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Concerts There were ten concerts held on 2 July 2005, most of them simultaneously. The first to begin was held at the Makuhari Messe in Japan, with Rize being the first of all the Live 8 performers. During the opening of the Philadelphia concert, Will Smith led the combined audiences of London, Philadelphia, Berlin, Rome, Paris and Barrie (outside Toronto) in a synchronised finger click. This was to represent the death of a child every three seconds, due to poverty. Bob Geldof was at the event in Hyde Park, London and made numerous appearances on stage, including a performance of "I Don't Like Mondays". Some of these were also shown to other venues. Special guests appeared throughout the concerts, with Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Bill Gates making a speech at the London show and Nelson Mandela appearing in the South African venue. Guest presenters, ranging from sporting stars to comedians, also introduced acts. Included in the line-up were Pink Floyd, reunited with former bassist/lyricist Roger Waters for the first time in over 24 years. The complete foursome had not performed together since a show at Earls Court in London on June 17, 1981. The final event was held in Edinburgh on 6 July 2005 and went by the name Edinburgh 50,000 - The Final Push. It featured further performances from some of the artists from the other concerts, and was the closest of the eleven to the actual location of the G8 summit. Key events Live 8 list We don't want your money, we want your voice. - Bono The Live Aid concert, held in 1985, was a massive fundraising effort which accumulated approximately £79 million, which was sent to the world's poorest countries in aid. The Live 8 concert was not a fundraising event of any kind; rather, the organisers were hoping that it would spur people's political interest. The event coincided with the 2005 G8 summit at the Gleneagles Hotel, Perthshire, Scotland, and the idea behind it was to overwhelm the eight politicians attending with the amount of public support for the principles of the Make Poverty History campaign. An enormous petition with (presently) over 38 million names is available to be signed on the Internet. Named the "Live 8 List", this can be reached via the Live8 List page. Millions of paper petitions and emails have already been submitted. Tickets Although the concerts were free, 66,500 pairs of tickets for the Hyde Park concert were allocated from the 13 June 2005 to 15 June 2005, to winners of a mobile phone text message competition that began on Monday, 6 June 2005. Entry involved sending the answer to a multiple choice question via a text message costing £1.50. Winners were drawn at random from those correctly answering the question. Over two million messages were sent during the competition, raising £3 million. Thus entrants had a roughly one-in-28 chance of winning a pair of tickets. The first £1.6m raised is to be given to the Prince's Trust, who in turn will donate to the Help A London Child charity. The Prince's Trust usually host the Party in the Park concert in Hyde Park in July. This event was cancelled in 2005 to make way for Live 8. The £1.6m donation will act as a quid pro quo. Funds raised beyond the £1.6m "will go to pay for the costs of Live 8, as it is a free event", according to the Live 8 website. Some ticket-winners immediately placed their tickets for sale on the Internet auction site eBay, with the intention of making a profit. This was heavily criticised by the organisers of the event, including Bob Geldof. Initially, eBay defended their decision to allow the auctions to go ahead, stating that there were no laws against their sale. They also promised to make a donation to Live 8 that would be "at least equal to any fees" they would be making for such sales. Many people, angered by others seemingly using Live 8 to make money, placed fake bids for millions of pounds for such auctions in an attempt to force the sellers to take them off sale. It was later announced that eBay, under pressure from the British government, the public, as well as Geldof himself, would withdraw all auctions of the tickets. Others have argued, though, that selling the tickets would not have done any harm to the people Live 8 is supposed to be helping and it would have allowed those who missed the random selection a chance to go to the concert. Similar touting situations arose for the Edinburgh and Canadian shows, and eBay halted sales of those tickets as well. In fact, the 35,000 free tickets for the Canadian show were all distributed in just 20 minutes on 23 June 2005, Ticketmaster reported. * Hyde Park, London Circus Maximus, Rome Rally and protest in Edinburgh
A lack of African presence London-based group Black Information Link described the list of performers at the Hyde Park event as "hideously white" *, noting that Mariah Carey, Youssou N'Dour, Ms Dynamite and Snoop Dogg were the only non-white performers scheduled to perform at the event. Damon Albarn re-iterated this criticism, saying that "This country the UK is incredibly diverse," he said. "More than ever, black culture is an integral part of society. So why is the bill so damn Anglo-Saxon?". * Stevie Wonder, Black Eyed Peas, Alicia Keys, Destiny's Child, Jay-Z and Kanye West also turned up at Philadelphia to perform while Will Smith, Don Cheadle, Black Ice, Kami, and Chris Tucker made appearances as presenters. Albarn reportedly eventually became happy about Live 8, feeling that his criticisms had been addressed. He told a reporter on 21 June: "I have said certain things in relation to the density of African performers... In some way that's been addressed and that's really good... Live 8 will make a difference – it's already created a debate that we're all involved in." A Live 8 spokesman said that a number of black performers had been approached to participate and that the event would feature a "large urban element", and pointed to the number of artists of African descent like Ms. Dynamite. However, Youssou N'Dour (Senegal) and Dave Matthews (South Africa) of Dave Matthews Band, remained the only African-born artists signed to perform at the main concerts. Bob Geldof originally said that this was because he had aimed for the biggest-selling, most popular artists to ensure a large television audience; but critics noted that even if this was acceptable as the sole criterion for inclusion, some of the minor white artists signed up were substantially less well-known than some major African artists. Bob Geldof has been accused of compounding the original error by announcing an entirely African line-up ("Africa Calling") at a concert to be held at the Eden Project in Cornwall on the same day as the main Live 8 concerts. * Artists careers As with many charity events before it, Live 8 has come in for some criticism in the media. Some of these criticisms are not specific to Live 8 but representative of a particular point of view concerning western attitudes towards Africa. However, some critics such as TV and radio presenter Andy Kershaw directed criticisms at Geldof himself and the motives for Live 8: I am coming, reluctantly, to the conclusion that Live 8 is as much to do with Geldof showing off his ability to push around presidents and prime ministers as with pointing out the potential of Africa. Indeed, Geldof appears not to be interested in Africa's strengths, only in an Africa on its knees. * Geldof is criticised for using Africa as "a catwalk" which is more about reviving the careers of ageing rock stars than about helping the poor in Africa. For example, some fans and music critics feel that some of the lineups, such as that in Barrie, are not only largely ethnically homogeneous but not likely to connect with, or speak to, younger fans ("Live 8 organizer dismisses criticism..." Globe and Mail article). Many believed that it was hypocrisy that many of the performing artists had tens (if not hundreds) of millions of dollars of "spare cash" lying in their bank accounts whilst wanting to "Make Poverty History". Counter-critics, however, point out that these celebrities are still not rich enough to be able to cancel the debts of nations. Damon Albarn also suggested that the performers' record labels should pay "a tariff" as the accompanying publicity would increase future record sales and hence their profits. Live 8, it is important to note, is not a charity event. Indeed, public figures and media have since called on the artists and their record labels to donate the profits of increased sales that followed appearance at the event (see "...Live 8 profits plea" BBC article, for example). More criticism has been leveled at some of the performers based on what they took home for participating in the Philadelphia concert. While they received no monetary compensation, some were given gift bags containing lavish gifts and designer goodies - including Gibson guitars and Hugo Boss suits - valued at approximately $3000 (see "Fancy gifts at odds with cause?" The Philadelphia Inquirer). None of the items appeared to have been fairly-traded, sweatshop-free or environmentally friendly. No Spice allowed The Spice Girls were rumoured to be coming back for a last appearance together. Although the story behind this performance that never happened was more known only by people at the UK, news and rumours kept everyone for months unsure whether their reunion was true or not. The Spice Girls did intend to perform together at the Live 8. Even Melanie C, usually against a group's reunion, and Geri Halliwell, the one who left the group in 1998, announced that they wanted to take part in it. However, the organizers of the event, including Geldof, initially announced that the Spice Girls would not be at Live 8, due to their music "not being political enough" (which struck some fans as a hypocritical due to the relatively non-political performers' Mariah Carey and Robbie Williams inclusion in the event). Since many people expressed how they wanted the Spice Girls to perform, including rapper Eminem and Coldplay´s frontman Chris Martin, the organizers decided to accept them in the event, provided all five of the group's original members were present. Everything seemed fine, as Geri, Melanie C, Emma Bunton and Victoria Beckham all agreed to perform as a group. But Geldof mentioned that Melanie Brown, the fifth spice girl, wasn't too sure if she wanted to be there or not. During this time, the tabloids created a series of rumors about whether they would be there or not, as a surprise or not. In the end, Brown decided not to take part in Live 8 as she was working on a yet-unreleased television script, so none of the girls sung on stage. Nevertheless, Melanie C, Geri Halliwell and Victoria Beckham still supported the event in photo and voice ads, as well as attending the event, as part of the audience. British comedian Peter Kay played a trick on Spice Girls fans in the audience, while he was introducing one of the acts. After several minutes of build-up, he introduced the Spice Girls, to cheers from the crowd, before looking backstage, supposedly confused as to who he was introducing: "The what? The who?" He then turned back to the crowd with a smile on his face and introduced The Who. Late ending The show was originally scheduled to end at around 8:00pm (BST), but due to new artists being added, the planned finishing time was extended to 9:30pm. Due to the need to send tickets a few weeks early, they had the original 8 p.m. finishing time printed on them. The show ran much later after Bob Geldof decided to perform and many of the other acts decided to give speeches. There was a large panic backstage, as revealed on a BBC1 documentary. Backstage crew had to run into the Golden Circle to find Tessa Jowell, the British Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. She then held an emergency backstage meeting and it was decided that the show would go on. This panic was due to the chance of London being gridlocked if people missed their train. The early ending would have meant fans missing out on bands including The Who and Pink Floyd. The "Hey Jude" finale ended up finishing at around midnight after George Michael duetted with Paul McCartney. The Daily Mail commented on the event for running two hours late, with a frontpage headline reading "Live L8" (Live Late). Swearing and censorship Despite the show being broadcast before the watershed in many countries, there was no attempt at censorship. The BBC apologised * for an instance when Madonna asked the audience "are you fucking ready, London?", and for Snoop Dogg's performance which contained the use of swear words without censorship. Madonna also swore repeatedly during her following song, "Music", where she said "Come on, I want to see all you fuckers dancing". Razorlight and Robbie Williams also swore during their performances, although Williams' was after the watershed. In the official DVD release of the concerts, Madonna's pre-song cursing was not included while her in-song cursing was. On the other hand, almost half of Snoop Dogg's performance was not made available. Robbie Williams' "Hyde Park, you look fucking beautiful tonight" as well as Midge Ure's "I find it amazing, that Bob can do his fantastic thing and then fucking turn this on for me" remain from the Edinburgh concert. In the United States, MTV censored swear words from the performances it broadcast, except for the word "bullshit" as part of the lyrics to Pink Floyd's "Money". ABC drew criticism when they aired a highlights special of The Who's performance of "Who Are You?" without censorship of the lyric "who the fuck are you?". Other Although the concerts in London and Philadelphia had the biggest stars lining up, both concerts are currently not available in their original, full version. Several artists' performances were cut to one or two songs, including Bon Jovi and Dido. Criticism was drawn from viewers of MTV, VH1 (and possibly other networks), in which the broadcaster cut to commercials while bands were still performing, specifically legendary rock acts Pink Floyd (during the legendary guitar solo for "Comfortably Numb") and The Who. Criticism was also aimed at MTV and VH1 for focusing too much on ill-informed VJs and not enough on the music. In some instances, VJs referred to the event at "Live 8 2005" or even "Live Aid 8" proving that they had little or no knowledge of the cause going into the event. Very few of Live 8's songs were played in full by MTV and almost none of them were broadcast live, leading some to say that MTV may have covered the event but they did not broadcast it. The following weekend, MTV and VH1 broadcast six hours of a commercial-free special devoted to Live 8 showing full performances in response to the heavy criticism. Still, this broadcast was a mere snippit compared to the extensive BBC coverage. Another critism was at the London round, alcohol was barely available to concertgoers, whilst being made available to the VIPs. In the weeks leading up to Live 8, The Daily Mirror began a petition, garnering support for British rock legends Status Quo. Originally offered a 6 p.m. slot, the Quo already had commitments in Ireland and therefore they requested an earlier slot. The Daily Mirror's petition, titled "No Quo, No Show", was backed by thousands though eventually nothing came of it. One proposed rationale behind this was a rumour that Geldof was angered at Quo's reference to there being "a lot of drugs" at Live Aid in 1985. Legacy On July 2, 2006, BBC 1, CTV and MTV broadcast Live 8: What a Difference a Day Makes. In the U.K., the special was 60 minutes as compared in the U.S. version on MTV running at 90 minutes. The special was aired on MTV at 7:30 a.m. eastern time, giving nearly no chance for those to be made aware of the broadcast. Instead of airing the special late at night, MTV aired their normal broadcasting schedule for Sundays, again adding to the criticism of MTV's lack of care for Live 8. In a report issued in June 2006 the G8 have reportedly not lived up to their promises set in 2005. According to DATA, the U.S. has increased its development-assistance pledges but is increasingly off-track in meeting them and, in general, the G8 is moving slowly in the effort to meet its promises. * Some consider Live 8 to be a success, including Bob Geldof himself. However, many believe it was a publicity stunt and a failure as the G8 have already forgotten their pledges. * Geldof also believes that public attention was quickly diverted by the London bombings on July 7. 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