Dear 'Guest' above,

I've been to Eden...it is, quite simply Beautiful! An extraordinary place. Yet, just a few years ago it was just a hole in the ground, a gravel pit. Tim Smit had the vision and the courage to go ahead and do something when everyone around him told him it would never work. Bob Geldof tends to do the same.

Lets leave any form of anger or hatred out of this thread, please....keep that for the politicians who have had the power to do so much for so long and have turned away, back to their fine houses and their fine troublefree lives.

I can think of no better place for Peter Gabriel's WOMAD acts to take place. Eden shows what can be done in the face of insurmountable odds. And at night, the three huge domes are lit with floodlights of many beautiful colours against the velvet black backdrop of the vast bowl of hills all around them. Those lights shine up through The Domes to the stars, illuminating plants and trees from all around the world, shining on the waterfalls, the rainforest and the desert.

It is simply magical....it will be the most wondrous venue of any of the Live 8 concerts anywhere in the world and to see people like Tinariwen playing there will be incredibly special. It will put Hyde Park in the shade...as will many of the acts that will be appearing at Eden.

But I agree with you, the big acts should not be what Live 8 is about.
And the African artists should be as much in Hyde Park as they are all around the world. We are all one people. The sooner we all get to realise that the better the world will be. However, I think that Eden is by far the best venue of them all and just for one night it will belong to all those great artists appearing there and the people who go to watch it. And somehow, to have them all in one place brings a very much more powerful message than if all those acts were in different places. It will have far more impact.

Live 8 is really about all of the people who have too much helping all of those who don't have anything.....ordinary people, like us, taking control. It should also be about powerful songs that have the where-with-all to make people think.....and a lot of those songs are to be found in the folk world amongst our poets and our protest singers...because my word....do we need to protest about what is going on in this world right now!!!

So why not re-direct your anger to the Live 8 site and get your e mail on the way. Make a difference where it will actually help.

By the way, here is the Eden Project site and the list of great artists appearing there. I wish I was going.....it will be fantastic!

http://www.edenproject.com/245.htm

http://www.live8live.com/theconcerts/index.shtml

I need my Blue Clicky Angel again! :0)

And I'll leave you with some words I heard yesterday from someone's site who is also a Mudcatter...'El Greko'...otherwise known as George Papavgeris...

"In countryside like this, your God comes out to greet you. In hills and trees and stones and streams and waterfalls he's there. If you just take a look around you cannot help but wonder. For countryside like this is proof that somebody does care."

And THAT is what The Eden Project is all about. George's words ARE Eden!

It is not a 'greenhouse'....Eden is a way of life. It is about changing things for the better, proving you can make a difference, taking up the challenge, helping all the local people in a very poor community...and THAT is why, imo, it so fitting for Peter Gabriel, Angelique Kidjo, Maryam Mursal, Salif Keita, Thomas Mapfumo, Tinariwen, Daara J, Shikisha, Ayub Ogada, Modou Diouf and O Fogum to be in exactly that place, for Eden is a very special place and coupled with the artists appearing there, that concert will be the most special of them all....Eden is the concert I shall be looking out for most on Live 8 Day.

"Your God comes out to greet you....." No more so than at Eden on July 6th.


Lizzie :0)