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July 19, 2005
LIVE 8: That Feel Good Feeling For The Masses
Last Saturday I got home around six after missing the first couple of hours of Live 8 that saturated newspapers, TV and the internet for the past few days. Like a lot of people I watched most of the concert, dipping in and out of it through the evening and late into the night. When it was all over though I couldn’t think of anyway the concert had benefited the people of Africa. I sat there thinking from a personal point of view my awareness certainly hasn’t been altered or heightened. I always knew there was poverty, AIDS and people dieing from starvation in the world. I knew that from when I was a kid. So then I thought obviously Sir Bob isn’t trying to raise my awareness and the public’s awareness because we’re already very aware. He must be trying to let the bigwigs in politics know what’s going on. That must be it. But surely they know of Africa’s problems too? In fact I’m certain they do.
So there I was, in the middle of the night, with only the light from the TV static illuminating the room and feeling terribly, terribly confused. What exactly did Live 8 achieve that warranted so much news coverage? Live 8 raised about as much awareness as one of those TV ads for Concern do. Whereas people usually switch channel when one of those awfully depressing charity adverts comes on, with Live 8, everyone was clued to their sets watching Madonna and Robbie Williams. The rock stars even threw in the odd “Let’s Make Poverty History!” shouts. Oh with what passion they shouted the same slogan out over and over again. It was almost enough to make you run out of your living room and onto the street looking for some poverty and then, eh, making it history.
Ah, but therein lies the quandary. Making Poverty History isn’t like Making People Happy. To make people happy you just need a few rock stars singing a few songs everyone loves but to make poverty history is a much more complex matter and Sir Bob shouldn’t be sending out bite size demands that the public can swallow easily. Some commentators have denounced Geldof’s efforts as trying to put us all on a guilt trip. I don’t agree with this idea. I believe the complete opposite. That Live 8 didn’t make people feel guilty it made us feel the exact opposite. If you supported Live 8 by saying so, going to it or watching it on TV it some how vindicated your lack of charitable spirit when you ignore those Third World Charity Muggers on the streets of Dublin. Because supporting Live 8 was essentially supporting a charity that wasn‘t looking for money. We didn’t have to part with anything at all to take a share of the glory.
Unlike the many rock stars like U2, Madonna and even indie bands like The Killers, the public got nothing but a very small piece of that glory. The bands themselves got something much more tangible - they got boosted record sales. Yup, according to record store HMV every single artist who performed at the Live 8 gig in Hyde park had their albums lifted off the shelves within days. Even the band with the lowest boost in record sales since the gig (Coldplay) can’t escape this fact as the only reason they’re sales didn’t go up very much was because they weren’t down in the first place! Everyone was already buying their album, they didn’t need to do Live 8 just to buy themselves some extra record sales. I expect they supported it for the same reasons as the rest of us - to have the feeling of collectively doing the right thing without actually haven’t to pay for it.
What a wonderful world we live in.
Posted by LiamG at July 19, 2005 06:17 PM