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| London: Corinne Bailey Rae performed at Wembly Stadium in Britain. [Editor's note: The original version displayed an incorrect photo.] Stephen Hird/Reuters |
Live Earth concert: Was its message heard?
Despite the overtly green theme of Saturday's global event, some concertgoers felt the main point was lost amid the music.
from the July 9, 2007 edition
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"There are people at this event who are not picking up their trash," said Clive Hall, a bartender and deejay from Brooklyn, N.Y.
Cassie Toner, another attendee, was disappointed that there weren't more efforts to inform concertgoers. "I thought that there were going to be more educational and NGO booths set up outside," but instead, she said, companies gave away useless materials, which were strewn around the grounds.
Some of the singers also openly admitted to being relatively uninformed. Akon, a singer who has spent much of the year at the top of the charts, admitted to not knowing what "green" meant until the day of the show, but said that he had decided to perform because he "wanted to be more educated about it."
Others were more in tune, performing songs about environmental activism and taking steps to minimize their personal carbon footprint.
The Police, in an onstage collaboration with singer John Mayer and rapper Kanye West, ended on an optimistic note with their "Message in a Bottle," in which a castaway sends an SOS message in a bottle, with little hope of finding help. He wakes up one morning, however, to find 100 million other bottles with SOS messages washed up on his shore. He realizes that he is "not alone at being alone" – a key concept behind Live Earth, which hoped to unite billions into one environmental force.
Material from the wires was used.
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