Politicians love to use rock’n’roll to spread their message of peace and unity across the planet. They know it‘s a sure fire way to get the ‘apathetic’ youngsters of today interested in a cause (and let’s face it, slogan t-shirts are in!).
Al Gore has been whipping up an eco storm all over the world with his series of lectures on climate change and his movie ‘An Inconvenient Truth’. It was only a matter of time before his bio diesel powered bandwagon would come up with the idea of a Live Aid type concert to spread his message. Except, as usual with the Americans, this concert has to be bigger and better than anything that’s ever gone before. And so he gives you...Live Earth.
Its a series of concerts which will take part on all seven continents, bringing together over 150 big bands, and which will be beamed live for 24hrs to an estimated audience of over 2 billion people worldwide.
A recent press conference, which featured stars like Cameron Diaz and Pharrell Williams announced the concerts, which will also be broadcast live on the internet in conjunction with MSN. It also marked the creation of a new alliance called ‘Save our Selves - The Campaign for a Climate in Crisis’ which, in the words of it’s chairman Al Gore, has been designed to “trigger a global movement to combat our climate crisis”. Gore's enlisted the help of Kevin Wall, an Emmy Award winning producer who was, amongst other things, the Executive Producer for Live 8
And incase you’re questioning the eco credentials of a series of rock concerts in large venues which will be using an indecent amount of electricity and probably creating a small eco climate of their own fear not! Live Earth will be implementing a new standard called the ‘Green Event’ that will become a model for carbon neutral rock and pop concerts and other live events, such as sports, in the future. All the venues are being created to have a minimal environmental impact and will be show grounds for the latest state of the art energy efficiency, sustainable facilities and on site power generation.
Bands who have signed up to the concerts already include the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Foo Fighters, Bloc Party, Duran Duran, Paolo Nutini, Snow Patrol and many others (what no Bono?!). Tickets are yet to be released but you can sign up for alerts at Live Earth.org
Related : Tuesday blog roundup : Inconvenient Truth 2 et al | Yay or Nay : Should Al Gore give it away?
