Pooh-bahs of Poverty

By Josh Tyrangiel

In 1985 Bob Geldof gave birth to Live Aid, the groundbreaking rock-concert series that raised $200 million for African famine relief. Bono of U2 and Richard Curtis (screenwriter of Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill) were there. That day inspired them to learn more about Africa and ultimately form their own antipoverty campaigns. Now the three friends are organizing Live 8, a series of free international concerts to be held on July 2 with unprecedented star power (Will Smith is host of a hip-hop-heavy show in Philadelphia; Pink Floyd will reunite in London on the same bill as U2, Coldplay, Madonna and Paul McCartney), all to pressure G-8 leaders to make debt forgiveness, fair trade and increased aid part of their Africa policies.

BOB, FOR YEARS YOU INSISTED YOU WOULD NEVER REVIVE LIVE AID. WHY?

BOB GELDOF Not to be immodest, but the first one was perfect in almost every sense. Artistically, people seemed to up the ante, and the performances were pretty great across the board. Huge amounts of money were raised, not a penny lost, and politically it elevated the issue onto the global table. The whole thing just worked, unbelievably. So you f___ with that legacy at your peril. Then there's the personal thing. David Bowie was on a high afterward, and he said, "Let's do this every year." I said, "Go on, you f_______ do it then." It's so exhausting, and you get into terrible trouble at home because you're not there at all.

RICHARD CURTIS I've already forgotten the name of my fourth child. [Laughter.]

GELDOF The thing that ultimately did it for me was their [Bono's and Curtis'] insistence. In retrospect I think maybe I was ambushed.

[TO BONO AND CURTIS] DID YOU COORDINATE YOUR ATTACKS ON HIM?

BONO Had there been real coordination, we would have been announcing this six months ago, not six weeks ago. It was all a bit haphazard actually. Bob didn't want to repeat himself, and he has a word he uses better than anyone else in the English language, and he just kept repeating that word followed by "off." [Much laughter.] I remember saying, "Look, Bob, if you don't want to do it, please, just don't tell anyone," because the mere threat of staging it at some point actually keeps a fair bit of pressure on certain politicians.

YOU ULTIMATELY DECIDED TO TIME LIVE 8 AROUND THE G-8 SUMMIT. ISN'T IT A BIT ODD TO STAGE A ROCK CONCERT AROUND WHAT'S ESSENTIALLY A POLICY MEETING?

BONO It's proof of how far we've come. The difference between this era and the original manifests itself in the Drop the Debt campaign. It's the journey from charity to justice. From the tin cupping of Live Aid--big cups, sure, $200 million cups--to now, when $25 billion is on the table, and we're not begging for it. Over the years, with the Make Poverty History campaign in Europe and the One campaign in the U.S., we have moved into real politics and real activism. We've cultivated a constituency so that now, when those eight men meet on a golf course, we can apply real pressure to them.

CURTIS We are living in a world where 50,000 people die every single day of simple poverty, and it's not treated like a crisis. There's got to be a moment, an explosive moment of concentration on this issue. The point of Live 8 is to provide the colossal, dramatic moment where everybody gets to grips with it.

GELDOF And we didn't just pick this moment out of the sky. This G-8 is in the U.K., where the Prime Minister was once a young git with the worst haircut save mine. He attended Live Aid and was informed by it, so he's in tune with where we've come from. Then a lot of these G-8 guys are on their last political legs. Schroeder's going to lose in Germany. Chirac won't stand because he will lose. Berlusconi? Might have a year left. [Canadian Prime Minister] Paul Martin is clinging on. George Bush can't stand again, and Tony Blair said he wouldn't. It gives us a chance to appeal to their sense of legacy. Combined with all this, our generation has become the Establishment. Bono is the rock god of the Establishment. Richard is the filmmaker of the Establishment. And I'm just a paddy with a hat on. [Much laughter.]

CURTIS But it's a great hat.

GELDOF I look like one of the guys who'll park your car for you.

TICKETS TO ALL THE LIVE 8 CONCERTS ARE FREE. WHY NOT CHARGE, AND HOW EXACTLY ARE YOU PAYING FOR THIS?

GELDOF It's not enough to do a regular concert. We had to create something grand, and free is pretty grand, I'd say. The funding? It's a massive risk. In the U.K. we raised a lot of it from a text-message ticket lottery. I raised $5 million through an underwriting loan. We did an auction of the DVD rights. You find a way.

WHAT SPECIFIC SKILLS DOES EACH OF YOU BRING TO ORGANIZING SOMETHING OF THIS SCOPE?

CURTIS I bring a gray woolly jumper. [Laughter.]

GELDOF It's true. His great strength is his complete Englishness. Look at that jumper. The sobriety, the soft tones. More than anything, he stands back and takes a calm position.

BONO Bob and myself are good at the passionate. But sometimes you might not hear our words for the bluster.

GELDOF Bono's in love with the world. He wants to embrace it. I want to punch its lights out. We're a psychotic Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

BONO The missing piece in a way is in the U.S. What Bob provides with his steel and fund raising and what Richard provides in terms of community in the cinematic arts and as a writer with his ability to deliver a message, I feel like I've been trying to do in the U.S.--but I'm not American. Really, until today, when Russell Simmons called and offered to help, we haven't had the American sense of ownership that we should. It's a real problem. I think it's going to turn around. But we've started very late.

HAVE YOU TAILORED YOUR MESSAGE IN EACH G-8 COUNTRY, AND IF SO, HOW HAVE YOU TAILORED YOUR MESSAGE TO AMERICANS?

BONO Warren Buffett gave me the best advice on this subject. He said, "Don't appeal to the conscience of America. Appeal to the greatness of America, and you'll get the job done."

CURTIS Insert in there "remarkably accurate impression of Warren Buffett."

BONO Onstage I talk about my first impression of Americans, which was watching a man walk on the moon. We thought, Americans are mad! But look what they can do when they get organized.

GELDOF America doesn't have a lack of empathy; they just don't know the issues as well. Actually, today I had to defend the Bush Administration in France again. They refuse to accept, because of their political ideology, that he has actually done more than any American President for Africa. But it's empirically so.

THERE'S BEEN A FAIR BIT OF CRITICISM ABOUT THE LACK OF AFRICAN MUSICIANS ON THE LIVE 8 BILL. YOU'VE ANNOUNCED A SEPARATE AFROCENTRIC SHOW IN CORNWALL, BUT WHY NOT INTEGRATE THE AFRICAN ACTS INTO THE OTHER LINE-UPS? ISN'T CULTURAL AWARENESS AS IMPORTANT AS ISSUE AWARENESS?

GELDOF This is a political event, not a cultural event. In order to get political momentum, one guy with a banner is not enough. You need millions. The lingua franca of the planet, as we learned from Live Aid, is not English--it's pop music. From Guangzhou to Bogota, they listen to 50 Cent, Eminem, U2 and Coldplay. Do they listen to the more esoteric individual cultures? No. That's reality. Do they listen to Muddy Waters? I wish they did. Then I'd put a bill up there with him and John Lee Hooker.

HE'S DEAD.

GELDOF It'd be difficult. [Laughter.] Even more difficult than putting Pink Floyd back together. Well, not that much more difficult.

YOU'VE ASKED THE POPE TO SUPPORT LIVE 8. IS THERE A CONTRADICTION IN ASKING THE WORLD'S MOST VISIBLE OPPONENT OF CONDOM USE TO HELP YOU ASSIST PEOPLE RAVAGED BY AIDS?

GELDOF The condom issue is relevant, but it's not the single relevant point. Ratzinger [now Pope Benedict XVI], from what I understand, put the spinal cord into John Paul's theology on the poor. His more profound theologies are to do with the psalm of the poor, if you like. I just invited him to sing a psalm up at Edinburgh.

DOES HE HAVE A BAND?

GELDOF Don't know. I wrote to him what I thought was a coherent letter and got back a signed photograph. [Laughs.] I pointed out to one of the Cardinals that I didn't require a picture, signed or otherwise.

RICHARD, YOU AREN'T PERFORMING AT LIVE 8, BUT YOU'VE MADE THE GIRL IN THE CAFE [WHICH WILL AIR ON HBO THIS SATURDAY]. ARE YOU SURE A ROMANTIC COMEDY ABOUT POVERTY AND THE G-8 IS A GOOD WAY TO GET PEOPLE TO ENGAGE IN THE ISSUES?

CURTIS Well, we're all limited in what we can do. You don't ask Bono to write an opera on the subject of something political, and as I was trying to address a passion of mine, it seemed apt that I should do it in the kind of way that I'd written films before. If I'd tried to write a serious political drama, I wouldn't have known where to begin. So I tried to write about politics from the point of view of a normal person.

GELDOF It's quite powerful. I saw it the other night, and my girlfriend was crying. She fell in love with Richard immediately. Mr. F_______ Sensitivity and all.

WHICH OF THE G-8 LEADERS DO YOU THINK REMAINS THE TOUGHEST NUT TO CRACK?

BONO The most important and toughest nut is still President Bush. He feels he's already doubled and tripled aid to Africa, which he has. But he started from far too low a place. He can stand there and say he paid at the office already. He shouldn't, because he'll be left out of the history books. But it's hard for him because of the expense of the war and the debts. But I have a hunch that he will step forward with something. And it'll take somebody like him ...

YOU'RE TRYING TO LOBBY HIM RIGHT NOW, AREN'T YOU?

GELDOF We'll see if it works.