"Live 8" snubs Spice Girls

[RonOnGuitar]

From the Mirror, UK -

(Geldorf "really, really, really doesn't want" them to perform)



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NOT GONNABE



EXCLUSIVE



Live 8 snub for Spice Girls as bosses brand their music too trivial for gig to aid starving

By Cameron Robertson



SIR Bob Geldof will today announce the glittering line-up for music spectacular Live 8 - but the Spice Girls will not be in it.



The decision by concert bosses to axe them from the concert will be a bitter blow to the five stars who had hoped to re-form and play together for the first time since they split in 1998.



Geri Halliwell, 32, Victoria Beckham, 31, Melanie C, 31, Melanie B, 29, and 29-year-old Emma Bunton.



A source said: "The girls will be gutted by the decision."



But Live 8 organisers were adamant their style of music did not fit in with the serious political message about world poverty the transatlantic event hopes to portray.



A BBC spokesman said: "Many of the biggest rock stars in the world have agreed to take part, and the Spice Girls just don't fit.



"It's a political rally to put pressure on world leaders and their kind of pop act didn't seem right for this kind of event. There was also a practical problem that with so many great international rock stars and bands wanting to do their bit, there just won't be time for the Spice Girls.



"Perhaps, if five or six bands pulled out it would be different, but the truth is it's just not going to happen."



Among the 16 major acts Sir Bob is expected to reveal will be Sir Paul McCartney and U2, who are due to open the London end of the event in Hyde Park with the Beatles classic Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.



Robbie Williams hopes to do a Queen track - ideally We Will Rock You or We Are The Champions - before performing his hit Angels.



Sting is to sing The Police classic Every Breath You Take, while Annie Lennox wants to do Why. Oasis have been in discussions about playing My Generation by The Who, who are also expected to perform.



Other big names being lined up include Outkast, Destiny's Child, Black-Eyed Peas, Linkin Park, Alicia Keys and Mary J Blige.



US rapper Eminem is due to play at the Washington concert which will be screened after the London gig.



There will be simultaneous events in France and Germany.



The event, for the Make Poverty History campaign, which is backed by the Mirror, comes 20 years after the first Live Aid in 1985 which raised £60million for the starving of Ethiopia and was watched by 1.5billion around the globe.



More than 100,000 tickets for the Hyde Park gig will go on sale next Monday - available by texting a number which printed in the Mirror on that day.



Giant screens will be put up in squares and parks in around 20 cities and towns around Britain for those who cannot get into the concerts.



Jonathan Ross and Jamie Theakston will compere the London concert and Graham Norton the US one.



The event, aimed at banishing Third World debt, comes on the eve of the G8 Summit of rich nations at Gleneagles, Scotland, on July 6-8.



For the first time in 35 years, the Wimbledon women's tennis final, which many fans hope 17-year-old champion Maria Sharapova will take part in, will be switched from BBC1 to BBC2.

Edited by: RonOnGuitar at: 5/31/05 7:14