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Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com
Rolling Stone
Tuesday February 05 08:31 PM EST
R.E.M., No Doubt Show Bono Love
R.E.M. and No Doubt will perform at Love Rocks, a Valentine's Day
concert to recognize Bono's political and philanthropic contributions
to improving living conditions in developing countries.
The U2 frontman, who last week dropped in on a small private party at
the World Economic Forum in New York as well as the Super Bowl
halftime show in New Orleans, has long been an advocate of debt
relief for struggling nations. Last summer, he also organized an
Artists Against AIDS Worldwide all-star remake of Marvin Gaye's
classic "What's Goin' On" to raise money to fight the disease in
Africa.
Love Rocks, slated for the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles, is a private
event sponsored by the Entertainment Industry Foundation, a group of
industry-based charitable interests, to launch their National
Cardiovascular Research Initiative. Organizers expect to announce
more performers over the course of the next week.
AUGUSTIN K. SEDGEWICK
(February 5, 2002)
*****
Saturday February 2 5:38 PM ET
Bono Is Everywhere At Economic Forum
By CHRIS HAWLEY, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - Every year at the World Economic Forum, there's a
leader or two who stands out, courted by the rich and famous - and
the media. In years past, Madeline Albright, Yasser Arafat, Bill
Clinton and George Soros have been the stars.
This year it's Bono, the lead singer of U2, who has made a cause out
of Third World debt forgiveness.
The rocker seems to be everywhere at the forum, which has otherwise
brought a decidedly straight-laced crowd of business leaders and
politicians to New York.
``He's a good friend of mine,'' said U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-
Vermont, lounging on a couch at the Inter-Continental Hotel where
forum participants hold press conferences. ``He can meet with the
pope one day and with Jesse Helms on another.''
Wearing blue wraparound sunglasses Thursday inside the Waldorf-
Astoria Hotel where the participants hold their sessions, he traded
opinions with three Nobel Peace Prize winners: Desmond Tutu, Elie
Wiesel and Kofi Annan. Then Bono played a private concert for
conference-goers.
On Saturday, he faced off with Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill on the
forum's main stage in a debate on foreign aid, then joined Microsoft
chairman Bill Gates for a news conference on AIDS prevention in
Africa.
``The great thing about hanging out with Republicans, it is very,
very, very unhip for both of us. There's kind of a parity of pain
there,'' Bono joked.
It's strange company for a singer who once railed against American
imperialism in ``Bullet the Blue Sky'' and whose albums regularly
lambaste Western consumerism and big business.
The 41-year-old Bono, whose real name is Paul Hewson, has become the
main spokesman for Drop the Debt, which campaigns for the canceling
of Third World debt. He has also joined anti-AIDS efforts and
lobbying to lower trade barriers that have frustrated poor countries.
He said he began meeting publicly with world leaders and attending
conferences of policy-makers after discovering the mass media didn't
want to hear him talk about those subjects.
``I went to politicians because I couldn't get on TV,'' Bono said.
The strategy seems to be working. The Bill and Melinda Gates
foundation pledged another $50 million for anti-AIDS efforts on
Saturday, and major nations have so far forgiven $40 billion in debt.
Bono will even be accompanying O'Neill on a trip to Africa later this
year.
Other forum attendees said they were impressed. ``He's a person who's
done his homework,'' Leahy said. ``It's not just star quality.''
*****
Sunday February 3 5:01 PM ET
Rock star Bono wows bigwigs at elite forum
By Eric Auchard
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rock-star activist Bono has emerged as the
insider's favorite outsider at the World Economic Forum.
The lead singer of best-selling Irish rock band U2 has lent an air of
popular legitimacy and urgency to this week's gathering of the
world's rich and powerful that prime ministers and top corporate
chieftains only wish they could attract.
``I really believe if we all gather forces on this and we don't
create easy bad guys and good guys on this ... we can make
progress,'' Bono told a news conference here on Saturday.
``The great thing about hanging out with Republicans is that it's
very unhip for both of us. There's a parity of pain here,'' Bono said
referring to his newfound conservative party friends.
As a tireless campaigner for debt relief for the world's poorest
nations, Bono has gained unprecedented access and a new public
platform for his cause by mixing here with conservative U.S.
politicians and top pharmaceutical CEOs.
Wearing blue wrap-around sunglasses and an open-collar checked shirt,
Bono stands out sharply from the pinstriped suits and ties that are
the uniform of the most of the summit's 2,700 attendees.
``It's more difficult than you might imagine to get attention for
these issues. Hence the unusual juxtapositions you are seeing on this
issue,'' he told reporters during a news conference where he shared
the stage with the world's richest man, Microsoft co-founder Bill
Gates, to demand greater health care funding.
Recognizing the discomfort of U.S. conservative politicians with
foreign aid that seems to achieve little, Bono has been at pains to
seek common ground, trading his typical street-smart bravado for a
sometimes tortured diplomacy.
He has injected excitement into proceedings dominated by top-level
economic discussion of glum global economic conditions and endless
backroom meetings by Middle East shuttle diplomats that have yet to
show any signs of movement toward peace.
Meanwhile, outside the ritzy hotel where the conference is located, a
mix of young students and older protest veterans numbering at least
3,000 waved signs decrying the ``World Exploitation Forum,'' and
calling on leaders to ``End the War.''
Several leading critics of the forum's elite status have declined
invitations to participate, with some instead choosing to attend the
alternative World Social Forum, being held in Porto Alegre, Brazil.
``MY GOOD FRIEND BONO...''
In one of the stranger marriages of radical chic and conservative
politics, Bono surprised delegates at a workshop on poor country debt
relief by announcing he would visit Africa with U.S. Treasury
Secretary Paul O'Neill in March.
Basking in the glow of sudden mutual admiration, O'Neill talked
easily about ``my good friend Bono.'' At the panel's close, well-
heeled participants flocked to the edge of the stage to collect the
rocker's autograph.
Bono, who recently traveled to Africa, said debt relief had already
produced results in Uganda, where the number of children enrolled in
school has tripled. He said he hopes to make this case to travel
partner O'Neill on his return trip.
The rock star and Catholic social activist complained that years of
campaigning for debt relief had achieved little until he captured
headlines by appearing in a joint call for action with Pope John Paul
II.
Appearing shoulder-to-shoulder with billionaire Gates at a news
conference here, an exuberant Bono declared: ``I'm here with the pope
of software...to stir debate among people who come from such
different backgrounds.''
He has found time to sit down with the corporate heads of drug
companies Merck & Co. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. to discuss making
it easier and cheaper for countries to gain access to expensive AIDS
drugs.
``I don't think they (the big pharmaceutical companies) are the bete
noir that all my friends think. I think they need to make profits, we
need to do research,'' Bono said.
``I think the outside finally came inside,'' Charles McLean, chief
spokesman for the World Economic Forum, told reporters at a news
briefing Friday referring to Bono's move from protest gadfly to man
of the moment.
Moving easily from the rarified world of the high and mighty, Bono is
headed to New Orleans to appear with U2 as the main attraction during
the halftime celebrations at the Super Bowl, the U.S. football
championship. REUTERS
*****
Saturday February 2, 1:51 pm Eastern Time
FORUM-Bono, Gates, O'Neill push effective foreign aid
NEW YORK, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Rock star Bono, Microsoft co-founder Bill
Gates and U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill on Saturday debated
the most effective way to help poor countries in the gilded setting
of the World Economic Forum.
In a panel discussion that featured a convergence of pop stardom,
government clout and corporate money, O'Neill articulated the Bush
administration's stance on foreign aid.
O'Neill said the administration was reluctant to commit to specific
international targets for the amount or increase of foreign aid,
saying the point was to make people in developing countries ``engines
of economic growth...and not just the objects of our pity.''
``Why is it that the spread between those of us who are privileged
and those of us who are not is so incomprehensibly large?'' O'Neill
asked rhetorically at a panel discussion. ``My answer to that
question was, up until now we've lacked imagination...and
leadership.''
O'Neill talked easily about ``my good friend Bono,'' the Irish
composer and singer who has kept a high profile at the five-day forum
in New York City. At the panel's close, well-heeled participants
flocked to the edge of the stage to collect the rocker's autograph.
Gates, whose Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced earlier
Saturday a donation of $50 million to stem the spread of the virus
that causes AIDS, said the distance between rich and poor countries
prevents awareness of the need for aid.
``If we took the world and reordered so that you and me were close to
a random neighborhood from some other part of the world, you would
see the living conditions, the medical problems, the infant
mortality, and of course the human spirit would respond to that,''
Gates said. ``It's the distance that really allows people to be
unaware.''
Bono, who said he had traveled to Africa on his own before a
prospective trip with O'Neill, said debt relief had produced results
in Uganda, where the number of children in school had tripled.
Bono, of the group U2, said his discussions with African finance
ministers in the last several weeks had shown that the strict
conditions attached to debt relief had proved beneficial.
``The World Bank had set very strict conditions before you could get
these debt relief monies to be let go of...and we argued against
this,'' Bono said. However, he found that ``in Africa, people say,
these conditions are working for us.''
Former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo was also on the panel and
said money remained the key issue.
``Even if we do everything else fine...even if we update
institutions, the bottom line is we still need money,'' Zedillo said.
``We need to empower the people to share the benefits of
globalization.''
*****
Sunday February 3 9:15 PM ET
Halftime Show: An American Tribute
By BRETT MARTEL, Associated Press Writer
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - U2 had the Super Bowl halftime stage all to
itself, and the Irish rockers delivered a moving tribute to America
and the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Lead singer Bono walked onto the field with a slow, shoulder-wagging
swagger, singing the group's recent hit, ``Beautiful Day,'' as he
climbed onto the point of a pink, heart-shaped catwalk that
surrounded the stage.
As the first song wound down, a giant screen scrolled the names of
victims in the attacks, and the group broke into the 1980s hit,
``Where the Streets Have No Name.''
The names also reflected in overlapping patterns across the stands,
which were dark, save for the countless camera flashes.
Unlike glitzy halftime shows of the past, the effects were limited to
standard strobe lights. But all attention was on Bono anyway, who
pulled back his lapel to reveal an American flag to the roars of the
crowd.
Sunday's pregame lineup opened with the Boston Pops. Wearing white
coats and black bow ties, the musicians drew enthusiastic applause
when they finished their first session with ``Stars and Stripes
Forever.''
The pregame lineup also featured Paul McCartney, Barry Manilow, Marc
Anthony, Mary J. Blige, Patti LaBelle, James Ingram, Wynonna, Yolanda
Adams and Mariah Carey.
Carey, wearing a long, royal blue dress, performed the national
anthem for the first time, her renowned high inflection peppering
several verses. As she sang with the stadium lights down, fans in the
Superdome's three levels held red, white and blue glow sticks,
respectively, from top to bottom. A giant American flag in the shape
of the United States was unfurled on the field.
Producers said most of the musical performers prerecorded their sound
tracks to reduce the possibility of technical problems. However, U2,
played live.
The pregame show also included a video of current and former star
players reading the Declaration of Independence. In another video,
former presidents Carter, Clinton, Ford and Bush joined Nancy Reagan
in quoting Abraham Lincoln. The videos concluded with fans chanting
``U-S-A!''
McCartney, who was in New York when the hijacked planes struck the
World Trade Center, sang his Sept. 11-inspired song, ``Freedom.''
He took the stage, acoustic guitar in hand, as cheerleaders with
silver, glittering pompoms spelled out ``freedom'' across the field.
Others marched with dozens of flags from foreign nations.
``I'm proud to be here and stand up with America,'' McCartney said in
a TV interview shortly before halftime ended.
Earlier, LaBelle, Ingram, Wynonna and Adams joined Manilow in singing
``Let Freedom Ring,'' a song Manilow wrote years ago to commemorate
the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution.
As the group sang, servicemen marched around the perimeter of the
field with American flags while women wearing red, white or blue
statue-of-liberty outfits marched in front of the stage, forming the
ribbon that has stood as a symbol of national unity since the
attacks.
The song concluded with a young boy in a camouflage military uniform
ringing a replica of the Liberty Bell.
Anthony and Blige then sang ``America the Beautiful,'' accompanied by
the Pops and flanked by flag-bearing law officers.
*****
Monday February 04 09:01 AM EST
Singers Merge Politics With Patriotism
By CARYN JAMES The New York Times
Sunday's pregame and halftime shows were, as they were meant to be,
jarringly different from most Super Bowls, but it was easy to see
where it all came from.
"Live from Afghanistan" and "Super Bowl" are not words you expect to
hear in the same breath, but watching members of the American
military send greetings home from Kandahar was not even the strangest
part of the nonsports coverage yesterday.
There was an actor dressed as John Hancock signing the Declaration of
Independence and former President George Bush joining the coin toss.
Mariah Carey sang the national anthem in a wardrobe and performance
that were simple but elegant. (Two words you'd never expect to see in
the same sentence as Mariah Carey.) Her straight hair, unadorned blue
dress and diamond necklace suited her low-key, inflected delivery of
the song. (This couldn't have been an uncalculated way to start
turning around that nasty recent publicity about how her record label
bought her out, even though her song was taped.)
Most emblematic, there was Bono, fresh from the World Economic Forum,
where on Saturday he had a formal debate with Treasury Secretary Paul
O'Neill and lobbied for the cancellation of third-world debt.
Yesterday, he led U2 in a live performance during the halftime show,
a one-man walking, talking, singing symbol of how politics and
entertainment mixed here.
Recreating a scene from the group's recent tour, he sang one of U2's
most familiar hits, "Where the Streets Have No Name," as the names of
the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks scrolled on a screen behind him.
For a finale, he opened his black leather jacket to reveal its stars-
and-stripes lining.
Yesterday's pregame and halftime shows were, as they were meant to
be, jarringly different from most Super Bowl extravaganzas, but it
was easy to see where it all came from. Loyalty to sports teams is a
close cousin to patriotism; and after Sept. 11, the N.F.L. recast the
entertainment, adopting the theme "Heroes, Hope and Homeland."
By now, though, the entertainers seemed to echo too many other
tributes. The official pregame show began three hours before the
game, but only in the last 40 minutes did the hyped "Tribute to
America" begin. It sounded and for a minute even looked like the
first big televised fund-raiser, "America: A Tribute to Heroes" (the
George Clooney event), as John Travolta, on tape, introduced a live
performance of a new song, "Let Freedom Ring," at the Superdome in
New Orleans. Written by Barry Manilow, it was sung by him, along with
James Ingram, Patti LaBelle and others. It wasn't a memorable song,
but then earnestness trumped entertainment throughout the show. Marc
Anthony and Mary J. Blige sang "America the Beautiful," the Latino
and black singers important parts of this multiethnic all-American
cast.
But the more serious the tribute became, the more it seemed as if the
usually raucous Fox network had been uncomfortably transformed into
the History Channel. There were those re-enactments of the founding
fathers, as well as a film in which the Declaration of Independence
was read by former N.F.L. players against patriotic backdrops,
including two players turned congressmen, Jack Kemp and Steve Largent.
The Boston Pops performed Aaron Copland's "Lincoln Portrait," with
film narration read by all the living former presidents, except
Ronald Reagan. (Nancy Reagan appeared in place of her husband, who
has Alzheimer's disease.) They all looked somber and sadly tired.
The Super Bowl atmosphere returned when Paul McCartney
performed "Freedom," a song most first heard at his benefit concert
in New York. When he finished, the crowd chanted, "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
But you couldn't help noticing that as a scoreboard in the stadium
flashed "Freedom!" there was a smaller illuminated sign next to it
that read "Bud Light."
This is, after all, the television event known for commercials as
much as for sports. Britney Spears even did an entertaining
commercial moving from the black-and-white 50's to the 90's
recreating the styles and theme songs of Pepsi through history.
At the start of the pregame show, Michael Douglas narrated a
patriotic segment that called the Super Bowl "this great but
unofficial American holiday." Not every network saw it that way. NBC
hoped to get viewers (especially young men) to switch over at
halftime by scheduling a Playboy Playmate edition of its game
show "Fear Factor." ABC threw in the towel with repeats of its
series "Alias" and "The Practice," and CBS counterprogrammed with a
chick flick, the box office dud "Sabrina."
It's hard to compete with sports and patriotism. During "Freedom,"
flags of the world were paraded across the field, which looked a lot
like an Olympics opening ceremony, a premonition of all the flag-
waving still to come our way.
Among all this sentiment, it seemed like a gift when some humor crept
in. During halftime Sir Paul, as McCartney was dutifully called,
joined the Fox announcers and did an a capella duet of "A Hard Day's
Night" with Terry Bradshaw, a scene even goofier than it sounds.
Forget the game; that's the moment you want to replay on tape.
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