Peter Gabriel et Black Eyed Peas en vedette

Peter Gabriel, la soprano Jessye Norman et le groupe Black Eyed Peas seront les têtes d'affiche du gala d'ouverture de la Coupe du monde de soccer, l'année prochaine en Allemagne.

Les places pour la cérémonie, prévue le 7 juin à l'Olympiastadion de Berlin, sont maintenant en vente.

La FIFA espère que ce nouveau gala deviendra une tradition lors des prochaines coupes du monde. Pour la première fois en 2006, il ne servira pas de préambule au premier match de la compétition.

Jusqu'à présent, la cérémonie d'ouverture de la Coupe du monde se déroulait peu avant le premier match du tournoi. Le premier match aura lieu cette fois à Munich deux jours après le gala.

Brian Eno composera l'hymne du gala et Mark Fisher, qui a travaillé avec les Rolling Stones et U2, construira la scène.

see it, film it, change it

Actor Tim Robbins, right, stands with Gillian Caldwell, WITNESS executive director, center, and musician Peter Gabriel, left , at the fundraiser Gala and Concert to benefit

WITNESS, Monday, Dec. 5, 2005 in New York City. WITNESS is an international human rights organization that provides training and support to local groups to use video in their human rights advocacy campaigns.

Human Rights Group Arms Activists With Video Cameras

By Carolyn Weaver Washington, D.C.09 December 2005

Watch Human Rights report / Real broadband - download

Watch Human Rights report / Real broadband

watch Human Rights report / Real dialup - download

watch Human Rights report / Real dialup

An international human rights organization puts video cameras in the hands of human rights activists around the world. Some of the resulting films and TV broadcasts have led to legal reforms or fueled international campaigns for change, while others have been submitted as evidence in war crime proceedings.

These are clips from videos made not by professional filmmakers but by human rights activists on five continents. The local activist groups partnered with Witness, a New York-based organization founded by the rock singer Peter Gabriel. Gabriel had the idea for Witness after a notorious 1991 incident, when news organizations repeatedly broadcast video of California police beating a suspect, Rodney King – images captured on a bystander’s inexpensive camera.

“Witness donates video cameras to human rights organizations around the world and trains and supports them to integrate video into their human rights campaigns,” says Gillian Caldwell, executive director of Witness. That means training in scripting and editing as well as in shooting. Ms. Caldwell says these tools bestow the power to document events on the local people who experience them – as opposed to journalists visiting from other regions or countries.

“Essentially what's happening is that these local partners are looking from the inside out,” she says. “That's exactly the opposite of what you see in traditional journalism, when people parachute in and are looking from the outside in. And I think it's tremendously empowering for local human rights organizations to be able to speak in their own voices and own perspectives."

It also means that human rights abuses that may receive little attention from international or even local media can be taken up vigorously by local human rights activists. In 2004, for example, Witness partnered with a human rights group in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo that campaigns against the use of child soldiers. Children make up 60 percent of the soldiers among the armed groups fighting in the region, and are forced both to suffer and to commit horrific abuses. The Witness-backed film on the problem of child soldiers is being shown this year in public screenings around Congo to build popular support against the practice.

In Burma, activist videographers trained by Witness have documented the government's widely-reported use of slave labor, making a video that shows villagers forced to leave their subsistence farming to work without pay building roads. In another Witness video from Sudan and Chad, people driven from their homes by Sudanese government forces and allied Arab militias told Human Rights Watch videographers of their fear of being murdered or kidnapped

by the government of Omar Bashir if they try to return. "Omar Bashir will kill us if we go back,” one woman explains in the film. “When the Arabs come, they keep all the women here. They ask us where we come from. If we say the North, we are finished. They terrorize us."

The images collected by human rights videographers are sometimes very difficult to look at. But that is what makes them potent. The president of Paraguay visited one mental hospital following a television broadcast of a Witness-backed video showing patients living in filth, without clothes or clean water and food. The government then signed an agreement to guarantee the rights of mentally ill patients to decent conditions.

In Sierra Leone, meanwhile, activists are distributing thousands of copies of a Witness video detailing human rights abuses during the country's civil war, to press the government to implement the binding recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Yet some observers say that advocacy videos should not always be taken at face value, for they may not contain the whole story. Mark Feldstein, who heads the journalism program at George Washington University, says that such films are valuable, but that they don’t necessarily aspire to the comprehensiveness of journalism.

"You need to get the other side, or multiple sides, and none of these organizations are going to want to provide that,” Mr. Feldstein says. “They're only really going to want to provide their own point of view. And there is something lost by approaching it in a way that journalism doesn't, by providing only the one side. Nonetheless, it's still more information getting out there, and that's a good thing."

Some Witness-supported videos have been submitted as evidence in war crimes tribunals, and given as testimony to U.N. regional commissions. But Gillian Caldwell says that even where video activism does not bolster a legal case, or lead to immediate change, it can sometimes keep conditions from getting worse, and that it also helps communities in a less tangible way. “I think some of the deepest impact we have is in fact much harder to measure or even to explain,” Ms. Caldwell says, “and that’s really the impact you have on a community when you give them the opportunity to explain their experience and you give them an audience. It’s tremendously powerful.”

Since its founding in 1992, Witness has worked with partners in sixty countries, including India, Bangladesh, countries in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and the United States. But Ms. Caldwell says that Witness doesn't usually work in war zones such as Iraq, where local human rights groups cannot operate safely.

John Lennon was definitely one of my heroes...

Excerpts from interview with Peter Gabriel, recorded at Real World Studios on 15 June 2005

"John Lennon was definitely one of my heroes. I think he always wrote from his heart. He was a very complicated individual, but there's an honesty about his song-writing that I think makes it very powerful. Sometimes it's very simplistic, childlike and naïve; and that is what gives it some of its strength."

"I got enlisted in the human rights thing when Bono called me up and asked me to get involved in the Conspiracy of Hope tour in 1986 and then I did his collecting of artists job for the Human Rights Now tour in 1988 and suddenly you were meeting people who had been tortured, you were meeting people who had watched their families shot in front of them, and human rights were no longer something I was reading about and it was real education for me. When you meet people face to face, it's very hard, when you get asked to help, to then walk away."

"Sadly, all over the world in every country, there are still human rights abuses. If you look at what most of the countries signed onto when they signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and what actually happens day-to-day in those countries, there are still horrendous abuses and I think that there is an awful lot still to be done."

"I think that anyone who doesn't have some sense of idealism when they're young is really missing out a bit of their humanity, because you have the chance to go into the world and feel, quite rightly, that it is soon going to be yours and you can change it. I think that's what my generation did with the Beatles at the front of it. There is so much more that needs to be done and if people let go of the rope, then it slides back very easily.

So I think: get involved with a cause -- doesn't matter which one -- because it will lead you to things you will really care about, and travel -- go to places that you didn't ever think that you should or would want to visit and just meet the people and find out who lives there, what sort of experiences they have and what sort of culture they have.

Those types of exchanges that go on again, transform lives, and that's the opportunity you have now -- to change your life in a way that plugs you into different people around the world."

"Working with the tours and meeting all the people that felt their lives had literally been saved by Amnesty made it seem like such a simple, elegant and powerful idea. I think that it is a wonderful organisation that really deserves a lot of support."

WITNESS Gala

Joi Ito's Web

Last night Mizuka and I attended the Focus For Change gala benefit for WITNESS in NYC hosted by Peter Gabriel and Angelina Jolie. I first became interested in WITNESS when I met Gillian Caldwell the Executive Director in Davos in 2004. I started talking to her about blogging then. I helped Gillian get her blog set up when she and Angelina Jolie were headed off to Sierra Leone to deliver the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's recommendations to the government in May. The blog was a success.

We've been talking about other ways to use the Net. She invited me to attend the Gala last night which was an amazing event.The videos and comments from Peter Gabriel, Angelina Jolie and Gillian were awesome and inspiring. However, the main event for me was Ishmael Beah, a former child soldier from Sierra Leone.

He talked about how his life started as a happy kid who played soccer in the streets. As the war swept across the country, he survived the loss of his family and fled from village to village as he watched them being ravaged by the war. He eventually ended up being recruited as a child soldier.

He was able to leave the military and attended college and appear before us last night to express his hope for lasting peace in Sierra Leone. It was an extremely well delivered and moving speech and really highlighted the strength of the words of a witness.The festivities were also great. There were a number of great performances, but my favorite part was when Nile Rodgers and CHIC rocked the house with their classics.

They did an auction with some pretty cool things. The only thing I bid on was the Nano programmed by Lou Reed, but I wasn't able to keep up and didn't get it in the end. ;-)In total, the event was the best fund-raiser gala sort of event that I've ever attended. It had a clear and moving message and vision, it was fun and it was extremely well executed. Congratulates to everyone involved.

Peter Gabriel's Still Got it, For The Most Part!

Peter Gabriel shows off his stuff in many smaller venues, the 2 Disc DVD shows Peter in his show spectacle best, and just playing the music and getting more intimate. Disc one shows the live performances at various venues, and Peter Gabriel shows that he still has the charisma and appeal he has always provided.

Disc two, although not exactly what I was expecting, shows Peter Gabriel with a lot of dialogue and documentary stuff, but it really does let the true fans more of a behind the scenes adaptation, if you are not a huge fan of Gabriel, disc two may seem more redundant than entertaining, but for real fans it is a treat to get to know the man and his ideas and thought patterns a bit more.

When one thinks of rockers that are what I sometimes refer to as Geriatric Rock, we may think more along the lines of Alice Cooper, Mick Jagger and the boys etc. The ones that have lost their Rock Icon status are the likes of Balladeers like Elton John and Phil Collins, and Rod Stewart, although doing well with the "American Songbook" discs has totally re-invented himself and left many fans scratching their heads in bewilderment.

OK, now what about Peter Gabriel........ Well, although not a true "rocker" in style, Peter Gabriel delivered some of the best alternative new wave music there was going around with his staple hits like "Sledgehammer" and "Games Without Frontiers" (Both included on this DVD compilation).

Gabriel shows that he does still have what it takes, stage presence and charismatic performances are still intact. Peter's vocals for the most part are still there as well, however on tracks like "Sledgehammer" you can hear some vocal limitations, and of course just looking at the pop-icon we realize that he didn't age as gracefully as some of his peers (Not walking dead like Keith Richards, but noticeably aging just the same). Still Growing Up Live & Unwrapped has the mega hits, as well as fan favorites to be enjoyed, also includes bonus tracks "In Your Eyes" (2004 Growing Up Live Tour) and "No Self Control" (from 1988's This Way Up world tour).

Bottom line, for sure worth the cost, I mean come on, a concert in your living room and more about Peter Gabriel, from his own mind, all in one package for about the price of a CD..... Seems like a no-brainer to me.

Jolie sparks a riot at Witness gala

Jolie sparks a riot at Witness gala

07/12/2005 - 10:13:05

Angelina Jolie sparked a near riot at New York's The Supper Club on Monday night when she arrived late for a benefit and refused to pose for pictures. Enraged paparazzi, who had spent over two hours waiting for the special guest speaker at Peter Gabriel's Witness gala in near freezing temperatures, rushed the actress as she attempted to sneak in a back entrance.

Jolie quickly found herself surrounded by the snappers and barked orders to her security team to keep them at bay. The actress was then forced to plead with the photographers to "back up," pushing one woman's camera away when she got too close.

Ever-professional Jolie agreed to sign a handful of autographs as she continued to plead with the snappers to give her room. Eventually, three minutes after arriving at The Supper Club, angry Jolie hissed: "You're not backing up," before dashing inside the venue. Jolie agreed to briefly pose for pictures outside the venue after giving a speech at the gala, held to highlight the plight of refugees in Sierra Leone.

Live 8 at Eden: Africa Calling

Live 8 at Eden: Africa Calling
Contributed by Tony Whitt

Monday, 05 December 2005

The Live 8 project was a dream given form: ten concerts took place around the world on the same day – Saturday, July 2, 2005 – with the aim of making poverty history. The concert that took place at the Eden Project in Cornwall, England, however, was subtly different from the rest. Named Africa Calling, this concert was co-hosted by world music guru Peter Gabriel and Johnny Kalsi of the Dhol Foundation, and it featured a lineup of nothing but African artists, in a celebration of the music of the country arguably suffering the most from poverty in the entire world.

The risks of putting on a concert such as this, with only a few well-known Western personalities like Dido and Angelina Jolie, and with headliners with such unusual names as Youssou N'Dour Et Le Super Etoile and Kanda Bongo Man, were understandably considerable. As the concert organizer points out in the excellent Africa Calling At Eden documentary film produced by the BBC, there was every possibility that someone might tune in for this segment of Live 8, see an artist performing that they'd never heard of before, and then switch right back off. But that's also what makes Rhino's release of a DVD of the best performances of this concert so extraordinary – and what makes the fact that it's so enjoyable such a welcome surprise.

Granted, not every performance in this concert is going to get your feet tapping, and some of them are every bit as obscure as you might expect music produced under the rubric of "world music" to be. For instance, it's rather hard for anyone but the most ardent world music fan to get worked up over Zimbabwean performer Chartwell Dutiro playing a tune on the mbira – that's one of those instruments that looks like a hand-held piano with "keys" fashioned out of copper. And a major flaw both in the disc and in the original concert is that, while each set of performers sings in their own language, no translations of the lyrics are provided, making listening to these songs a purely auditory experience. (Even those who know French might be a bit annoyed at this lack, as Algerian performers Akim El Sikameya use a dialect rather different from the français you learned in school, and Senegalese rappers Daara J simply rap in French too quickly for you to catch anything.)

But once you get past that particular stumbling block – and the rare, truly awful performance such as the closing group singing of the African national anthem – there are treats in store on this disc. Were it not for the language barrier, the Mozambique-born Mariza would probably be topping the alternative music charts here in the US; and it doesn't take knowing what the lyrics mean for someone to get into the foot-stomping rhythms of the South African dance group Shikisha. The same goes for the frankly electrifying Touareg singing group Tinariwen. Sadly, nothing on the discs nor in the documentary explains such basic things as what "Tinariwen" means nor what the Eden Project itself is all about – but it might just get people interested enough to go out and learn for themselves. B (Movie) B+ (Disc)

Levin fondly recalls session with Lennon

photo

Sunday, December 4, 2005

Levin fondly recalls session with Lennon

By John W. Barry, Poughkeepsie Journal

After concluding the first day of a 1980 recording session in New York City, bass player Tony Levin received a phone call.

The message he received was that the sessions were a secret — don't tell anyone, not even friends, where they were being held.

Levin — a Kingston resident who at the time was living in New York City — was playing with John Lennon and Yoko Ono during recording sessions for the couple's two upcoming albums, "Double Fantasy" and "Milk and Honey."

The next morning, Levin caught a cab and gave the driver the address of his destination — 54th Street and Seventh Avenue, the location of The Hit Factory recording studio.

"The cab driver said, 'That's the block where John Lennon is recording an album,' " recalled Levin, known around the Hudson Valley as much for his decades playing with Peter Gabriel as for his local, all-star bar band, Uncle Funk. "Some secret. I said, 'Where did you hear that?' He said, 'On the radio.' "

Thursday marks the passing of 25 years since Lennon was shot and died, three weeks after "Double Fantasy" was released. Levin said Lennon was planning to tour behind the album.

"We were roughly staying in touch with them about a tour, early in the following year," Levin recalled during a recent telephone interview.

Levin said Lennon was very relaxed in the studio and seemed to like being with musicians who enjoyed playing as much as he did. Lennon also enjoyed jamming on Buddy Holly songs in the studio.

"He was a very nice guy, very gracious," Levin said. "He was very direct, which didn't surprise me. To a New Yorker, he was a man with a New Yorker's manner. When he saw me the first day, when I came into the session, he said 'Hi.' He recognized who I was. He said, 'They tell me you're good. Don't play too may notes.' That was his way of saying hello."

Found out from reporter

Levin, who has performing credits with King Crimson and David Bowie, was in his East Side apartment, developing photographs in a makeshift darkroom in his kitchen, when he learned from a reporter's phone call that Lennon had been shot.

"I was so put off by the way I found out," Levin recalled. "The phone kept ringing from the newspapers. For me personally, I wasn't really allowed to go through how I did feel about it. It didn't work for me to ask for a quote. It took me many years to come to grips with it."

Regarding how he looks back on his work with Lennon, Levin said, "I admired and appreciated his work, was something of a little bit of a fan. I treated it like, not just another session, a really good session with a really great musician whose work I know."

Years later, Levin said, "I came to realize how much some of his music before those sessions had influenced me and still does."

LIVE 8 – AFRICA CALLING

While “Live 8 – July 2nd, 2005” collects highlights from concerts around the world, “Live 8 – Africa Calling” is all about the concert that featured African performers. Held at the Eden Project in Cornwall, South West England, “Africa Calling” features internationally renowned artists like Youssou N’Dour et Le Super Etoile [whom I’ve had the privilege of seeing live] and lesser known [but equally talented acts like Kanda Bongo Man, Angelique Kidjo, Emmanuel Jal, and Frititi.

The sounds are varied and for the most part joyful – music for the soul, as well as the body. Peter Gabriel joins Geoffrey Oryema for one song; Dido joins Kidjo on another. If you’re looking for something different, this is an excellent opportunity to discover more than a dozen fine African acts – and to contribute to a greater good. That’s not the kind of deal you want to pass up!

The highlights, for me at least, are three N’Dour songs [“Set,” “7 Seconds,” and “Birima”] and Kidjo’s stunning “Tombo” – but none of the performers is less than excellent, and their music is guaranteed to induce happy dancing in the most unwilling of participants.

As with the above-reviewed set, “Live 8 – Africa Calling” is beautifully produced. Audio and video are first-rate.

The one extra on the set is a half-hour documentary, “Africa Calling At Eden” a behind-the-scenes doc dealing with organizing the one concert that featured an African line-up. A twelve-page booklet provides the playlist, letters from Nelson Mandela, Peter Gabriel, Thomas Brooman of WOMAD, and Tim Smit of The Eden Project, and brief bios on all the performers.

From the Gleneagles Country club to the stadium in Edinburgh, more people put more effort and heart into the Live 8 worldwide concert than has ever been done before. The best musical fruit of that effort is on “Live 8,” and on this stunning “Live 8 – Africa Calling” DVD set.