Since my U2 and Africa blog entry, Live 8 has come and gone. A Billboard .com daily music news article (noted by culture blogger Jeffrey Overstreet) reports that its organizer, Bob Geldof, and its main celebrity supporter, U2 lead singer Bono, considered it a success:

[Bono] and Geldof praised the world leaders attending the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, for pledging to double aid to Africa to $50 billion, saying the move will save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people who would have died of poverty, malaria or AIDS. “The world spoke and the politicians listened,” Bono said.

Not everyone is quite so sure of whether or not Live 8 made much of a difference, though I don’t see how it could have hurt! Any event that raises the profile of issues such as world poverty should be lauded.

If you weren’t able to attend the Live 8 concert in your country (as I wasn’t), QuickTime videos of all the main performances are available for free download here (Thanks again to Jeffrey Overstreet for the link).