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Canada Live 8 includes Adams, Dion, but no Stones
06/21/2005 1:52 PM, Reuters
Bryan Adams and Celine Dion will
perform for Canada's Live 8 concert, but Rolling Stones fans
expecting an appearance by the British rock legends get no
satisfaction, organizers said on Tuesday.
Concert promoter Michael Cohl, who represents the Stones
and is organizing the Canadian event, said he never even
suggested the idea to his famous friends.
"I never asked them to play this show," he told Reuters
after a news conference announcing the lineup. "If they were
playing, they'd be playing in London. They belong in London."
In addition to Adams and Dion, whose performance will be
done via satellite from Las Vegas, the concert will feature
mostly Canadian acts including Barenaked Ladies, Blue Rodeo,
The Tragically Hip and Gordon Lightfoot. Heavy metal bands
Motley Crue and Deep Purple will also play.
Cohl helped organize Toronto's SARS benefit concert in
2003, when more than 400,000 fans showed up to see the Rolling
Stones, AC/DC and others perform at a former military base in
Canada's largest city.
The Live 8 concert will be a much smaller affair, with
about 35,000 tickets being given away. The concert will be held
in Barrie, Ontario, about 57 miles north of Toronto.
Cohl said organizers considered several venues in Toronto
and even Parliament Hill in Ottawa, but that they would have
been too expensive to prepare in time.
The July 2 show will be held the same day as concerts in
London, Paris, Rome, Berlin and Philadelphia, all aimed at
pressuring world leaders to eradicate global poverty.
Irish rocker Bob Geldof, one of the event's organizers,
said last week concerts would also be held in Tokyo and
Johannesburg.
Another show is scheduled for July 6 in Edinburgh -- the
day the leaders of the Group of Eight club of rich nations
begin a summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, that runs until July 8.
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