Live 8: Real Serious Music

Concerts To Pressure G8 Summit Rock Four Continents And Beyond

(CBS/AP) 
In Tokyo, Iceland's Bjork made her first live performance in two years. But the crowd of 10,000 people was only half of what the hall in the Tokyo suburb of Makuhari was capable of holding.

"People are willing to go out of their way, because we believe passionately in what this is about," said Bjork. "Just the acknowledgment of the problem is an important step."

There are shows Saturday in all the G8 countries: the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and Russia, as well as in South Africa, where former President Nelson Mandela was expected to address the crowd in Johannesburg. A tenth, all-African show is being staged in southwest England.

In Hyde Park, organizers and police geared up for one of the biggest outdoor events ever held in Britain. More than 150,000 people have tickets for the free show, with another 55,000 expected to watch on giant screens in the park. More than 1,000 police officers will be on duty.

"Police leave for this weekend was canceled some time ago," said Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Helen Ball.

"We are not expecting trouble and there is no intelligence about a particular security threat to this event, but we have planning for a whole range of different things happening," she added.

Harvey Goldsmith, one of the Live 8 organizers, said he was determined the show, featuring 25 acts, would go like clockwork.

"We have clocks everywhere and our message to all the artists is, we don't care what time you go on, we just care about what time you come off," he said.

"We have to be as time-precise as possible, particularly with all the international links going on. We just ask everybody to play ball."

More than a million people may attend the concerts, and organizers say 85 percent of the world's population will have access to a television, radio or Internet broadcast of the day's events.

A complex broadcasting operation will feed footage of the concerts to networks including the British Broadcasting Corp., which is devoting more than 12 hours on its main TV channels to the event, and MTV.

The artists, playing for free, are heeding Geldof's call to urge world leaders to double aid, cancel debt and rework unfair trade laws to lift African nations out of poverty.

Apart from the politics, fans debated the day's pressing musical questions. Who would have their Queen moment? The band led by Freddie Mercury were past the peak of their fame in 1985, but gave an astonishingly powerful Live Aid performance at London's Wembley Stadium that catapulted them back to the top.

Would anyone suffer the Led Zeppelin curse? The 1970s superstars reunited for Live Aid, with Phil Collins replacing late drummer John Bonham onstage in Philadelphia. The band disliked their performance so much they have never allowed it to be rebroadcast.

Few doubt it will be a memorable day, not least the ever-voluble Geldof.