How well were the live 8 concerts recieved in the US?
on the telly, the US show seemed to be the smallest one of all. The one in the UK seemed huge, like ten times more people in the audience than in the US.
I really do hope they drop the debts.
I think that the one in Hyde park was about 10 times the size of any of the others.
We had a bit of a chuckle at ours. Held in Barrie, which is not exactly up there with London, Berlin, Rome or even Philadelphia. But it was good fun from what I saw. Media roasted it, but I’ll take Barenaked Ladies, Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Daimond, Our Lady Peace and Great Big Sea over Beyonce and Will Smith anyday.
I was at the one at the Eden Project in Cornwall. All the acts were African. It was a fabulous day. There was no sidelining of the politics at all. Africa’s problems, within and without, were to the fore but equally the day was a celebration of the continent’s wonderful diversity and vibrancy of its peoples and cultures. It was about as far removed as you could imagine from being a tawdry pop concert more concerned with the self-aggrandizement of a few ageing rock bands than with helping the world’s poor. Well, that’s what I thought and I was there! 
Steve
From what little I bothered to watch of it you described the US version perfectly! 
Amen.
I watched a bit of the the net broadcast, which was a surprisingly steady stream.
I think the concert showed there a has been a shift in musical tastes since the first Live Aid. Back then, it was the rock bands such as Queen who played the crowd. From what I saw and read, the biggest crowd pleaser in London was rapper Snoop Dog.
I think the complaints about there not being enough black artists included in the original lineup were justified.
Mukade
You can see a collection of photos from the Eden Project event (“Africa Calling”) on the BBC website (my daughter’s in photo 21 - bottom right, pink bag-strap on shoulder!) http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/thelive8event/pics/eden/?1 or watch videos of a lot of the performers http://www.bbc.co.uk/cornwall/live8/ (click Africa Calling). The line-up was all-African, all day, from 1pm to 11pm (except for Dido who did two songs with Youssou N’Dour ). Geldof didn’t want “unknown” Africans at Hyde Park in case it put people off watching, and Andy Kershaw accused Eden of ghettoising African performers. I’ve never heard such twaddle in my life. The fact is, Cornwall did it right (proper job, as we say around here!). As Peter Gabriel (who helped to organise the Eden gig) said, Geldof shot himself in the foot this time. The Eden concert was superb musically and the cause in question was appropriately to the fore all day (whatever your views of it). Unforgettable.
Steve
Did GBS play? ****, I don’t think they ever showed that on tv here, I would have loved to see that.
Steve, this is just a guess, and not intended to be inflamatory or anything, but is it possible that there is a bigger influx of Africans to GB and parts of Europe, or that they may not be a significant enough presence in other parts of the world to have “recognized” African musicians available for the concerts? This may explain why organizers went for what would be more popular in certain countries.
djm
It certainly didn’t harm sales for some of the has-beens:
LIVE 8 STARS’ ALBUMS BOOST
1 Pink Floyd - Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd - 1343%
2 The Who - Then and Now - 863%
3 Annie Lennox - Eurythmics Greatest Hits - 500%
4 Dido - Life For Rent - 412%
5 Razorlight - Up All Night - 335%
6 Robbie Williams - Greatest Hits - 320%
7 Joss Stone - Mind, Body and Soul - 309%
8 Sting - The Very Best of Sting & The Police - 300%
9 Travis - Singles - 268%
10 Madonna - Immaculate Collection - 200%
Source: HMV
From: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/4651309.stm
You can’t help feeling a bit queasy when you read that. I wonder whether the “stars” in question will donate their extra profits (along with the record companies, retail outlets, etc. etc.) to appropriate causes. Call me Mr Cynic but I doubt it somehow. The African acts I saw at Eden were livelier, more accomplished (more PROFESSIONAL) and a damn sight more dynamic than anything I saw on the telly from Hyde Park (we recorded it). Geldof may even have suspected that some - MOST - of them would have upstaged some of the owld lags on offer in the park. The most exciting thing Madonna did was to swear (my mum went mad!) - and did we have to have Hey bloody Jude again…arrrgh!
Steve
Anyone else experience the “wince wave” that washed over the Casa Weekender during the Annie Lennox performance?
Forgive me for interrupting some thoroughly well-deserved cynicism by pointing out that the exercise, as I understood it, was not to alert an indifferent world to the wonders of African music but rather to alert people in the developed world, many of whom couldn’t find Africa on a map, to the connection between the behaviour of developed nations and poverty in Africa.
My experience of playing so-called world music to people who are interested in pop is that they soon go into the next room and put on the music they wanted to listen to all along. It isn’t African music.
You could easily have found a couple of dozen African acts who’d have put on a fantastic show and who are well-known to largish niche markets in the west. But I suspect the people who watched would have been people who already understood the political situation, more or less. It wouldn’t have been a massive audience.
I felt squeamish watchin’ Madonna yank around that Ethiopian girl. Took a good moment and turned it into a crass one.
I told you that the issue was constantly and appropriately to the fore all day at the Eden Project. There was no mistaking why we were there. And there’s nothing wrong with celebrating the vibrant cultures of the peoples of Africa as part of raising our understanding. I’m a cynic all right where St. Bob is concerned but I am also capable of enjoying myself. And what we had in Cornwall was not “world music” - ALL the acts were African. And finally, though the event was hastily-arranged, more than ten times as many people applied for tickets as got them. And that’s in Cornwall, one of the most sparsely-populated areas of the UK and in which you’ll see very few black faces. Nobody “left the room” on Friday I can tell you! Theory is a fine thing but…
Steve
I don’t see how you think this addresses my point. This grand-scale event wasn’t about preaching to the converted nor was it about celebrating African culture. It was about dragging in a mass audience most of whom don’t normally listen to African music—record sales will tell you that. I’m not saying what you had in Cornwall was superficial; if I lived nearby I would have been present. But the Cornwall concert wasn’t on TV here. The London concert was.
What I was saying was that the purpose of the synchronised concerts was to bring to the attention of people who don’t know much about Africa something about the situation of ordinary people there. To do that you present people everybody knows if you can get them. I didn’t even watch the event. I’ve been listening to African music for over 30 years and love it. But I wasn’t the target audience for the London concert and neither were you. Are you seriously suggesting the worldwide audience would have been the same had the Cornwall idea been used in London? If so, I wish I could agree but my experience of trying to raise interest in African music tells me that wouldn’t happen. There’s nothing theoretical about seeing people stop listening and start talking when music they don’t like or understand comes on.
Of course nobody left the room where you were. You would have attracted the converted from all over. That’s where I’d have been. But I don’t believe it would have worked as the main drawcard in London or televised to philistines all over the world. That said, there’s no reason why African acts couldn’t have been included on the London bill. Well, they would have blown the aging rockers off stage so maybe there was a reason.
The “Cornwall idea” as you put it would never have come about had the London event included African musicians. Peter Gabriel of WOMAD and the good people at the Eden Project (who have a damn good track record of putting on adventurous music events by the way) were, rightly in my view, revolted by the fact that Geldof had almost completely excluded African acts. No-one’s suggesting that an all-African event should have been used as the “main drawcard,” but many were disgusted by the patronising way in which the Africans were snubbed. And, if you see the worldwide audience as philistines, I somehow doubt whether King Bob’s the man to organise their mass education!
It’s a pity that you weren’t in Cornwall. The audience were overwhelmingly young and 60% of them were Cornish. There isn’t a less multiculturally-aware area in the whole of the UK (my wife and I have been involved in education in the area for almost twenty years). “The converted” they weren’t, but a good lot of 'em would have been well on the way by the day’s end.
Steve
Only a short set, Donkey Riding and Excursion, also their plane from Regina was cancelled so the only instrument that arrived was Sean’s bodhran. Nonetheless, crowd enjoyed it.
Was Madonna speaking with a fake British accent?
Yeah, shame on all those developed nations for forcing Africans to breed children they can’t feed, engage in behavior that spreads aids and other diseases like wild fire, and put up with dictators who steal most of the incoming aid before it gets anywhere near those who actually need it. :roll:
Most African poverty is the result of civil war and despotic government, not G8 influence.
I’m all for aiding Africa, but every time someone tries real aid, things that actually have a chance of improving the lives of the average African, they’re shot down by the same kind of mush-minds that stand on most Live 8 stages and scream about how unfair G8 is to Africa. “Oh, you can’t encourage them to use birth control, that will interfere with their culture!” Yada, yada, yada.
If you’re going to help someone then help them with effective solutions - don’t just poor more money down the same hole that led to the current situation! And if you’re a millionaire many times over, put your own (*&^ money where your mouth is instead of giving a concert and writing off your appearance at more than face value on your taxes while shouting at those in the crowd about how G8 should be supporting Africa with tax dollars from the average Joe.