Category: Concerts

ABC to broadcast Live 8 concert special
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – ABC television has locked up U.S. broadcast rights for the upcoming worldwide series of Live 8 concerts for African debt relief, with plans to air two hours of highlights from the shows in prime time, the network said on Tuesday.
The Walt Disney Co.-owned network licensed TV rights to the Live 8 performances from America Online, a unit of Time Warner Inc., which also owns North American and European Internet rights to the shows, an AOL spokesman said.
AOL plans to stream six of the eight concerts simultaneously on the Web, free of charge, making the event one of the most ambitious tests of live online entertainment, organizers said.
The shows also will be archived and made available on demand for about six weeks after the concerts in Philadelphia, London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Toronto, Tokyo and South Africa.
The concerts, organized by Irish rocker Bob Geldof, are intended to raise awareness of poverty in Africa and to press world leaders at the Group of Eight summit of the world’s richest nations to increase humanitarian aid and ease Third World debt.
Highlights for ABC’s two-hour special, airing July 2, will include performances by Paul McCartney, U2 and the chart-topping British rock band Coldplay, the network said.
The Live 8 extravaganza will be aired in about 160 countries in all, reaching an estimated 5.9 billion potential television viewers, organizers said.
“It’s the biggest entertainment event in television history,” said Kevin Wall, an executive producer of the Live 8 broadcast.

Live 8 Adds Philly Acts, Inks DVD Deal
Alicia Keys, Toby Keith, Josh Groban and the Black Eyed Peas have been added to the lineup for the Philadelphia edition of Live 8. They join previously confirmed acts such as Stevie Wonder, Dave Matthews Band, Destiny’s Child, Jay-Z, Lincoln Park, Rob Thomas and Maroon 5 for the July 2 event at the city’s Museum of Art.
In addition, such film stars as Chris Tucker, Natalie Portman, Jimmy Smits, Salma Hayek and Jennifer Connolly have signed on as presenters.
AOL Music will carry all six of the worldwide Live 8 concerts live and EMI has inked a deal to release the event on DVD in November. The company will tailor the content of the releases to each worldwide market.
“I hope this will be the biggest selling DVD of all time. It deserves to be,” says Live 8 organizer Bob Geldof. “More importantly perhaps, it should be, for it will help us achieve our goal of changing the lives of the extreme poor for the better and making our generation the one that helped end the disgrace of poverty.”

Live 8 organizer defends lineup for Canadian concert
Canadian Live 8 organizer Michael Cohl shot back Wednesday at critics who are complaining that the lineup for the July 2 concert in Barrie, Ont., is rife with has-beens.
“These are our best artists. It’s not all of them, but it’s sure a substantial portion of them,” the concert promoter said of the bill for the July 2 event, which includes the likes of Bruce Cockburn, Burton Cummings, Gordon Lightfoot and Tom Cochrane.
“These are people who have competed on the world stage successfully,” he told the Canadian Press.
Writing in the Toronto Star on Wednesday, pop-music critic Ben Rayner was among those who expressed disappointment with the lineup.
The artists on the bill “have all made a significant dent in the Canadian and international consciousnesses at various points during their careers, but the days of their greatest visibility and popular success are long behind them,” Rayner said.
Even a group like Our Lady Peace is “yesterday’s news to the kids,” he argued.
“Our concert just feels like a lazily programmed, rather half-hearted afterthought,” he added, comparing the Canadian concert to the ones being staged at venues around the world on the same day.
Cohl said he had talked to between 50 and 60 acts about appearing at the concert.
“My job is to put together the best cross-section of talent that will draw the best audience both in terms of live, and in terms of the television audience, so that more people will get the message,” he said.
He added that he expects there to be “overwhelming demand” when the free tickets for the show become available on Thursday.
Rayner wasn’t the only one who used Tuesday’s announcement as an opportunity to criticize Live 8.
National Post columnist Bruce Garvey also responded harshly in a front-page column headlined “A rock & roll fantasy.”
Garvey noted that the goal of 1985’s Live Aid had been to alleviate the famine then raging in Africa. “Well, it didn’t. So here we are again, treading the same well-worn trail that leads to nowhere,” he wrote.
Calling Geldof a “long-since failed rocker from a one-hit … bar band called the Boomtown Rats,” Garvey told his readers not to “expect Live 8 to make a whit of difference to anyone’s life in Africa.” He also questioned the wisdom of making the concerts free.
Those comments are in sharp contrast to the optimism that was in evidence on Tuesday among the artists who are slated to appear.
Musicians like Jeremy Taggart, the drummer for Our Lady Peace, said they have high hopes for Live 8.
“If this is done properly and enough awareness is raised, this could change the world,” Taggart said.
“As musicians, we’re in a unique position where we can raise awareness, perhaps more than just about any other body of people in the world,” echoed Great Big Sea’s Alan Doyle.
“It allows us to feel like we’re contributing to society other than great tunes and great dancing. We have the opportunity to turn people on to great causes,” noted Tyler Stewart, a member of Barenaked Ladies.
Stewart also responded Tuesday to one other criticism of the concert: the choice of venue. Barrie is located about one hour north of Toronto along highway 400, the route many Toronto residents take to visit their summer homes.
“Toronto really needs to take a chill pill and just drive up the 400,” he said in response to the city’s disappointment at losing the concert to Barrie.
“You’re going to the cottage anyway. Just stop in at the frigging show.”

Barrie wins Canadian Live 8 concert
After several weeks of rumours and speculation, organizers have announced Barrie, Ont., as the location of the upcoming Canadian Live 8 concert.
Concert promoter Michael Cohl, who was recently inducted into Canada’s Walk of Fame, made the announcement at a news conference in downtown Toronto Tuesday morning. Cohl, who helped organize the Rolling Stones SARS benefit concert in 2003, announced that the free concert will take place on July 2 at Barrie’s outdoor Park Place concert venue, formerly known as Molson Park.
Performers will range from Canadian icons like Gordon Lightfoot, Bruce Cockburn, Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings to bands like the Barenaked Ladies, Blue Rodeo, Our Lady Peace, the Tragically Hip and Great Big Sea.
Set to begin at 11am and end at 8pm, the July 2 concert will be hosted by Dan Ackroyd and Tom Green.
Free tickets, limited to two per person, will be distributed beginning Thursday via the Ticketmaster website.
Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, the main proponents of 1985’s Live Aid campaign to raise funds for Ethiopian famine relief, reunited to organize the upcoming star-studded concerts. Their aim is to raise awareness about the poverty facing nations in Africa and elsewhere in the world. Also they want to pressure the Group of Eight leaders √± meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, from July 6-8 √± to increase their foreign aid budgets and cancel debts owed by poor countries.
Geldof originally announced five free Live 8 concerts to be staged on July 2: in Philadelphia, London, Paris, Rome and Berlin. Last week, the former Boomtown Rat singer revealed four more venues: Toronto, Tokyo, Johannesburg and Cornwall, England.
Geldof and Ure also added a subsequent concert and protest rally in Edinburgh on the first day of the G8 summit.
There has been a huge appetite for the Live 8 concerts. For instance, more than two million people applied by text message for the 150,000 available tickets for the highly anticipated London show in Hyde Park. When the free tickets were distributed by lottery, some immediately turned up for sale on online auction site eBay. The tickets drew rapidly rising bids topping more than $1,000 and vocal criticism from Geldof, who urged people to enter bogus bids to inflate the prices to astronomical levels.
Though they specified that auctioning charity tickets is not illegal in the U.K., eBay officials eventually removed the Live 8 tickets from sale less than a day after they first appeared.

Race Against Time
Toronto will definitely host the Canadian leg of the Live8 show. The question now is where.
Concert creator Bob Geldof has confirmed the G.T.A. has been added to the list of cities staging one of the worldwide shows, along with Tokyo and Johannesburg.
The Nobel Prize winning activist and musician insists the official announcement will be made on Friday.
With that mystery solved, the only real remaining concerns about the show are the where and the who.
The concerts to forgive poor countries their debt and end poverty are scheduled to take place at sites around the world on July 2nd. And time is running out to set everything up.
Canada’s contribution was originally supposed to be held in Ottawa, but that city was forced to pull out over crowd control concerns.
That left Toronto, a destination thatís now been all but confirmed by Geldof.
A decision on possibly using either the Amphitheatre or Downsview Park as a location for the big show was supposed to come Thursday.
But now everyone involved is pulling back. “I think we’re very close to an announcement,” admits Philip Maher of World Vision, one of the charity groups involved in the show. But so far, no one√≠s heard from promoter Michael Cohl, and everything√≠s on hold until they do.
“Until we get official word – until he tells us what’s going on for sure, because he’s the one organizing the talent, he’s the one organizing the venue,” Maher cautions. “There’s no question that … an announcement is imminent. But when exactly, we just don’t know at this point.”
Sneak peaks at the line-up have already been floated, with one spokesperson calling it ìspectacularî.
Among those rumoured to hit the stage: the Barenaked Ladies, Jann Arden and Our Lady Peace. Reps for Billy Talent have already confirmed the group has been invited and will be there ñ wherever ëthereí is.
Cohlís involvement has also led to the very real possibility that the Rolling Stones could top the bill, since theyíll be in town rehearsing for their world tour.
Downsview may be the logical choice for the concert but not the logistical one. The park is scheduled to hold Canada Day celebrations the day before the world show, and there’s no guarantee the venue would be ready on time.
Live 8 Concert Line-up
London
(Hyde Park)
Pink Floyd
Annie Lennox
Bob Geldof
Coldplay
The Cure
Dido
Elton John
Joss Stone
Keane
The Killers
Madonna
Mariah Carey
Ms. Dynamite
Muse
Paul McCartney
Razorlight
REM
Robbie Williams
Scissor Sisters
Snoop Dogg
Snow Patrol
Stereophonics
Sting
U2
Velvet Revolver
Paris
(Palais des Versailles)
Andrea Bocelli
Axelle Red
Calo Gero
Craig David
Jamiroquai
Johnny Hallyday
Kyo
Manu Chao
Placebo
Renaud
Youssou N’Dour
Yannick Noah
Berlin
(Brandenburg Gate)
A-ha
Bap
Brian Wilson
Crosby Stills and Nash
Die Toten Hosen
Lauryn Hill
Peter Maffay
Rome
(Circus Maximus)
Faith Hill
Irene Grandi
Jovanotti
Laura Pausini
Nek
Tim McGraw
Vasco Rossi
Zucchero
Philadelphia
(Museum of Art)
Will Smith
50 Cent
Bon Jovi
Dave Matthews Band
Jay-Z
Kaiser Chiefs
Keith Urban
Maroon 5
P Diddy
Rob Thomas
Sarah McLachlan
Stevie Wonder

All-star lineup unveiled for Live 8
LONDON (AP) — London’s Hyde Park, Circus Maximus in Rome and the Philadelphia Museum of Art are among the venues for Live 8, a series of concerts being organized by Bob Geldof, the driving force behind the 1985 Band Aid and Live Aid campaigns for African famine relief.
The July 2 concerts, which will be free, also will be held near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and in Paris. Performers will include Madonna, Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Duran Duran and Brian Wilson.
“We don’t want people’s money. We want them,” Geldof told a news conference Tuesday. He said negotiations for the Paris venue were continuing.
Performers will include Elton John, Mariah Carey, Coldplay, Madonna, McCartney, R.E.M., Sting and U2 in London; Will Smith, Bon Jovi, Dave Matthews Band, Wonder, Jay-Z and P. Diddy in Philadelphia; Crosby, Stills and Nash, Lauryn Hill and Wilson in Berlin; Jamiroquai, Youssou N’Dour, Yannick Noah and Craig David in Paris; and Faith Hill and Duran Duran in Rome.
The concerts are aimed at raising world awareness of poverty in Africa just days before G8 leaders meet in Britain.
Geldof said the G8 meeting provided a “unique opportunity for Britain to do something unparalleled in the world … to tilt the world a little bit on its axis in favor of the poor.”
John said he was “very proud to be involved.”
“Now I’m fully aware of what’s going on and seeing the injustices going on,” John said. The 58-year-old pop star said he hadn’t been mature enough to appreciate the last concert 20 years ago and its ramifications.
Geldof said that in the two decades since the Live Aid concerts in London and Philadelphia, Africa had gone into economic decline.
“The result of that is we see people dying on TV screens every night,” he said. “This is to finally, as much as we can, put a stop to that.”
Live 8 is not going to be “gloomy and doomy,” Geldof said, and is “not for charity but for political justice.”
The concert in Philadelphia will be held on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. John is set to headline an AIDS-relief concert for July 4 on the parkway. The site of the 1985 concert, JFK Stadium, was torn down to make way for an arena.
The June 13, 1985, concert in London took place at Wembley Stadium, which has also been demolished to make way for a new sports stadium. Fans enter a lottery by cell phone text message to obtain a ticket.
A look at the Live 8 concert lineups announced Tuesday by organizers:
LONDON:
Mariah Carey
Coldplay
Dido
Keane
Elton John
Annie Lennox
Paul McCartney
Muse
Razorlight
REM
Scissor Sisters
Snow Patrol
Stereophonics
Sting
Joss Stone
Robbie Williams
U2
Velvet Revolver
Bob Geldof
The Killers
Madonna
The Cure
BERLIN:
a-ha
Bap
Crosby, Stills & Nash
Lauryn Hill
Die Toten Hosen
Peter Maffay
Brian Wilson
PHILADELPHIA:
Will Smith (host)
Bon Jovi
Maroon 5
Dave Matthews Band
Sarah McLachlan
Rob Thomas
Keith Urban
Jay Z
Stevie Wonder
50 Cent
Kaiser Chiefs
P. Diddy
PARIS:
Andrea Bocelli
Craig David
Calo Gero
Jamiroquai
Kyo
Yannick Noah
Youssou N’Dour
Placebo
Axelle Red
Johnny Halliday
Manu Chao
Renaud
ROME:
Irene Grandi
Faith Hill
Jovanotti
Tim McGraw
Nek
Laura Pausini
Duran Duran
Vasco Rossi
Zucchero

Springsteen to Back Fogerty on Tour
NEW YORK/NASHVILLE (Billboard) – In what promises to fulfill a classic rock fan’s dream, Bruce Springsteen says he and the E Street Band will play with John Fogerty on the upcoming Vote for Change tour.
“We’re gonna back John,” Springsteen told Jay Lustig in Thursday’s edition of New Jersey’s Star-Ledger newspaper. “John’s coming, he doesn’t have a band right now, so we’re gonna do our best for him.”
Asked if he would be on stage for that part of the show, Springsteen said, “Are you kidding me? I’m going to be playing those John Fogerty songs. You better believe it.”
The five shows they’ll play together will kick off Oct. 1 in Philadelphia and also feature R.E.M. and indie rock act Bright Eyes on the bill.
Unabashed fans, Springsteen and the E Street Band have frequently covered Fogerty’s Creedence Clearwater Revival-era songs in concert, including tapping “Who’ll Stop the Rain” during bad weather at outdoor stadium shows. Springsteen also spoke at Creedence’s 1993 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and jammed with Fogerty at the Los Angeles event.
In the midst of a handful of solo dates that wrap Sunday in Houston, Fogerty is readying the release of a new album, “Deja Vu (All Over Again),” due Sept. 21 via Geffen. The title track is a sharp critique of the war in Iraq, with such lyrics as “Day by day we count the dead and dying / Ship the bodies home while the networks all keep score.”
The album includes guest appearances by Tom Petty keyboardist Benmont Tench, drummer Kenny Aronoff, dobro master Jerry Douglas, and Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler.
As for the Vote for Change tour, it will feature various groupings of artists playing concerts in electoral swing states across a few days in early October in an effort to oust George Bush from the presidency. The entire tour is being presented by MoveOn.Org’s political action committee MoveOn PAC and America Coming Together (ACT), an organization advocating change in government.
Springsteen told the Star-Ledger that the idea for the tour came out of conversations with his manager, Jon Landau about “wanting to do something this election season.” Landau convened with the managers of other participating acts, such as Pearl Jam and the Dixie Chicks, and the tour was born.
“These artist citizens all feel the need to speak out,” Landau told Billboard. “They will do that respectfully and intelligently, then let the chips fall where they may.”
The tour is sophisticated in its targeted approach, instead of grandstanding in major media markets. While Philadelphia, Cleveland, Milwaukee and Orlando, Fla., are on the route, so are Ames, Iowa; Kalamazoo, Mich.; Toledo, Ohio; and Asheville, N.C.
“We don’t have a show in New York or Los Angeles, because (those cities) don’t need this,” Landau added. “These artists are not out there to play for their buddies. The last time Bruce played Ann Arbor (Mich.) was 1980. We want to make sure people there know.”
“The goal is very clear,” Springsteen said in the Star-Ledger. “We want to change administrations in November… It’s a combination of voter mobilization and some education. It’s going to be a lot of fun and entertaining for people — and inspirational, hopefully.”