As most of us know that “Live Earth” (The Concert for the Climate in Crisis) is taking place on July 07, 2007 (7.7.07), the series of music concerts are taking place concurrently across 7 continents, with over 100+ artists from all over the world performing with a global audience of over 2 billion! Live Earth is the predecessor of Live8; the only difference is Live8’s aim was to ‘make poverty history’, while Live Earth aims to address the global environmental issues and calls for the individuals, corporations and governments to take action!

Live8 concerts, which were organized by Bob Geldof and took place 2 years back, were successful in a way that it convinced the G8 summit (especially its most active member, US) to double their aid to the poverty-stricken African countries. Live Earth, which is organized by the ex-US Vice President Al Gore, aims to make the world more environment-friendly through these groundbreaking gigs.

Talking about Live8 and Live Earth and so many international charity or purpose-aimed concerts that take place everywhere around the world, it’s time our local artists should join hands for a huge concert to address the issues Pakistan is going through, which includes poverty, illiteracy, unemployment and of course the judicial crisis…the list goes on.

Pakistani artists can contribute a lot. There had been charity gigs in Pakistan but they were either on a low-level, didn’t carry a message or they were commercial -- their idea of a charity gig is limited to raising funds for NGOs. If we look at this broadly, music artists can help in communicating the message that needs to get through, like fighting poverty, end to feudalism, tackling corruption, judicial-issues and so many major issues Pakistan is going through. Charity concerts do not necessarily have to be to raise funds.

There should be a series of concerts that can take place in all major cities of Pakistan and they should carry ONE message, so that the awareness of that issue is raised. High profile celebrities can be responsible to make such event possible, like Bob Geldof, who is a celebrity himself and has enough contacts with musicians and artists, made Live8 a success story. Al Gore’s Live Earth has the same tale. I’m hopeful that in the lights of people like Imran Khan, President Musharraf and others who have influencing power over people, can make such events possible and yet successful.

One question that rises as to why this event would be different from all the other concerts taking place in Pakistan every week and why people would want to be a part of it. We can again follow the strategy Geldof and Al-Gore used that called the people to unite in the name of issues like peace, tackling poverty, fighting illiteracy, environmental issues and so many other positive messages, and the people turned up in millions. Other way of calling people would be to ask artists who have not performed in a long time, either because they left music or their band broke up, to have their reunion and people will certainly come to witness them play. Pink Floyd reunited after 25 years to play at Live8 and people stormed in to watch them. We can have our local disbanded groups like Vital Signs, Junoon and others to have a one-time reunion for these off-date concerts with other artists, thus assuring huge audience.

Instead of using long rallies, walk-a-cause, processions and violent strikes as protesting tools, it would be better to have a purpose-aimed concert to highlight issues or convey the message peacefully and effectively.

My idea is simple: ALL living music artists Pakistan has ever produced, on ONE stage, with ONE message.

It’s time to ACT!