introduces Coldplay
Coldplay
In My Place
Fix You
Bitter Sweet Sym, With Richard Ashcroft
Little Britain introduce Elton John
Elton John
Sat Nights Alright for fighting
Butch Is Back
Children Of The Revolution, With Pete Doherty
Dido
Life For Rent
White Flag
Thank You
Sterophonics
TBA
REM
The One I Love
Losing My Religion
Imitaion Of Life
Everybody Hurts
Ms Dynamite
Dy-na-mi-tee
Judgment Day
Redempiton Song
Keane
Everybodys Changing
Somewhere only we know
Travis
Sing
Turn
Why does it always rain on me
Annie Lennox
Walking on broken glass
Sisters are doing it for themselfs
Sweet dreams
UB40
Medley
Snoop Dogg
TBA
Razorlight
Somehwree else
Golden touch
Vice
Madonna
Like A Prayer
Music
Ray of light
Snow Patrol
Chocolate
Run
Joss Stone
I had a dream
super duper love
Scissor Sisters
Laura
Take your mamma
Velvet Revolver
TBA
The Killers
TBA
Sting
Message in a bottel
Dersert Rose
Every Breath You Take
Mariah Carey
Vision on love
Make it happen
Robbie Williams
Let me entertain you
Rock DJ
feel
The Who
Won't get fooled again
Baba O'Riley
Pink Floyd
Money
Comfortly Numb
Wish you were here
Paul McCartney
the Long and winding road
Finale App: 20:45 GMT
Do they know is it christmas
All artists who can stay till end, and also some other surprise guests
Developing...
|