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Low turn-out for JHB Live Earth
08/07/2007 09:25 - (SA)
Johannesburg - Performers at the Live Earth concert in Johannesburg had few words of wisdom for spectators on climate change as they belted out song after song to an audience more interested in Red Red Wine than "reduce, reuse, recycle."
The concert opened to a thunderous drumming demonstration from the 2007 Grammy award-winning Soweto Gospel Choir ensemble and continued with performances by a host of African and international acts.
British reggae band UB40, the last performers on stage, stole the show with a slew of crowd favourites such as Kingston Town and Red Red Wine.
British soul singer Joss Stone, Beninese-born Afro-pop star Angelique Kidjo and South African kwaito (township music akin to hip hop) star Zola also received warm welcomes from the audience of about 6 000.
Concert organisers anticipated attendance at 10 000 people.
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) balloons featuring the organisation's trademark panda and reading "I'm hotter than I should be" bobbed over the crowd. In between acts, a giant screen played short films on climate change and relayed images from the London concert at Wembley Stadium.
Kidjo and Zola were the only performers who used the event to hammer home the climate-change message.
"There are things we didn't know about in the '80s because we were too busy fighting (apartheid)," Zola said.
If the world did not act quickly to halt climate change, water in Africa would "soon be as expensive as gold," the charismatic Soweto- born musician. He said that he wants his own two children "in 20 years to enjoy the same tap water like we could."
Kidjo, who had spoken during the week about the "wake-up call" she received when she witnessed drought first-hand in rural northern Kenya, gave the floor to two women from the region who described the agony of waiting for rain and urged the developed world "to pay for the destruction" caused by global warming.
Environmentalists had hoped the Johannesburg event would provide an opportunity to draw attention to the disastrous effects of climate change in Africa, the continent that pollutes the least but whose poor are among the hardest-hit by extreme weather, such as drought and flooding.
Between 75 million and 250 million people in Africa are expected to face increasing water shortages by 2020 as a result of climate change.
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