Bjork rocks, but did Live 8 Tokyo crowd get point?

Bjork rocks, but did Live 8 Tokyo crowd get point?
Sat Jul 2, 2005 10:09 PM ET


TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese rock fans flocked to Tokyo's Live 8 concert on Saturday, but it was Icelandic singer Bjork more than the more serious message about poverty that seemed to be the main draw.

Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to turn up to 10 concerts across four continents in what is billed as the greatest live music show ever staged. Whether they come for the music, the message, or both, remains to be seen.

Organizer Bob Geldof hopes the event will put pressure on world leaders meeting in Scotland next week to do more to alleviate poverty, especially in Africa.

"If Bjork wasn't here today ... I wouldn't have been that thrilled about getting a ticket," said 27-year-old Tsunenori Sakai, one of around 10,000 people who filled the sweltering convention center.

Hanae Aoki agreed. "Today we are here because of Bjork," she told Reuters. "I've been a fan of hers for years."

During the Tokyo concert, Japanese subtitles running below documentary excerpts about poverty were so small that many people in the crowd could not read them.

But the Live 8 message was not totally lost.

Bjork, for one, expressed the feeling of hopelessness she felt in the face of Africa's crippling poverty and disease.

"I look at the news, I see people starving, I am crying. I'm a total mess," she told reporters after her first live gig in two years.

"You try to think how you're going to break through this cobweb of problems and bureaucracy and how on Earth anybody is going to make any change."

Most people in the audience were at least wearing white poverty awareness wristbands.

"It's something I just wanted to see," said Koichi Sato, 31. "We've never had something like this in Japan for Africa ... and of course, I want to see Bjork."


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