Live 8 at Eden: Africa Calling
June 2006 Reviewed by: Joseph Taylor Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Nearly a year after the Live 8 concerts, which were meant to call attention to Africa’s economic plight and other problems, one can still argue whether the concerts achieved their goal, or whether they were in fact something cooked up to sooth the egos of aging pop stars. What is indisputable, on the evidence of Live 8 at Eden: Africa Calling, is that the most exciting and musically challenging concert took place at the Eden Project in Cornwall, South West England. The Eden Project show was composed of African musicians and was scheduled after the organizers of Live 8 were criticized for not including African artists in its initial line up.

While the event itself may have been hastily put together in order to recover from a public-relations blunder, the music and event were triumphantly exciting because of the diversity of the music and the exuberance of the performers. The Eden Project, a biological research and education facility, provided a beautiful setting for the performances, which included traditional African musicians, as well as many of the continent’s pop artists. It’s surprising and pleasing to hear such exotic sounds coming from instruments such as a Fender Stratocaster that we normally associate with rock‘n’roll.

Youssou N’Dour is probably the best known of the singers here because of his work with Peter Gabriel. His three songs are rousing and intense. Dido joins him on "7 Seconds," but N’Dour doesn’t need a western pop singer to give him a boost -- he dominates the stage and his band is astonishingly accomplished. Zimbabwe’s Thomas Mapfumo and the Blacks Unlimited open the first disc with Mapfumo’s music of liberation -- chimurenga (which means struggle). The multiple rhythms and hypnotic melody lines pull you into the beauty of this music. One of the most moving performances on the DVD is Geoffrey Oryema’s. He accompanies himself on the acoustic guitar and sings in a rich, deeply moving voice.

The two-channel sound is very good, but much of the music on Live 8 at Eden: Africa Calling benefits from an excellently done Dolby 5.1-channel mix (there’s a similar DTS mix, as well). The tones of the many drums used by Modou Diouf and O Fogum, a percussion ensemble from Senegal, are very clearly delineated and placed intelligently in the soundstage. Chartwell Dutiro accompanies himself on the mbira, a Zimbabwean instrument that combines tuned keys and percussion. The instrument’s unusually varied sounds and textures are caught beautifully in the surround mix.

Live 8 at Eden: Africa Calling is well shot and Hamish Hamilton’s direction shows an intuitive feel for what the musicians are doing onstage. One oddity on my copy was that it defaulted to German subtitles on both discs, and I had to cut them off each time I played the DVDs. A documentary at the end of disc 1 recaps how the concert was put together by Peter Gabriel and his world music organization, WOMAD. Keep pad and pen near you as you watch this set -- you’ll want to make a list of artists to check out further.

• Go Back