Green Day, Brian Wilson fire up Berlin crowd

updated 7:44 p.m. ET July 2, 2005

BERLIN - Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson and American rockers Green Day fired up a crowd of more than 200,000 at Berlin’s Live 8 concert on Saturday, using classic songs and guitar-driven energy to urge fans to help Africa.

German youths in T-shirts and visitors from around the world packed into a wide boulevard through Berlin’s downtown Tiergarten park, soaking up the summer sun as well as the sounds meant to amplify an anti-poverty message.

“This is no rock concert, it’s a reminder about next Wednesday,” Campino, the singer from Die Toten Hosen, the veteran German punk band, told the spectators, referring to next week’s meeting of the leaders of the wealthy Group of Eight nations about African aid and other issues.

The Berlin concert was one of 10 free shows around the world hastily arranged by former Boomtown Rats frontman Bob Geldof ahead of the G-8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland.

Police said more than 200,000 watched the concert at the foot of Berlin’s landmark Victory Column, also the focus in recent years of Berlin’s Love Parade techno festival, encouraged by a bill including several top German acts as well as international stars such as Wilson.

“We’re here for the bands and some autographs, but it’s also a good cause,” said Jan-Niklaus Hoarsch, a 15-year-old high school student with his wrists festooned with bracelets proclaiming support for fighting hunger in Africa.

Where Geldof’s Live Aid shows in London and Philadelphia 20 years ago raised millions for victims of famine in Africa, Saturday’s concerts were about raising awareness.

Supporters want G8 leaders to double aid, cancel debt and rework unfair trade laws to help impoverished African nations.

“We’re beating the drum for attention for Africa,” said Wolfgang Niedecken, a singer for German band BAP, who said he had witnessed a depressing atmosphere of violence when playing in Uganda last year.

Jan Bauer / AP Brian Wilson performed "Good Vibrations" and "Fun, Fun, Fun" at the Live 8 show in Berlin.

“Africa has no lobby, but we can tear open a window in the media ... and I hope the spotlight doesn’t go out again so quickly. I hope that it has an affect on the G8 summit, that there is debt relief for countries that deserve it,” Niedecken said.

Other top German acts including Wir Sind Helden and Herbert Groenemeyer were to play in Berlin on Saturday, along with 80’s pop stalwarts A-ha, Chris de Burgh and Roxy Music.

The bands were playing on a broad stage in the shadow of the gilded Goddess of Victory statue, which sits atop a 200-foot column facing the Brandenburg Gate, where the Berlin Wall once divided the city.

Jan Bauer / AP Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music closed out the show in Berlin on Saturday. More than 200,000 people attended the German show.

Giant video screens on either side beamed in images from the other concert venues and a recorded message from former South African President Nelson Mandela. The same images were shown live on German television.

Some of the performers and the spectators played down the possible impact of the concerts.

“It’s not simple enough to sign a check and send it to Africa,” Chris de Burgh, who spent part of his childhood in Nigeria and the former Zaire, told reporters backstage. “The best way to help Africans help themselves is to show them, like taking a youngster and saying this is how you irrigate your farm.”

Daniel Modricker, a 24-year-old from Boston who was visiting Berlin, agreed.

“It’s a great idea but it would take a lot more than music to change the world,” Modricker said. “It takes action.”

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