So I’m going to Live8 and I have to say that I’m really excited. The lineup is fantastic and I’m most looking forward to seeing Coldplay, The Killers, Snow Patrol and the partially reformed Pink Floyd. Looks set to be one hell of an event.
Posted at June 22, 2005 4:20 PM
Live8 in Canada sucks. Celine Dion, Bryan Adams, Motley Crue (ok ‘the cru’ was cool)… ugggg.
But ya.. The UK concert looks amazing. Wish I could have gone to the UK a week early to see it ;) and worked out a way to get tickets, etc.
Your a lucky sod! Oh wait…. I’M GOING TOO!!!!!! HOORAH!!
Still not received my ticket yet though! :S
Wish I was going too - I had to give away my tickets …..to Andy!!! Booooo!!! :( But glad he gets to enjoy it…yeah!
One of my managers in work managed to get tickets for the gig as well, I’m totally jealous!
I recon it’s gonna be amazing having Pink Floyd back together again for it, not to mention all the other bands!
Sounds fun!
I hope to see photos from the event. Just don’t do anything to wild and crazy!
Argh, I really wanted a ticket! Lucky ****! Have fun, I guess I’ll watch on the telly… ; )
Nice one Andy, I’m going to Edinburgh to wave a flag and also get a cheap lift up there :)
You are one lucky fella you know that? that is one heck of a lineup. Though I hear The Killers don’t sound too great live.
The question is Did you win? or did you Buy?
lucky lucky thing!
No Live8 here in Oz (booo!), and I’m going to be travelling at the time, so probably won’t see any footage of the event.
Enjoy!
Won them. Well in actual fact my girlfriend Mel won them. See comment above.
As Colin mentioned, Pink Floyd is reuniting for this show. I would be surprised if you didn’t come away thinking that was the best live performance experience you’d ever had. Enjoy!
live8 is ace and so are we :P
bob geldof what a guy ;) x
thanx for all the support
Can’t believe it i won tickets to live8, am so excited as we are flying in from N.Ireland we are going to Hyde Park on Friday. To who-ever else is going have a fantastic day i know i will.
Live8 ? Here’s some relevant comments from a well respected source:
Increased aid? All in all it’s just another brick in the wall behind which Africa’s citizens are trapped. Africa is poor because in most of the continent it’s impossible to generate non-corrupt economic activity. In order to register a company in Ethiopia, a businessman must deposit 18 years’ average income in a bank account which is then frozen. That’s why Ethiopia is poor and no amount of “aid” will do anything to change that. As for Zimbabwe, the insane syphilitic Mugabe this week began destroying the vegetable gardens of the poor - at the same time as he’s receiving massive shipments from the World Food Program. Twenty years ago, Zimbabwe exported food. Now its people are starving. That will change only with the removal of the government. It’s nothing to do with “aid” and, as I challenged these pompous pop poseurs in the Telegraph, if they’re so confident in African business conditions, why don’t they move their music-publishing companies to Sierra Leone or Zimbabwe? There’s a reason these countries are poor and it’s not because America is rich. Mark Steyn
Let’s not encourage these Live8 idiots. They’re part of the problem! Africa needs accountants not rock ‘stars’.
I agree that Live8 isn’t going to make a huge impact on the lives of the average person living in the third world. And I’m sure that many of the musicians involved are doing it because their record companies said it would be great PR and help them sell more records.
I think the biggest value in something like live8, as with liveaid before it, is getting the issue back on the agenda. People are now talking about it on TV, newspapers, In schools and in government, something that wasn’t happening this time last year.
Of course “rock stars” aren’t going to sort out world poverty through a concert. You’d be as naive to think they would as you’d be thinking that was the purpose. What these “rock stars” can do however is bring a huge amount of media interest which can then be focused on other issues. That’s the real value in a global event like this. PR, pure and simple.
Cancelling third world debt won’t stop the poverty. It will barely be a drop in the ocean. However it is a start. Sure many countries need political reform, they need to stamp out corruption and focus more on feeding their population than buying arms from the west.
However in turn we should stop lending credit to impoverished countries so they can buy our high tech weapons and plunge their populations further into poverty. We should also do away with restrictive subsidies that make it impossible for many third world countries to compete on the world market.
Your commentator was right when he said world poverty isn’t due to America being rich. However it is due in a large part to America, the UK and other G8 countries fixing the rules so that we can stay that way.
Trying to stop poverty is of course a noble idea. Trying to stop it in africa is great….but what about the rest of the world? Why is it always Africa? Isnt it time somewhere else got a look in? What about poor people in England? I haven’t got a pot to piss in….where is Bob Geldof campaigning to put food on my table?
Whether you believe live8 will help poverty-striken countries in Africa or not, you cant deny the line up is spot on! I watched a documentry the other day on the original Live Aid and was amazed to see the technical accomplishments in 1985. Apparently, next weeks event will be broadcast to approx 5.5bn - amazing!
A rock show like Live8 won’t save the world, but it will get the issues back on the world’s agenda, especially in regards free and fair trade between all nations.
The inherent corruption related to aid shipments is part of the overall aims of the Make Poverty History campaign, and I am hearing that corruption related to aid funds and food will be addressed at the G8 summits.
Africa and the rest of the Third World nations need more than just rock stars who inform people to the extreme poverty present in these nations, accountants to stop despots siphoning off money for their own gain, but also ordinary people from the First World to help affirm social and societal change for the better in those nations that gets people out of extreme poverty.
This is why the major aid organisations have allied and come together over this issue. By dealing with the issues of extreme poverty, societal and national debt and AIDS treatment, the aid organisations can benefit people at the grassroots level.
I have tickets for sale for Endinburgh, please contact me on this email addres, thank you. Lee.
I have two tickets for sal to Hyde park venue. contact me at
brianthomas@tryffan.freeserve.co.uk
will make a donation to charity
I gave Bob Geldoff some of my hard earnt cash for his “Live Aid� concert because I thought it would make a long term difference, but what good has it really done, nothing as far as I can see. If anything Africa is worst off today than it was then, can you blame them for trying to seek asylum in Europe? Over the past decades how many Billions of pounds must have been poured into Africa in one way or another and to what use, only to be used by corrupt governments to buy more arms and ammunition.
Africa could be a wonderful place but due to the fact that its politicians spend more time killing each other than they do in educating their people, Africa is as far behind in its development today as it was before it broke its links with the British Empire.
And when is Bob Geldof and the like going to start campaigning for the poor of England? We do have them you know.
Unfortunately for you Mr Geldof, because of this I for one won’t be giving you a single penny this time around as I think you’re wasting your time.
steve, that’s funny… bob’s not asking for money “this time round” :)
so there you go, i think maybe he realised that cash is not always the answer. as they all did about 2 months after live aid when they discovered that the amount they had raised was only 1 months of debt repayments for the whole continent.
go see bono’s chat with paxman .
poor in this country means something different. that’s why i think it’s very hard for people to understand what life is like for the “poor” in africa, but also very easy for people to think that it’s not that bad.
go watch this video and then tell me there’s no point trying to do something… even if that something is simply trying to get the G8 to sort it out
i’ll be at live 8, and i’ll be in edinburgh on the 6th.
Ye, okay Josh, wrong wording on my part. What I should have said was that I wouldn’t be giving any money to the numerous charities such as Amnesty international, Oxfam, etc that will obviously be making the most out of this event due to the heightened attention it is bringing to Africa.
Unfortunately Josh, African culture dictates that there will always be corruption and there will always be two tiers of society, the rich and powerful and the Poor and down trodden, very much like medieval Europe 700 years ago. If Africa’s debt is written off what do you think it will mean? It will mean that the people in power will have even more money to spend on themselves and their armies. Do you really think that they will go out of their way to actually help their own people, I doubt it! The only person to make any impact was Nelson Mandela and there aren’t enough of his kind around out there.
Best of luck to Mr Geldof, I wish him all the best, but as i said before, i think he’s wasting his time, nothing will change.
the chance of a difference being made is SLIM. very very slim. but there is a chance, trade laws can be changed, debts dropped, aid doubled. of COURSE it wont stop poverty forever but we’re not talking about statistics here! we are talking about people. millions of lives. millions of human beings out there that are dying and suffering from disease and hunger and even if there is only that SLIM chance of making a difference, of saving evn a few lives, of improving even slightly the standard of people living, then it is my belief that we should all stand up. we should all fight for it. we should all do whatever we can for it.
so if we have the slim chacne of the G8 summit this saturday, the slim chance of something changing so that less african children die every day, then i say DO IT.
give me a reason not to try. give me a reason why these people, just like us, desrve to die, to suffer. while we stand here and do nothing? live8 may not be the answer, it may not make any difference. but it COULD. and i say fight for that could. dont sit back and be a cynic just because its controversal and you dont fully agree with it. its something! and we need all the soemthings we can get.
well said luce, i dont think there is any more i could add to that,oh yes i do, yeeeehaaaah i cant belive i am going to be a part of the biggest and most important part of history in my lifetime,if this concert/concerts/protest could make a little bit of difference to the poverty in africa, then it is better than nothing, and the more people getting involved in the better.lets change the future,.
I appreciate the fact that you’re all having a serious discussion here, but I just wanted to say that Snow Patrol are rubbish.
Thank you for your time.
Hi Steve,
You have to realise there is a huge difference between not having enough money to pay your gas or credit card bills and not having enough money for clean water and basic food supplies. Sure there are “poor” people in the UK, but they are nowhere near as impoverished and many in Sub-saharan Africa. Luckily the UK has a pretty good safety net in the form of the “Welfare State”. People have access to free healthcare and education, as well as various benefits. Sure it’s not a huge amount of money but it does prevent people from starving.
It’s an old and rather callous argument to say you’re not willing to support overseas development charities because there are poor people at home. Especially as few of the nay sayers contribute to charities working in the UK anyway. For me it’s just a convenient excuse for inaction.
On the subject of Live Aid, I guess it really depends on what you mean by long term difference. Of course Live Aid hasn’t turned Africa’s economy around. That was never the point. What it did do was alleviate some of the suffering caused by a terrible famine and save thousands of lives. In that sense it has had a huge long term effect on those people (and their families) who would have dies otherwise. So again I think it’s extremely churlish to complain that your couple of pounds didn’t do any long term good when it helped save peoples lives.
Knowing then what you know now, would you have chosen not to donate? If so then that’s a very shameful and callous attitude.
As I said earlier, I think the main benefit of Live8 is to raise awareness and put the issues back on the table. Live Aid help create a generation of politically and socially aware people. Unfortunately today most young people are more interested in downloading crazy frog ringtones than they are in international affairs. However musicians, while not being the most politically astute group of people in the world, carry a lot of influence amongst a certain generation of people. If this and other events can get even a small fraction of society thinking more about the outside world, then it will have been a success. I don’t think Live 8 will change the world, but it may help foster a new culture of social responsibility in the UK. And social change is a much more powerful force than you may think.
I’m also slightly concerned by your ignorance and veiled racism. What exactly is it about “African Culture” that you think makes them unfit for social and economic development? I’d say a large part is down to unfair world trade agreements which make it impossible to compete on a level playing field, crossed with crippling debt. Sure many African nations (like many other countries in the world) spend a disproportionate amount of money on their armed forces. However maybe as a nation we have the responsibility to stop selling them weapons and extending their credit in the first place.
Unfortunately it’s much easier to be critical about the good intentions of others than to actually do something positive about the situation. And you’re right, if everybody had your attitude, nothing will change.
n e body know what that song is called that coldplay preformed with the dude in the sun glasses and puffy hair??
the coldplay song was with richard ashcroft formally of the verve. the songs called bittersweet symphony. the world just keeps gettin smaller…………
I would just like to say that I watched Live8 today on the television and I found it one of the most tasteless spectacles I’ve ever had the misfortune to witness. Travis performing ‘Why does it always rain on me’ with footage of drought-ridden starving Africans in the background was unbelievably disgusting. Geldof’s inveighing against those who were skeptical to the original project with his ‘proof’, i.e. a woman whom he claimed to have saved from starvation and who was then opportunistically appropriated for Madonna’s piece… I could go on. The whole thing was mindless and apolitical.
How long will the world continue to forget the plights of children and thier parants living in squalid concentration-like camps for the past 20 years in NORTHERN UGANDA? Will you do another Live 8 to highlights the tragedy as you are doing in Darfur?
Margaret Akot, St Thomas More School
15 years Old
The highlight of the show for me was Jann Arden singing “Good Mother”, the lyrics to which go:
I’ve got money in my pocket
I like the color of my hair
I’ve got a friend who loves me
Got a house, I’ve got a car
I’ve got a good mother
And her voice is what keeps me here
Now there’s a nice sentiment to be sending to a poverty stricken continent. Perhaps it’ll be a comfort to the mother of some starving kids in Africa that at least Jann is doing okay. But if this was a contest to make the most tastless selection, Jann faced stiff competition from Bruce Cockburn singing “If I Had A Rocket Launcher” (as if Africa needs more war) and BNL with “Brian Wilson” (a tribute to underachievers and slackers everywhere) - and, of course, “If I Had A Million Dollars”.
Oh… and lest we forget, Madonna is proposing to change history. Yeah. I’d like to change history. World War II. Never liked World War II. If Madonna could change history so that World War II never happened, that’d be cool.
thanks Ian
“Oh… and lest we forget, Madonna is proposing to change history. Yeah. I’d like to change history. World War II. Never liked World War II. If Madonna could change history so that World War II never happened, that’d be cool.”
DUDE! think about that…
wadup. ew yuck i hate this font they should give us a little color thingy and some fonts! and the kool little smily exspression faces! geez
Bill Gates rapping about Tony . Then the queen, and Craig baloons in the sky David; Anyway to be honest this is similar to corporate giants donating to poor communities like burma schools and nigerian bake sales whilst at the same time sucking the blood out of them. Music Industry Politics -
@Andy
From what i could see on TV in Denmark, The Who simply rocked Hyde Park. How was it beeing there? Although getting Pink Floyd together again was huge, it was a bit of an anticlimax after The Who and their performance. They put the closet where it was supposed to, in front of all the young bands.
Bono and all the other self-righteous ass munches can eat a fat one. I’m sorry but throwing money at an impoverished nation does nothing more than apply a temporary Band-Aid to the wound.
It’s an outside-in approach which will never work. The people must be taught to be self-sufficient which is something Bono and his cronies will never understand. They are just using this as a political forum to push their liberal agenda.
I’ve lived in Africa; I’ve walked the walk and talked the talk. Bono is an ass. The main reason people are showing up to this is to see a free show of their favorite corporate marketing machine bands, not because they give two shits about anyone in Africa or know anything about their plight.
Nice…my comments were removed. Further proof that this whole fucking idea is a joke.
If anyone is interested in helping people in Africa today - without waiting on the G8 - contact WorldVision, Samaritan’s Purse or nearly any church. Don’t put your hope in a political solution, get involved yourself, one individual at a time.
User Experience Designer and CEO of Clearleft, Andy is the author of CSS Mastery, curates the dConstruct and UX London events and is responsible for Silverbackapp, a low cost usability testing application for the Mac. Andy is a regular speaker at international conferences and was named one of the 100 most influential people in the UK digital sector by Wired Magazine.
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Keith said on June 22, 2005 4:34 PM
Sounds like a great show. I’ve seen most of the bands you mention and they’re all top notch.
’s a cool flyer/poster too.