U2's The Edge: Live 8 bigger than Live Aid

Bob Geldof recently said that he expected this year's Live 8 movement to fail, but the Edge sees it differently. U2 is one of the acts that played this past July and 20 years ago at Live Aid, and the Edge says this year's event will wind up being bigger in some respects than the original. The guitarist told the Toronto Sun, "The result of Live 8 will be far in excess of the actual impact of Live Aid. Not in terms of culture, not in terms of history, but in terms of just dollars out there in the developing world. The sums of money that have been released as a result of the debt cancellation and other commitments dwarfs anything that Live Aid was able to achieve." He also said, "There was an air of desperation there (in 1985), this was a crisis that we were trying to do something to try and alleviate. In this case, there's a crisis but it was like the solution was right there and all we needed was for the politicians to show a bit of courage and thankfully they did."

The Edge also said he's amazed at the relationship that rock stars and politicians have established over the past 20 years. He told the paper that in July 1985, "The politicians were quite loath to talk to the pop stars back then. This time 'round, (U2 frontman) Bono and Bob met everybody and everybody was prepared to listen."

U2 continue their run of shows at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Tuesday, October 11th.
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