Stages set for Live 8 - the 'greatest concert ever'

Organisers promise it will be the greatest music show on Earth, as final preparations for the Live 8 gigs are made and pop stars…

Organisers promise it will be the greatest music show on Earth, as final preparations for the Live 8 gigs are made and pop stars prepare to leave their egos backstage to raise awareness of poverty in Africa.

Rocker and organiser Bob Geldof believes Live 8 will eclipse Live Aid 20 years ago, when 1.5 billion people tuned in to see the likes of U2, David Bowie and Mick Jagger perform to raise money for Ethiopia's famine.

This time it is about people power, with organisers hoping that huge crowds at the venues and a television and Internet audience in the billions will put pressure on world leaders meeting next week in Scotland to do more to fight poverty.

“I tell you something... You will never see it again. It will be the greatest concert ever,” Geldof told an audience of young people on the MTV channel.

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In an open letter from Live 8 appearing in The Timesnewspaper on Saturday, organisers made a final plea to governments to meet their demands to end poverty.

“Just as people demanded an end to slavery, demanded women's suffrage, demanded the end of apartheid, we now call for an end to the unjust absurdity of extreme poverty that is killing 50,000 people every day in the 21st Century,” it said.

Concerts will be held in all the Group of Eight industrialised nations, plus one in Johannesburg and another featuring African acts in southwest England.

Tokyo will open proceedings in the east and the event winds up in North America.