Magne Furuholmen, Morten Harket and Pal
Waaktaar (left to right) of a-ha.
Photograph: PA Imogen Tilden, arts editor
It's an embarrassment of riches. London's Live 8 lineup includes some of the world's biggest artists - U2, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Keane and Madonna, while Berlin gets a-ha, Peter Maffay and Bap.
We couldn't even spare Keane or Muse for our European neighbours in Rome or Paris. But while the lineups are heavily weighted in favour of London and Philadelphia, the remaining three venues have plenty to offer. Brian Wilson, playing in Berlin, puts on one of the best live shows I, for one, have ever seen. Crosby, Stills and Nash might have a combined age of 305, but hey, they're legends, man.
Which brings me to a-ha. Is their inclusion a dreary piece of 80s nostalgia, or a canny bit of programming?
Don't knock a-ha. They're frequently hailed today as one of the decade's best and most underrated bands. No less than Chris Martin cites the Norwegian trio as a musical influence:
Everybody asks what inspired us, what we've been trying to steal from and what we listened to when we were growing up. The first band I ever loved was a-ha - I just thought I'd mention them.
Keane's songwriter Tim Rice-Oxley called Take on Me "quite possibly the best pop single of all time"; even London's achingly hip post-punkers Bloc Party mention a-ha as an inspiration.
Italy meanwhile gets another of the 80s greatest acts, Duran Duran, and one of the country's biggest selling artists, Laura Pausini. France will host a mix of past-their-best pop acts - Craig David and Placebo - and some of their biggest world music stars, namely Youssou N'Dour and Manu Chao, both household names.
France, and Paris in particular, is the heart of the world music industry, where the genre is not ghetto-ised in the way it is in the UK, at least, and the French lineup reflects this. But Jamiroquai? "Geldof must really hate the French" says blogger H Blake St Jacques.
