Live 8

Sublime...

A who's who concert of the past and present music industry featuring Paul McCartney, U2, The Who, Pink Floyd, Madonna, Elton John, Coldplay, Sting, Robbie Williams and REM in 10 different concerts in London, Cornwall, Berlin, Rome, Paris, Ontario, Tokyo, Jo'Burg, Moscow and Philadelphia.

Why? For justice! The concerts were designed to raise awareness, (not money), about the catastrophic poverty that exists in our world today, primarily in Africa. This public awareness was raised in order to put pressure on the G8 Leaders who will be meeting in Scotland on July 6-9. Through the huge public support, these leaders will be forced to consider the issues of fair trade, debt relief and aid and hopefully act upon these issues and in doing so, Make Poverty History.

A stellar event for a most worthy cause!

I really enjoyed Live 8 at the time.

There was a real sense of occasion about it, that it might have an influence on world poverty.

Now watching the DVDs some of that sense of occasion has gone. Although there are still children dying every few seconds and the haunting video to Annie Lenox's 'Why?' still affects as it should.

What disappointed me most was the removal of some tracks, presumably due to shortage of time. I was particularly looking forward to seeing Keane's 'Bedshaped' again and found it was one of those that had been left out.

The sound quality however is excellent through my hifi speakers but not all the bands performed that well on the day. For me Pete Doherty and Black Eyed Peas were a little bit poor.

Overall it is still an excellent concert to watch, the variety of artists and the reason they were all there make it unique...apart from Live Aid of course

I won't say this is worthy of a higher rating than "7" because many of the artists/performers, etc., were not to my liking. That said, a lot of them were great.

Pink Floyd made a historic return to the stage and stole the show. Roger's voice may not be at its best, but in terms of pure presence, they were ace! Velvet Revolver, sadly, was less impressive; the first live performance of theirs that I had seen, and I was fairly underwhelmed. Slash looked bloated and bored, Scott Weiland's vocals were fair at best, and their song selection was questionable (the opening line of "Do It for the Kids" contains a strong expletive, and the entire point of the song is to encourage sex). I'm not anti-swearing/sex, but the idea of them performing this show in front of millions of families across the nation was a bit disappointing. I think they could have instead played something more relevant and melodic.

To be entirely honest I couldn't care less about most of the other performers. REM was pretty dull and all the solo artists were grating MTV generation no-talent hacks.

Pretty colossal production. I was only 20 miles from Hyde Park, and looking back in retrospect I wish I had gone down to see the concert if only to catch a glimpse of what may possibly be the last Pink Floyd performance ever.

I was reading the previous commentary about Live 8, it stated that is just a cynical excuse to re-make Live Aid. It also says that it didn't created any awareness whatsoever. First things first, it was (at least the Hyde Park concert) a magnificent concert, a marvelous show. For starters U2 and Paul McCartney playing Sgt. Pepper, Coldplay w/ Richard Ashcroft playing "Bittersweet Symphony", Elton John w/ Pete Doherty playing "Children of the Revolution", in other stages Kaiser Chiefs, Green Day, Brian Wilson, Duran Duran, Stevie Wonder, etc. Going back to Hyde Park: Madonna, Sting, Robbie Williams, Velvet Revolver and to end one of the greatest final line-ups: the Who, followed by an unforgettable (probably last) performance by Pink Floyd playing "Comfortably Numb" in the best version that I've ever heard and to close Paul McCartney. It was indeed a brilliant Rock show. Now according to Bob Geldof approximately 50 out of the 90 petitions that the Live 8 agenda included were accepted by the leaders of the G8. To see if really Live 8 made a difference we have to wait for long term effects to arise in the African situation. Whether it was worth it or not, Live 8 was an effort to raise consciousness and avoided asking for money. This is called solidarity, very different is to give the fish than to give the fishing tools, always remember that, is not the money is the idea. I don't believe that it didn't create awareness, and in any case if ten percent of the people that watched the show began reading and studying and learning about poverty, fair (not free) trade with third world countries then it was worth it. I'm from Costa Rica, I live with everything I need (and want), but 1/4 of my country is poor, tough we have a 100 percent of electricity and telephone coverage (from the state owned company with the lowest rates in Latin America) and our literacy rate is 99%, still Costa Rica faces the same disgraces as all of the "third world" countries and 1/4 of my country lives below poverty lines. Around me my fellow latinamerican brothers live far worst than Costa Rica, not even compared (just read about the situation in Bolivia, Haiti, Honduras or Nicaragua). I feel connected to Africa because right here in Costa Rica I see poverty disgrace and I can't imagine what kind of poverty Africa lives, we here live perfectly fine as oppose to most African countries. Live 8 was not only about Africa, Live 8 was a signal for the people of the super-powers of the world to open their eyes study and learn about the disgrace that the world is suffering, the disgrace that is extreme poverty around the world in the so called "third world" countries. As I said before maybe Live 8 didn't raise the awareness that some expected, but there's no way to measure how many young people from around the world became interested in the injustices that this world carry. Probably more than a million young persons started reading about Africa, and then about Latin America, and then about south Asia, and of course about the poverty in their own countries. I really hope that if that concert made just a few people aware about the injustices in the world, if just a few people started reading great contemporary economists like Joseph Stiglitz or Jeffey Sachs, if just a few of us started learning about history and why we have come down to having 2/6 of the worlds population living in extreme poverty then it was worth it. I, myself study Political Sciences and Economy, I knew about everything Live 8 was talking about but certainly Live 8 reminded me that you have to speak up, say things and study as much as you can to do your little part for all the injustices committed every day with the poorest people in the world... it's a violation of human rights having so many poor people in the world. Aside from being a great rock concert if just a few people got interested in reading and getting in themselves the idea to do something then it was worth it.

For goodness sake! What is wrong with having a concert!? Not everyone can rush off to Africa and administer vital medication to dying children. Not everyone wants to post their leftover food to starving children. This concert was simply a way for everyone (who wanted too) to feel that they have done something positive towards making a change. It was a POSITIVE thing to do.

Those of us lucky enough to be at the concert left that evening feeling human. Those who watched it on TV felt the power of that message. We had been forced to get in touch with our emotions, whether that be elation, excitement, empathy, passion.... whatever the emotions we felt, they made us remember what it was like to be human.

Reminding us fortunate westerners what it is like to be a real human.

And that, my friend, is what i believe is the key to making a change in this very un-human world.