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Bickering about Live8

Will Sparring in Berlin Overshadow the World's Biggest Concert?

By Charles Hawley and Chris Bryant in Berlin

World famous musicians are set to hit stages across the globe this weekend for the Live8 concert series. But instead of focusing their energies on preparing for the event, organizers have taken to the press to accuse the city of dragging its feet and offering up a sub par venue. The city, for its part, is having none of it.

Most municipalities, one would think, would jump at the chance. Nine cities. Dozens of acts including Annie Lennox, U2, Stevie Wonder, Greenday and the first live performance of Pink Floyd in 24 years. And all that for a Live8 concert line-up organized by Bob Geldof to call attention to bitter and deadly poverty in Africa. Seems like a no-brainer.

For world capitals across the globe, it was. London made Hyde Park available. Paris will set up a stage at the Palace of Versailles. Rome will see Faith Hill fill the Circus Maximus with crooning country. And corporate sponsors from America Online to Nokia to the BBC along with a myriad local sponsors will all be supporting the July 2 event.

Except, according to concert organizer Marek Lieberberg, in Berlin. Despite weeks of work, with the single exception of the ARD television station -- which will broadcast the event and provide logistical support -- not a single corporate sponsor could be found in Germany. Worse yet, Live8 organizers, having requested access to the expansive grass field in front of the German parliament building the Reichstag -- the site of a Pink Floyd concert and another blow-out show by Michael Jackson prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall -- are having to make due with the broad boulevard running through central Berlin once used by the now-defunct Love Parade.

A concert in the shape of a soup line

"The venue is suboptimal," says Lieberberg, a veteran concert planner. "Just because it's good for a parade doesn't mean it's good for a concert. Now, it will look more like a soup line. It will be the longest concert in the world snaking through the city."

The concert series, which will also see bands take to stages in Tokyo, Philadelphia, Johannesburg and Moscow in addition to a number of European venues, intends to put pressure on world leaders attending the G8 talks in Gleneagles, Scotland next Wednesday to Friday. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who will be hosting the event, has placed poverty in Africa high on the agenda -- and G8 countries already agreed earlier this month to cancel $40 billion worth of debt owed by the world's 18 poorest countries, most of them in Africa.

Still, Live8 organizers want to make sure the G8 -- a club made up of the world's richest economies -- does everything in it's power to help Africa, including fully cancelling debt, doubling aid, and "delivering trade justice for Africa."

"This is without doubt a moment in history where ordinary people can grasp the chance to achieve something truly monumental and demand from the eight world leaders at G8 an end to world poverty," Bob Geldof writes in an open letter on the Live8 Web site. "The G8 leaders have it within their grasp to alter history. They will only have the will to do so if tens of thousands of people show them that enough is enough."

Berlin officials reject Live8 accusations

But despite the noble goals of the event, in Berlin, it has descended into the muck of tit-for-tat namecalling. Instead of cashing in on the cachet the Live8 event is bringing to most cities, Berlin seems to be squandering the opportunity. Last week, a number of newspaper reports dragged Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit through the mud for his apparent clumsy handling of the Live8 request for a centrally located venue. Organizers accuse him of ignoring the request for weeks, skipping a planned press conference with über-organizer Geldof on June 7 and then having the "chutzpah" -- as Lieberberg termed it -- to request stage time to greet concert goers.

Not true, says the city. Berlin Senate spokesman Michael Donnermeyer, who was also heavily involved in dealing with Live8 organizers, admits that a prolonged session of the Berlin Senate made it impossible for Wowereit to join Geldof in meeting the press. But he claims the city worked closely with Lieberberg in finding a suitable venue for the show, offering an expansive meadow neighboring the Olympic Stadium in addition to the central boulevard where the concert will take place -- which stretches westward from the Brandenburg Gate through the lush park Tiergarten.

"I don't think any city could have done things less bureaucratically then we did," says Donnermeyer. "They wanted a centrally located site and they have it. We can't cut down the trees in the Tiergarten."

Yet bureaucracy did, apparently, seep in to Lieberberg's first location request. The prominent backdrop of the Reichstag is, says the city, impossible because of the extremely sensitive sprinkler system installed in the meadow -- which frequently hosts pick-up soccer and ultimate Frisbee games -- stretching out in front of the parliament building.

Traffic behind the stage

"The site can't be used because it is an expensive sprinkler system and mass events would really damage it," a source at the Office for the Care, Maintenance and Development of Green Spaces for Berlin's Mitte district, where the Reichstag is located, told Spiegel Online.

Concert organizer Lieberberg, not surprisingly, finds the reasoning absurd. He says it would be easy enough to shield the grass with a protective covering as he has done for past concerts. And anyway, he complains, the site has been used for mass events in the past. The city, he says "wasn't worried about damaging the site during the Ecumenical Church Day in Berlin (in spring 2003) because apparently they jump differently than Live8 concert goers jump. We offered to cover the grass like we do in concerts elsewhere. It's a tested method just as the electric tooth brush is tested."

Lieberberg is also upset that the city elected not to make the large traffic circle around the Victory Column -- which will be located just behind the stage -- available to Live8. Indeed, it will not even be closed to traffic. Nevertheless, he is optimistic that the concert will be a success.

And the city? "I think Mr. Lieberberg is a vain man who is upset that he didn't get a personal call from Mayor Wowereit," says Donnermeyer. "If Mr. Lieberberg's goal was to ensure that the mayor feels unwelcome at the concert, then he has achieved it. He will not attend."