Why i Wont Be Watching Live8

Indeed he has read my mind.

I also think that Geldof is suffering from megalomania.

he's conflating, in a very momuslike move, musical conservatism with political conservatism. there are no doubt problems with live8, but they are more along the lines of what miccio just wrote. (yes, that was an xpost)

unlike david though i have no choice.

such is married life.

but i totally agree - tis a dire lineup.

McCulloch slams Live 8
Bunnyman takes aim at Geldof and Bono
http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/news/20050701_live8.shtml

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but they hoping that one of these guys from the G8 is on a quick 15-minute break at Gleneagles and sees Annie Lennox singing 'Sweet Dreams' and thinks, 'Fuck me, she might have a point there, you know' ... Keane doing 'Somewhere Only We Know' and some japanese businessman going, 'Aw, look at him...we should really fucking drop that debt, you know'. It's not going to happen, is it?"

Live 8: Hyde Park running order
The centrepiece of Live 8 day is the star-studded concert to be held in London's Hyde Park. The official running order has not been revealed, but an unofficial order and set list has been printed in a number of UK media.

The BBC News website has compared the lists and the below is a fair indication of what to expect from 1400 BST onwards.

# Sir Paul McCartney and U2: Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

# U2: One

# Coldplay: In My Place, Fix You

# Coldplay and Richard Ashcroft: Bitter Sweet Symphony

# Sir Elton John (introduced by Little Britain's Matt Lucas and David Walliams): Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting, The Bitch is Back

# Sir Elton John and Pete Doherty: Children of the Revolution

# Dido: Life for Rent, White Flag, Thank You

# Stereophonics: Songs to be confirmed

# REM: The One I Love, Losing My Religion, Imitation of Life, Everybody Hurts

# Ms Dynamite: Dy-na-mi-tee, Judgement Day, Redemption Song

# Keane: Everybody's Changing, Somewhere Only We Know

# Travis: Sing, Turn, Why Does It Always Rain On Me?

# Annie Lennox: Walking on Broken Glass, Sisters are Doin' It for Themselves, Sweet Dreams

# UB40: Food for Thought, Red Red Wine

# Snoop Dogg: Songs to be confirmed

# Razorlight: Somewhere Else, Golden Touch, Vice

# Madonna: Like a Prayer, Music, Ray of Light

# Snow Patrol: Chocolate, Run

# Joss Stone: I Had a Dream, Super Duper Love

# Scissor Sisters: Laura, Take Your Mama

# Velvet Revolver: Songs to be confirmed

# The Killers: Songs to be confirmed

# Sting: Every Breath You Take, Message in a Bottle, Desert Rose

# Mariah Carey: Make It Happen, Vision of Love

# Robbie Williams: Let Me Entertain You, Rock DJ, Feel, We Will Rock You

# The Who: Won't Get Fooled Again, Baba O'Riley

# Pink Floyd: Money, Comfortably Numb, Wish You Were Here

# Sir Paul McCartney: The Long and Winding Road

# Finale: Sir Paul McCartney joined on stage by George Michael and Sir Mick Jagger

no shit!

The whiney plank Chris Martin is featured as a new generation rock figurehead for the 00s.

The capitalist system indicative of "Coldplay" statements by EMI and HMV Group PLC will be making money out of the PR/ media generated from this event. This is not going to help Africa one jot.

Is anybody else on tenderhooks???

I'd wager that rather than help Africa this unholy trinity of aged mediocrity could cause the spontateous death of many people across the globe from sheer fucking boredom.

OK, im done.

I must admit I'm intrigued (is there that much ROOM for people outside the museum?), but still glad I'm not moving for a month.

I'm partially sympatheic to Stubbs' points, but raising/not raising money is hardly the point. We can be plenty cynical about whether or not this will help Africa in the short or long term, but how many international causes would kill to have this sort of exposure? I'd say that more people have learned more about African debt in the past two weeks than have learned about the Rwandan and Sudanese genocides in the past ten years. This is a bad thing?

Also, Geldof's megalomania isn't half that of people who make a big deal about NOT watching Live8 as a form of protest. So Stubbs doesn't want to watch, big fucking deal. How does *not* watching signify anything at all?

based on the inquirer's calculations, the parkway can only handle and audience of 250K - 500K people. 2M are expected to attend.

if mayhem does occur, i can watch it all from my west philly palace.

But with the power of photoshop...ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE.

I think this is missing the point a bit. In capsule form, admittedly, he seems to be arguing that there is simply *more* to be considered here than simply 'charity' or equating showing up/watching = having done something. If anything Stubbs is not arguing against *no* action but for a more thoroughly considered awareness that doesn't stop at the end of the day. Pace Barry, but what has been learned exactly by whom, and how will be it carried out, if at all?

Nobody's saying awareness is a BAD thing (though one question how much people are actually learning ABOUT world debt), but at this point why bother to hold the concerts? The 'awareness' has been raised, the shows themselves are just empty, self-gratifying pageantry. They don't prove anything to the G8 because people aren't showing up for The Cause but The Acts. Would they get the crowds if it was just a simple rally without a big all-star entertainment bonanza?

You can't separate these things. Awareness and funding never gets raised just out of thin air, there always has to be an event or a focal point.

If they announced at the shows that there would be no music but that everyone should stay at the sites for three hours to prove their solidarity to the cause, I'm curious how many people would stay.

Hypothetical situation:

If they held a fundraising/awareness dinner for Cause X, and they announced on the night of the dinner that everyone should stay at the banquet hall for three hours to prove their solidarity to Cause X, I'm curious how many people would stay.

Answer: not many, obv. Your line of reasoning starts looking silly in a slightly different context.

Hopefully it's clear what I was getting at.

Still, MindInRewind mostly OTM. Geldof shouldn't be above criticism just because of his ostensibly lofty goals, but these guys sound a little like cranks, and I'd even suspect that they feel they're being guilt-tripped by the reminder that there are poor folk elsewhere in the world.

The type of event that the organizers choose to hold is closely linked to how many people will be interested in taking part in the first place.

(about 5xposts to anthony)

x-post: you're assuming the influencing of G8 is a foregone conclusion. how is that the case?

It's totally going to do what is intended. It DID do it. A lot of people watched TV and saw bands, proving that celebrities can successfully use their attention-getting powers In The Name Of Good. That's why VH1 made a "Thank You" ad for them.

well, you sure manned the hell up by POSTING ABOUT IT ON ILM!! watch out bush.

-- Dadaismus (dadai

Ha ha ha! 10/10!

is this true? i think he has said it about Blair but where was it said about Bush?

xpost

I saw The Omega Tribe a couple of times in the early '80's, will that do?

x-post: not if you want to know THE TRUTH ABOUT BONO.

that is a morbidly stupid argument based on a false dichotomy which goes you either go out there and work for VSO or you have no right to carp from the sidelines when someone puts up something live8. i'm criticising an intellectual position, not asserting my own credentials of 'revolutionary purity'. that's just an ironic way of attempting to limit freedom of expression and, as such, i feel it quite appropriate that i should call you a thick fuckwit.

roffle. hi calum.

....i guess i am interested in the sheer "random-shunt" element of projects like this, and sardonic towards the kneejerk despair that, seein as it's CLEARLY not goin to do what's INTENDED AND CLAIMED, the only outcome can be more awfulness'

xpost. that's the intellectual position i'm criticising.

"All you need to know to discount this kind of rubbish is that Bob Geldof has said that Bush is doing more for Africa than any other previous president. which is neither true nor an appropriate statement to make about an entire continent.

as for brown and blair, they'll be rubbing their hands at the prospect of something passing for a protest co-opting itself into something that's digestible within a G8 communique that will undoubtedly be breathtakingly limited in its ambition. geldof will say 'we helped acheive this' and people will relax back into their armchairs for another 20 years."

but the problem with this is that live8 set itself up specifically as a political event with the frequently declared aim of influencing the outcome of Gleneagles. The very nature of putting on a rock concert to that effect - immersing the politics of it in the brief sensory jolt that people might (quite legitimately) get from seeing Mariah Carey perform - depoliticises the issues into, as someone said upthread, a bunch of erroneous oversimplifications that can and will actually work towards limiting perceptions of the manifold complexities at work in 54 different african countries. the entire thing obfuscates the real issues and to quietly admit that whilst still sitting back and enjoying that sensory jolt makes you complicit in a very insidious process of depoliticisation.

and i've never read any Debord.

i. everyone is entitled to hate on mariah and to say so
ii. but this is IRRELEVANT to the theory of the politics of the spectacle - which IF TRUE, is just as true (and in fact more riskily true) if the music is deemed GOOD by the political agitators
iii. i'm not against marches and strikes, i'm very VERY VERY pro them BUT i do think that "march culture" has (as the result of its own opportunist co-optation of rock-festival culture back down the line) (cf RAR eg) got caught up in the media-created nexus of "sending a message to the govt", when that isn't what festivals and marches are really about
iv. hence my feeling that what's actually going on here is that eg bono is shoutin: "political agitators stole this from the beadles; we're stealing it back!!"
v."this kind of rubbish" erm i think it is rubbish too (though i do think it is what lord blob thinks he's doing): that's why i wrote DEVIL'S ADVOCATE in giant letters...
vi. like miccio i think this is SAME OLD SAME OLD, not a sinister new development, so i am not particularly bothered about its bad political fall-out effect in SPECTACULAR terms (this is where we had already reached): had L8 not happened, i don't believe FOR A SECOND that big-media coverage of G8 (inc.protest) would in ANY WAY have caused blair-brown to not rub their hands
vii. where i am interested - as i said - is in the "micropolitical" effect, which i think is far harder to interpret or predict currently (stubbs's orignal essay was about THINKING: i am sorry if jaytoday thinks that thinking is in itself counter-revolutionary cz i don't)
viii. to reiterate, it's true that i am quite suspicious of BIG EVENT COUNTER-POLITICS, bcz i think it is already SO hostage to thinking about news-cycles and "influencing the good and the great", which is "top-down" thinking; by "micropolitical" i mean what billy bragg means - i know it is a bit of a buzzword, and i know i do not always write clearly when i'm thinking out loud, v.fast - which is that the purpose (and the VALUE) of these kinds of political event is the social commingling of all the people at it... but if this is true of G8-protest it must also be true of L8

so
A: if yr crit of L8 and G8 is via Spectacle Theory, then you must at least consider that there is a Spectacle Theory problem w.march culture
B: if you decide - correctly i think - that the value of march culture comes NOT in the headlines but in the provisional community generated, the sense of solidarity (which is not a Totalised Monolith obviously), then you at least have to grant that the same occurs at something like L8
C: in which case yr crit of one side and yr support of the other has to shift somewhat - not least to explain WHY a march culture provisional community necessarily produces good politics and a multi-screen festival culture can ONLY produce bad politics
D: what i dislike this dichotomy as an assumption is that it seems to cede ALL "culture-at-a-distance" to the enemy --- maybe it's right to do so, but i've never seen it proved, and i think the assumption carries within it the logic of despair, the assumption of its own defeat

x-post actually I don't think this entirely same old same old, I can't think of a benignrock event that ever had less certainty in creating something positive. Called attention to the same problem it did twenty years ago only no money raised, MOCKED the value of money being raised. They only ask for one to pray for benign imperialism and to buy ipods.

'if you decide - correctly i think - that the value of march culture comes NOT in the headlines but in the provisional community generated, the sense of solidarity (which is not a Totalised Monolith obviously), then you at least have to grant that the same occurs at something like L8'

hmm. well, yes, to an extent... i guess. but something so hideously over-organised, orchestrated, categorised and delimited in every possible way? yes, there will be many small, synergetic positive encounters but i just can't get away from the belief that, overall, for the right here right now of global politics, live8 was not a good thing.

(i think if you can claim to read it then you are just projecting a passive "consensus" onto a very large number of people)

but then it seemed worth opening things out into a proper discussion - partly to work out what *i* wz thinkin, cz i went into devil's advocate mode to try and worry out a niggly instinct i had in reaction against eg the stubbsian position

incidentally and by way of parallel, when you went thru the entrance to glastonbury they fastened a make poverty history white-band thing around your wrist at the same time as they clamped on the glastonbury ribbon pass thing.

i mean, i'm very grateful that that's really the ultimate amount of violence with which political culture co-opts in the UK, but still, it's a bit presumptuous if you ask me.

"it's a rat trap!! and we've been CAUGHT!!"

How much album sales has went up after live8 so far.

1 Pink Floyd - Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd - 1343%
2 The Who - Then and Now - 863%
3 Annie Lennox - Eurythmics Greatest Hits - 500%
4 Dido - Life For Rent - 412%
5 Razorlight - Up All Night - 335%
6 Robbie Williams - Greatest Hits - 320%
7 Joss Stone - Mind, Body and Soul - 309%
8 Sting - The Very Best of Sting & The Police - 300%
9 Travis - Singles - 268%
10 Madonna - Immaculate Collection - 200%

How much album sales has went up after live8 so far.
(tho that could easily be 100 sales of a cd compared to 1 last week...)
the actual numbers would be more interesting.

Mr Castaldo added that the effect would become more pronounced during this week.

No doubt said whilst rubbing his hands with a large smile on his face.