Live 8
Episode 04 · Hyde Park, London · 2 July 2005
“It was twenty years ago today…”
That was how Paul McCartney, joined by Bono, opened Live 8 in London with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on 2 July 2005, almost twenty years after the first, historic Live Aid.
There were 200,000 people in Hyde Park that day. A huge, unrepeatable event. I had the privilege of being there, one of around sixty accredited photographers, and of contributing to Make Poverty History by granting Bob Geldof the use of our photographs for the symbolic sum of one pound.
The aim was clear: to put pressure on the G8 leaders to cancel the debt of the world’s poorest countries. “Drop the debt” was the cry raised by millions of voices across stages and squares around the globe.
The lineup was staggering: U2, Coldplay, Elton John, The Who, R.E.M., Madonna, Annie Lennox, Sting, Keane, Robbie Williams, Velvet Revolver and many more.
But for me, a devoted Pink Floyd fan, there was only one thing I was waiting for: David Gilmour, Roger Waters, Richard Wright and Nick Mason reunited on the same stage for the first time in 24 years.
I had first seen them at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico in 1987, and many times afterwards, but never in the lineup with Waters.
That day in London, I took up a position right in front of Gilmour’s amps and stayed there all day, waiting for the first chord of Breathe.
