Live Aid... the sequel
He said it would never happen but at 2pm today, Sir Bob Geldof will officially announce that a second Live Aid will take place on Saturday July 2, with simultaneous concerts in London, Philadelphia and several other locations around the world. Until recently, Geldof has dismissed any suggestion that there could be a follow-up to his ground-breaking 1985 charity concerts, describing the idea as a "disaster", threatening legal action against anyone who attempted to appropriate the Live Aid trademark and insisting: "I wouldn't do it and I can't see a point to it."
The arguments of global debt campaigners, including U2's Bono and Coldplay's Chris Martin, have evidently helped change his mind. Twenty years after the original, a sequel has been approved. It will not, however, be billed as Live Aid II. Instead, it will be Live 8. Its focus is the G8 Summit of world leaders in Edinburgh the following week, July 6-8. Aligning itself with the Make Poverty History campaign, this time around the primary intention is not to raise money, but raise awareness.
"We'll have all the biggest names we can find," Geldof said at the Ivor Novello award ceremony last Thursday. "But it's not just about big names, it's about making a point. What we do in the next five weeks is seriously, properly, historically, politically important."
The showpiece events will take place in Hyde Park in London (replacing the annual Capital FM Party in the Park event in aid of The Prince's Trust) and at an undisclosed location in Philadelphia (chosen for its city-scape backdrop, after mooted venues in New York and Washington fell through).
There are rumours of simultaneous events being staged around the world, including in Scotland, France, Germany and South Africa. The line-up was being worked out in a series of increasingly frantic phone calls over the past few weeks, but is likely to include (in Britain) Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, U2, Oasis, Madonna, Robbie Williams, Coldplay, Sting, Annie Lennox and Joss Stone; and (in the US) Eminem, Usher, Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey and Prince.
The Spice Girls will reform for the occasion and there is also a strong possibility that the classic line-up of Pink Floyd, featuring estranged songwriter and bassist Roger Waters, will put aside their differences in the name of a good cause. Audience tickets (in Britain at least) are likely to be allocated by lottery. There will be about 100,000 tickets in the UK and another 100,000 in the US, with a potential television audience of 1.5 billion.
U2 will open the event in Hyde Park before jetting off to a pre-arranged concert in Vienna. "We are looking forward to it. We definitely want to be a part of it," said bassist Adam Clayton at a U2 concert in Boston last week, expressing some disappointment that, due to a scheduling conflict, they could not play a larger role.
According to Bono, who has been a prime mover behind the scenes, the whole event has been a nightmare to put together. "Geldof has been telling me no for two years and only finally agreed to it six weeks ago. He has really turned my world upside down. With U2 on tour and my lobbying work, I am already scheduled to within an inch of my life. Now I have to spend every spare minute hitting the phones to try and drum up support. American stars tend to plan six months ahead, not six weeks. It has been incredibly difficult."
Part of the problem with regard to the US concert has been a sense that the G8 summit is not considered particularly significant from an American perspective. Indeed, there is a danger that Live 8 may suffer from having a slightly blurred and overtly political agenda. Where Live Aid was a direct response to a humanitarian disaster, the aims of Live 8 are more complex. Make Poverty History is an alliance of charities that believes that extreme poverty can become a thing of the past.
"Extreme poverty means someone dying every three seconds from preventable causes. Children dying for the lack of a cheap immunisation shot," said Bono. "This generation can put a stop to that." For the campaigners to succeed, however, they need the world's political leaders to get on board, hence the focus on the G8 summit.
While Live Aid was essentially apolitical, there is almost an air of civil disobedience about the new campaign. A march is planned that will set off from Hyde Park for Edinburgh on the day of the concert, picking up people along the way and arriving in time for the summit. Organisers hope to get up to a million people to surround the city, causing potential turmoil and a massive headache for security services.
One can imagine that Geldof will be at his fieriest, exhorting people to make a difference in the kind of language likely to cause television broadcasters the jitters. At a press conference in the Grosvenor House Hotel in London today, all Geldof is likely to reveal is the line-up, but there are rumours that he has a few more radical ideas up his sleeve to really stir things up. All Bono will say is that: "If this takes off, things could get really interesting."
"What started 20 years ago is coming to a political point," said Geldof. "There's more than a chance that the boys and girls with guitars will finally get to turn the world on its axis." (News.telegraph)
|
