Bob Geldof, One Direction, Bono and about 30 other stars on Saturday gathered in a studio in London to record a 30th anniversary version of the Band Aid charity single to raise money to fight Ebola.
Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant, Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Sinead O’Connor were also among the rockers brought together by Geldof to sing the fourth version of Do They Know It’s Christmas?
Musicians began arriving in the early morning and were expected to record all day and into the night before the single was aired for the first time yesterday and is scheduled to be officially released today.
The Ebola outbreak has claimed more than 5,000 lives since December last year, according to the WHO — almost all in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone — while the number of infected cases registered worldwide has soared to more than 14,000.
“All pop singers can do is sing, write songs, give up whatever they’re doing,” Geldof told reporters and fans outside the Sarm Studios in Notting Hill.
He said owning the single would be “a badge of honor” to support efforts against the deadly virus and urged people to buy it “whether you like it or not.”
Making his way into the studio, U2 frontman Bono hit out at the response of rich nations, saying if they “kept the promises they make at these big G8 meetings and the like we wouldn’t have to be standing here.”
One Direction’s Niall Horan said it was a “privilege” to take part.
“Hopefully we’ll get to number one and raise a lot of money for a really good cause,” he said.
In a video from inside the studios that was put up on a specially created app called Bandapp, One Direction’s 20-year-old frontman Harry Styles said: “Everyone’s come together for the same thing. There’s one kind of focus and one goal.”
The song became one of the world’s biggest-selling singles ever after its release in 1984 to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia.
“I had to change the lyrics,” Geldof said on the new version.
The rocker-turned-activist said he had been spurred into action not out of nostalgia, but by a call from the UN, concerned about not having the necessary funds to combat the epidemic.
“It’s not just about what’s happening in west Africa, it could happen here tomorrow,” Geldof said.
“We can stop this thing, we can allow mothers no matter where they are to be able to touch their dying children. I hate that aspect of it that lovers can’t hold each other in their last moments, that husbands can’t comfort their wives, that parents can’t comfort their children,” Geldof said.
The second and third verses of the song contain new lyrics referring to the risks of cross-infection from comforting Ebola victims. The track is priced at ￡0.99 (US$1.60) to download, or ￡4 to buy as a physical record.
Geldof said he had spoken to British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, who agreed not to levy sales tax from the single to ensure that 100 percent of the proceeds go to charity.
The single is already a hot favorite to claim the prestigious Christmas number one spot in the UK, with bookmakers Coral quoting odds of 4-6.
MONEY GRAB: People were rushing to collect bills scattered on the ground after the plane transporting money crashed, which an official said hindered rescue efforts A cargo plane carrying money on Friday crashed near Bolivia’s capital, damaging about a dozen vehicles on highway, scattering bills on the ground and leaving at least 15 people dead and others injured, an official said. Bolivian Minister of Defense Marcelo Salinas said the Hercules C-130 plane was transporting newly printed Bolivian currency when it “landed and veered off the runway” at an airport in El Alto, a city adjacent to La Paz, before ending up in a nearby field. Firefighters managed to put out the flames that engulfed the aircraft. Fire chief Pavel Tovar said at least 15 people died, but
LIKE FATHER, LIKE DAUGHTER: By showing Ju-ae’s ability to handle a weapon, the photos ‘suggest she is indeed receiving training as a successor,’ an academic said North Korea on Saturday released a rare image of leader Kim Jong-un’s teenage daughter firing a rifle at a shooting range, adding to speculation that she is being groomed as his successor. Kim’s daughter, Ju-ae, has long been seen as the next in line to rule the secretive, nuclear-armed state, and took part in a string of recent high-profile outings, including last week’s military parade marking the closing stages of North Korea’s key party congress. Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released a photo of Ju-ae shooting a rifle at an outdoor shooting range, peering through a rifle scope
South Korea would soon no longer be one of the few countries where Google Maps does not work properly, after its security-conscious government reversed a two-decade stance to approve the export of high-precision map data to overseas servers. The approval was made “on the condition that strict security requirements are met,” the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. Those conditions include blurring military and other sensitive security-related facilities, as well as restricting longitude and latitude coordinates for South Korean territory on products such as Google Maps and Google Earth, it said. The decision is expected to hurt Naver and Kakao
India and Canada yesterday reached a string of agreements, including on critical mineral cooperation and a “landmark” uranium supply deal for nuclear power, the countries’ leaders said in New Delhi. The pacts, which also covered technology and promoting the use of renewable energy, were announced after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney hailed a fresh start in the relationship between their nations. “Our ties have seen a new energy, mutual trust and positivity,” Modi said. Carney’s visit is a key step forward in ties that effectively collapsed in 2023 after Ottawa accused New Delhi
RSS