3 July, 2005

Do they know it's for Africa?

» Reuters | Björk rocks Tokyo as Live 8 marathon kicks off
2 July 2005
By David Dolan

In Tokyo, the 10,000-seat venue was full by the end, although many in the crowd said they came mainly to see headline act Bjork give her first live performance in two years.

» Reuters | Björk rocks, but did Live 8 Tokyo crowd get point?
2 July 2005

Japanese rock fans flocked to Tokyo's Live 8 concert on Saturday, but it was Icelandic singer Björk more than the more serious message about poverty that seemed to be the main draw.

"If Björk wasn't here today ... I wouldn't have been that thrilled about getting a ticket," said 27-year-old Tsunenori Sakai, one of around 10,000 people who filled the sweltering convention center.

Hanae Aoki agreed. "Today we are here because of Björk," she told Reuters. "I've been a fan of hers for years."

During the Tokyo concert, Japanese subtitles running below documentary excerpts about poverty were so small that many people in the crowd could not read them.

However, the message was not totally lost. Björk, for one, expressed the feeling of hopelessness she felt in the face of Africa's crippling poverty and disease.

Here are some quotes from bjork.com:

I look at the news, I see people starving, I am crying. I'm a total mess. You try to think how you're going to break through this cobweb of problems and bureaucracy and how on Earth anybody is going to make any change.

I guess sometimes I feel there's not much hope to change anything... but I have to say, when I started to see in the news that Bob Geldoff was gonna get people together, it sorta felt that maybe there was about 5% hope -- which is better than zero!

It seems to me that the politicians of the rich countries are almost like this VIP that are untouchable - and then the rest of the public of their own countries and of all the other countries of the world are like the "other" chunk that don't have a voice... so, I would like to say that I am part of that huge chunk, which actually is about... 95% of the world!