Live 8

I went to the Live 8 show in Philadelphia this past weekend. What is Live 8? It's the sequel to 1985's Live Aid show. This year, the goal was to lobby the upcoming G8 meeting to forgive debt to Africa and increase aid to African countries. There were nine shows that ran concurrently (including one in London that sounded pretty amazing). I don't know much about debt relief for Africa, and the show didn't do much to convince me that I should be in favor of it. But it was a pretty cool experience, with estimated 800,000 people at the show. The NY Times had printed something about 1.5 million people, but I think that was wrong.

We got to the show around 10am and waited in our spot for 2 hrs. Here are some photos from that spot.


This was our view of the concert site, which was on the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum. The "No Turn on Red" sign and the traffic light were more in our way than expected.


A view of the crowd behind us.


Here is a shot of the statue to the left of us and the crowds.

The best act we saw was Will Smith (who included in his performance a sing-along of the theme song from "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air"). We also saw the Black Eyed Peas, Bon Jovi, Destiny's Child and Kanye West perform. Also at the site, performing later in the day, were Dave Matthews Band, Stevie Wonder, Maroon 5, Linkin Park, Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, and Def Leppard. I heard the DMB set, which sounded pretty good, but will have to watch the remainder on the internet. We left since the show was a bit slow between acts, and we were getting hot in the sun. Here are some more photos from the day. I put some arrows on the famous people, since otherwise, it's nearly impossible to tell who they are.


Will Smith, the first emcee.


The Black Eyed Peas.


Jon Bon Jovi. It's a little blurry.


There were just so many people!


The fire department set up these trucks that sprayed water. Pretty cool idea. Fortunately it wasn't too humid on Saturday.


Here's a view from further away of the concert site. It was almost wall-to-wall people from here to the stage.