Musical Cry to Help Africa's Poor Is Heard Around Globe
By SARAH LYALL
Published: July 3, 2005
LONDON, July 2 - Hundreds of thousands of people gathered here and in nine other spots around the world on Saturday for a series of free concerts meant to persuade world leaders to give more money to fight poverty in Africa.
Bono joined Paul McCartney for a rousing performance of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
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Bono joined Paul McCartney for a rousing performance of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" to kick off the main event in the Live 8 extravaganza rolling around the globe from Tokyo to Johannesburg.
The singer Bjork performed at the Live 8 concert in Japan.
The concerts, held in South Africa as well as in each of the eight countries whose leaders will gather at the Group of 8 summit meeting in Scotland starting on Wednesday, were a triumph of logistical flexibility, extravagant idealism and strange juxtapositions.
In London, the preternaturally scruffy Sir Bob Geldof, the former Boomtown Rat and the event's organizer, performed an old favorite, "I Don't Like Mondays," while the clean-cut billionaire Bill Gates told the cheering crowd that "some day in the future, all the people in the world will be able to lead a healthy life."
And in a development that thrilled music fans, Pink Floyd, riven by internecine feuding, reunited for the concert here, having not played together since 1981.
Conceived only in May and organized in haste, with additions popping up at the last minute - concerts in Moscow and Japan were announced just a few days ago - the Live 8 shows were intended to send a loud message to the leaders of the Group of 8 industrial nations before their meeting. The message was driven home in many different ways throughout the day.
In Philadelphia, an estimated 1.5 million people heard the rapper and actor Will Smith relay the sobering statistic that in Africa, one child dies every three seconds. In Johannesburg, Latoya, the master of ceremonies, said "we are here to send a message to the G-8 leaders to make poverty history and join the global call in the fight against poverty."
Some of the stars seemed unsure of the statistics they were citing - in London, performers could not agree whether 50,000 Africans die of poverty every day, or just 20,000 - but the sentiment was there. "This is our moment; this is our time; this is our chance to stand up for what's right," Bono of U2 told the crowd in Hyde Park, saying 3,000 Africans die every day of mosquito bites.
U2 led off the concert here, playing "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" along with one of its composers, Sir Paul McCartney. The familiar opening line - "It was 20 years ago today..." - was an affectionate reference to Live Aid, the multi-act extravaganza staged in 1985, also by Sir Bob, to raise money directly for African famine relief.
Expectations for Live 8 were high, as was on-the-scene euphoria. Chris Martin, the charismatic frontman of Coldplay, which performed in London, called the concerts "the greatest thing that's ever been organized, probably, in the history of the world."
According to Sir Bob, who sweet-talked, strong-armed and shamed politicians and musicians into endorsing and taking part in the 10 concerts, the collective gatherings "constitute the largest mandate for action in history."
Among his "demands" are that the Group of 8 leaders increase aid to Africa by $25 billion, as well as send an additional $25 billion to impoverished non-African countries. He also wants the leaders to forgive the debts of impoverished nations.
The concerts included more than 200 musical acts scheduled to play more than 69 hours of music. Organizers said that 5.5 billion people would be able to watch or listen on the Internet and via 182 television stations and 2,000 radio networks and stations.
While enormous crowds turned out for the London and Philadelphia events, some of the other concerts - held in Barrie, Canada; Berlin; Johannesburg; Cornwall, England; Moscow; Versailles, France; Philadelphia; Rome; and Chiba, Japan - proved not to be as big draws as expected.
Although the Japanese concert featured the Icelandic singer Bjork, a popular figure nationally, the notion of suddenly diverting a huge amount of money to fight poverty abroad failed to capture the wishes of the Japanese public. In the end, only 10,000 people attended the concert in a stadium that holds 20,000.
At the Circus Maximus in Rome, too, the crowd was far sparser than anticipated, numbering perhaps just 50,000. But the spirit was there. Isabella Dandina, a 40-year-old housewife, attended the concert with her husband and three teenage children.
"I wanted to raise their awareness about issues like canceling the debt," Mrs. Dandina said in an interview. She said she thought the initiative would jolt the world leaders into action. "We're all voters, if you want to put it in blackmail terms," she said.
In Britain, where Prime Minister Tony Blair has made increased aid to Africa a priority, he appeared with Sir Bob on MTV and answered questions from young people about poverty.
But political support has not been universal.
Sir Bob recently told an Italian newspaper that "Italy remains the most miserly of the rich countries." He also voiced his displeasure with Canada, where he declared that Prime Minister Paul Martin would not be welcome at the Group of 8 meeting unless Canada agreed to increase its foreign aid budget, to 0.7 percent of its gross domestic product.
The call was taken up at Saturday's concert in Barrie, a small park an hour north of Toronto, when the Canadian musician Tom Cochrane repeated the 0.7 percent figure from the stage. But a poll published on Saturday said that most Canadians agreed that spending should not be increased unduly, lest it cut in to the country's budget surplus.
"I'm sure Bob Geldof means well," the commentator Connie Woodcock wrote recently in the Toronto Sun, "but where does this second-string musician get off telling Paul Martin he doesn't like our foreign aid spending?"
Reporting for this article was contributed by Chieko Tsuneoka from Chiba, Japan; Yasuko Kamiizumi from Tokyo; Ariane Bernard from Paris; Victor Homola from Berlin; Elisabetta Povoledo of the International Herald Tribune from Rome; Colin Campbell fromToronto; and Angela Macropoulis from Philadelphia .
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