Bob Geldof will today unveil the line-up for the Live 8 concerts to be held in Hyde Park on July 2. Twenty years after his Live Aid concerts (DVDs) raised awareness of African famine and dirty Irish men swearing, and despite promises that there would never be another concert, Geldof has changed his mind.

It’s been reported that the Spice Girls will not be reforming for the concert, despite earlier rumours. This is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on if you enjoy watching five old hasbeens caterwauling in unsuitable clothes or not.

Live 8 is being held days before the G8 summit in Scotland,
and is being used to raise awareness of global poverty. Live Aid was
held in two cities – London and Philadelphia – but Live 8 will be a
five city extravaganza, with concerts in London, Philadelphia, Paris,
Berlin and Rome.

The line-up for the London show is said to include Paul McCartney, Sting, Oasis, The Rolling Stones, Duran Duran, U2, Madonna, Coldplay and Prince. All big names, and thankfully they’ll be singing their own songs, not a horrible mish-mash of bad noise like Do They Know It’s Christmas.

Details of the other concerts have not been outlined, although Eminem (CDs) and the Dave Matthews Band (CDs) are rumoured to be playing in America.

Bob Geldof said "Once more into the breach. What started 20 years
ago is coming to a political point in a few weeks. There is more than a
chance that the boys and girls with guitars finally get to tilt the
world on its axis. What we do in the next five weeks is seriously,
properly, historically, politically important".

There’s a big chance that this will fail, of course. The original
Live Aid was used to directly raise money from the public, and it was a
huge success. Live 8 will rely on using persuasion to change the minds
of world leaders, something that hasn’t worked too well over the last
few years. It’s unlikely that George W Bush is going to get his groove on to Like A Prayer and drop third world debt because of it.

However, back-up comes in two forms. Firstly, the world can throw
its support behind the event and make enough of a noise for the leaders
to hear. And if that fails, Live 8 will wheel out it’s terrible secret
weapon to bring the G8 leaders cowering to their knees – Saint Bono. And nobody wants it to come to that.

[story by Stuart Heritage]