Live 8 – The Long Walk to Justice

Saturday 2nd July 2005, Hyde Park, London.

I was there! Below is my ticket to prove it and crap photos from my first camera phone (taken at 2pm – it got brighter honestly).

I won tickets and went with my sister. It was brilliant from start to finish. We arrived at Marble Arch at 11am and got into the Park at midday. Half an hour later we entered the main arena and the concert warmed up with footage from the other concerts in Japan, Moscow, Italy and Berlin. Then we all made history.

Forget what you may have read in the newspapers and ignore the selective reporting of television, you had to be there.

High Points

• U2 at the start
• Bob Geldof and Birhan, followed by Madonnas set
• Scissor Sisters
• Annie Lennox

Less-than-high Points

• Stereophonics (time to queue for the loo)
• Velvet Revolver
• Miss Dynamite

Unusual sights

• The couple having a very vocal “domestic”.
• Hyde Park strewn with newspapers. The Sun and The Mirror tried to hijack the publicity of the event by handing out free newspapers. The crowd wisely threw them on the ground and trod on them.
• The fools who tried to climb the two metre high fence to sneak in thinking they wouldn’t be spotted and then trying to run from a dozen police/security men.
• The roads around the park being closed to traffic. The only time I’ve actually walked in the middle of Marble Arch and Oxford Street.