Live 8: the trite and the serious

Some random quotes from the various interviews the BBC held inbetween sets or from people on stage.

Jeremy Clarkson: It’s better to try than not do anything at all

Bill Gates: if you show people the problems and you show people the solutions they will be moved to act

Neil Morrissey: trying to eradicate some poverty in the Third World, I mean Africa

Stereophonics: turning up and doing a couple of songs, that’s the least we could do.

Bob Geldof: there are over three billion people watching you now…

Will Smith (standing next to an original US Declaration of Independence on the Phily stage): today…Declaration of interdependence..this truth is self-evident, we are all in this together, every three seconds in the poorest courtries in the world a child dies of poverty…just like that someone else is dead, every 3 secs somebody’s son, somebody’s daughter, someones future is gone …8 men can make a world of difference in the lives of billions of people.

Travis: 20 years later the world is still hungry

Bob Geldof: I know it’s a cheek but I couldn’t resist, I just had to play on this stage (launching into an unscheduled version of I don’t like Mondays).

Midge Ure (immediately after Geldof on stage): I’m alright, epecially after hearing that, which was dreadful, but it was Bob, what do you expect?

Midge Ure: It’s about standing up and being counted…. give us your soul, give us your feelings. If it was your child dying…you’d doing something about it, but because it’s Africa we push it away.

George Aladiyah: Africa has received more aid than every other area in the world…it’s not money, it’s about giving people opportunities, getting off people’s back…giving people the way to earn their own money.

Brad Pitt: By the time this concert ends this evening, 30000 Africans would have died because of poverty…this does not make sense.

tags: live8london live8