Some more summer reading…(the text below is from a press release on the Nikon website.)
Nikon is pleased to support a photographic documentary of the 2005 LIVE8 event in London’s Hyde Park captured by Mike McCartney. The book has been produced to celebrate the LIVE8 event, one year on, with the objective of raising further funds for the “Make Poverty History” campaign.
All the images used within the book were taken on a Nikon COOLPIX 4500 camera, rather than a whole host of professional products, to enable Mike to take an informal diary of the day’s events. Only 1,500 special limited edition copies of Live8 will be published, with profits going directly to the Live Aid Trust.
Background
During the summer of 2005 Mike McCartney was present at the main UK venue for the LIVE8 concert in Hyde Park in London. He was a guest of his brother Sir Paul McCartney and the show’s organiser and founder Sir Bob Geldof.
Throughout the course of the event Mike took a series of private and quite personal photographs of the performers, the celebrities and other activities that took place over the day. They have formed a remarkable, if very intimate, photo diary of the event. Most of Mike’s pictures are unique from the point of view that they were taken from within the ‘golden areas’ - those behind the scenes that were not accessible to the majority of press and official public relations photographers, and certainly no member of the public was able to visit them.
In many ways they are an astonishing and unusual ‘unofficial’ record of the day’s activities, particularly considering Mike’s special relationship with so many of the celebrities. He was able through those friendships and close links to photograph them at their ease and in ‘more natural poses’ as they took part in what is regarded as the most astonishing showbiz gathering so far into this 21st Century.
Now many of his wonderful images are to be published in a special ‘one off’ photo-diary book that records and celebrates this particular aspect of LIVE8. A special limited edition of 1,000 copies is to be published by the Wirral based firm of Cities500 International Publishers, who also published Mike’s earlier photographic anthology: Mike McCartney’s Liverpool Life.
The luxurious LIVE 8 book has the endorsement and full support of both the event’s creator Sir Bob Geldof and Sir Paul McCartney, both of whom have written personal forewords.
Extracts from the Forewords
Paul McCartney - “Live8 was one of the greatest days of the year, possibly the decade. Bob Geldof telephoned me, explained the idea of Making Poverty History and aiming the concert at the G8 conference. I was sold. Bob’s a great salesman.
Luckily, my brother Mike was there with his trusty camera to record the day and capture many of the exciting backstage happenings. This book is made from a selection of those pictures and he and I are proud to have been there together and to have been a part of this momentous event.”
Bob Geldolf - “God those bloody McCartneys. You ask one of them to pitch up - the musical genius one, and next minute the photographers, designers, guitarists, activists, mothers, babies, sisters, aunties, uncles and the rest all come and get stuck in. There must be something in that Liverpool mud.
Here’s the brother’s bit. The photographer, poet, hit songwriter one. He who captured perfectly a coming moment and a different age just before it happened with his Box Brownie or whatever. Who felt something long before everyone else. Who could hear the sound of it being born downstairs in the sitting room long before everyone else. And he shot it. Here he’s at it again with his Box Brownie digital. Taking shots of maybe another age being born.”
About the Book
- The book in the first instance is in reality an additional fundraiser for Sir Bob’s charity and linked to the LIVE8 theme “Make Poverty History”.
- Cities500 - under the separate imprint of Woodland Publishing - is producing 1000 limited edition copies of the book.
- The aim is to commemorate and celebrate the LIVE8 event one year on - hence Sir Paul McCartney and Sir Bob Geldof have endorsed Mike McCartney’s concept of the book. He has worked in collaboration with and Cities599 to make available in book form those fabulous yet informal photographs taken behind the scenes during that remarkable day.
- The book helps to re-focus the attention of the world back to that G8 meeting in Edinburgh and the LIVE8 concerts that highlighted the plight of the hungry, disposed and needy of Africa some 20 years after the original LIVE AID concert.
- We believe it is a perfect opportunity to support the ethos behind the LIVE8 concept as well as being an ideal opportunity to further the largely philanthropic work of the musicians and others throughout show business: those who helped draw the world’s attention to the desperate plight of Third World countries.
- The book is to be officially launched by the Liverpool Capital of Culture Company in late June (2006).
- The book costs GBP30 unsigned, GBP60 signed.
People who appear in the book
Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Bob Geldof, Bono and U2, Brad Pitt, Sting, Jeremy Clarkson, The creators of Little Britain - Matt Lucas and David Walliams, Coffey Annan, Chris Martyn, John MacInroe, Peter Kay, Harvey Goldsmith, Slash (ex Guns n Roses), Madonna, Richard Curtis, Killers, Peter Blake, Sir Ian McKellen, Joss Stone, The Scissor Sisters, Bill Gates, Pink Floyd’s drummer Nick Mason and David Gilmour - with his family - and, of course, one of the seminal band’s founder members, the inimitable Roger Waters, along with George Michael and Fran Healy from Travis.
The new issue of TIME magazine features an interview about Tony Bennett’s upcoming duets album, Tony Bennett: Duets/An American Classic — no real Bono content in the article, but it’s a good read. It talks about the recording process, and how Bennett made sure all the duets were actually sung together face-to-face — not done over the phone, like Bono did his duet with Frank Sinatra in the early 90s.
This is too good to pass up, even if it is a bit late for the World Cup.
