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Live 8 concert, London

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Live 8 concerts and line-ups
2 July 2005
6 July 2005

The main Live 8 concert was held at Hyde Park, London, England on 2 July 2005, in front of over 200,000 people. The show's logistics were managed by famed promoter Harvey Goldsmith.

The event is also referred to as "Live 8 London" or "Live 8 UK".

File:Live8BitterSweetSymphony.jpg
Coldplay and Richard Ashcroft on stage

Lineup and songs

In order of appearance:

¹ Also performing at the Paris show on 2 July 2005

² Also performing at the Edinburgh show on 6 July 2005

³ Guitarist David Gilmour was in Bryan Ferry's band at Live Aid. Prior to this event, Pink Floyd had not performed together with former band member Roger Waters since 1981. Others who had played Live Aid 20 years before were Geldof, U2, McCartney, Elton John, Sting, The Who, George Michael and Madonna (who performed then at the Philadelphia concert).

Performance notes

It had been said that Paul McCartney and U2's Bono would be wearing Sgt. Pepper costumes, but, in the event, they were only worn by an anonymous, four-piece French horn section.

Immediately following Travis' performance, Geldof told the audience he "couldn't resist playing on this stage" and played the Boomtown Rats song "I Don't Like Mondays". He had earlier said that he "did not deserve" to play alongside the scheduled acts.

All the songs performed by Sting were sung twenty years before at Live Aid.

Dido and Youssou N'Dour also managed to appear at the Cornwall and Paris venues during the day.

Just before introducing Birhan Woldu, Bob Geldof became disgusted[citation needed] of audience members clapping at the classic video shown at Live Aid with the starving Ethiopians. He scowled at the fans, "I don't think we clap that, do we?" resulting in the fans being quiet. The rant was not included on the DVD release but was shown in the television broadcast.

George Michael said in an interview that he had wanted to perform a solo song, but was suffering from a bad head cold.

Some artists, such as Elton John, Coldplay, REM and U2, already had shows planned for 2 July, which they performed after their performances at Live 8. Accordingly they were not present for the "Hey Jude" grand finale.

The Who originally planned to do three songs (the two mentioned above plus "Baba O'Riley")[citation needed] but ultimately only performed two on the day.

The event marks the first time in 24 years that Pink Floyd's seminal line-up would perform: Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Richard Wright and Nick Mason. This would mark the only occasion when these four members would unite as Wright passed away on September 15, 2008 of cancer at the age of 65.

Originally scheduled to close at 9.30pm, the concert over-ran and went on until just after midnight, leaving many in the audience with no means of returning home.

Harvey Goldsmith appeared on stage to thank the audience for their patience with the late-running event, and to make a closing appeal for people to leave slowly, to avoid crushes.

Front stage passes

Notable, non-performing personalities backstage and in the audience included:

Coverage

Television

The BBC provided full television coverage in the UK, starting on BBC Two from 13:00, and continuing from about 18:15 on BBC One, right up to the end of the concert at midnight. The advertised changeover time was 16:15, disappointing many who had set video recorders accordingly.

The coverage was fronted by talk show host Jonathan Ross, with backstage interviews by Fearne Cotton and Jo Whiley.

350 complaints were made to the BBC about swearing before the 9pm watershed. The BBC apologised, however a spokesman said: "This is nothing, really. If EastEnders starts five minutes late we get close to 500 complaints".

In the US, MTV and VH1 provided intermittent and incomplete live and taped coverage, frequently breaking away mid-song for commercials or commentary by their veejays. This decision drew criticism from numerous viewers who viewed the commentary as being frivolous or inane and would have preferred to see the music acts themselves. However, AOL provided a full webcast of the entire show.

After the criticism of viewers, both VH1 and MTV showed many highlights of the Live 8 concerts on July 9, 2005 for 5 hours each without commercial interruption.

In Australia a highlights show of around 3 hours length was broadcast on the night of the concert, AEST, on free to air Nine Network and full live coverage was broadcast on pay TV.

Radio

In the UK, there was radio coverage on BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2 and several local radio stations.

The Radio 1 coverage was anchored by Chris Moyles and Scott Mills, with interviews by Edith Bowman, Colin Murray, Sara Cox and Vernon Kay. There was alternative coverage on Radio 2, anchored by Chris Evans. Each station focussed on artists who matched the station's playlisting policy and target audience.

Most commercial radio stations in the UK took a programme produced by Capital FM for the day.

In the US, XM Satellite Radio broadcast the concert in its entirety.

BBC Big Screens

The BBC also had live coverage on big screens across the UK.

  • Northern Ireland

People who were watching the event in Cardiff were able to watch the event in HDTV on a 17ft wide screen; this is believed to be the first ever live public relay of HD in Europe.

Online

AOL's music channel included a live video stream. The BBC were also streaming a radio show from the live event over the Internet via BBCi service, alongside various video clips.

LIVE 8

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