Bands like Coldplay are also looking to create awareness along with promoting music
Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones; and I will try to fix you....
These aren’t mere lyrics, but the intent behind the British rock band Coldplay playing and rocking the cradle for a cause, for the first time in India only to fix its issues.
It was a sunny 11:00 am in Mumbai on November 19, ten days after the note ban. As if a 20-floor building lay horizontal on the ground, around 50,000 people stood in perfect queues as peaceful enthusiasts. All to hear some of the big artists: AR Rahman, Jay Z and who else, but the Chris Martin-led Coldplay band.
That’s how perceptions can change our experience altogether. Indeed a global citizen behaviour for a Global Citizen’ (GC) concert.
Known for supporting UN’s Sustainable Development Goals initiative in many countries, the organisation was here with a motive too: to improve education, gender equality, water, sanitation and hygiene in India. And Hugh Evans, CEO of GC, seems to have known the pulse of the nation: youth.
Striking the right chord, he tapped well into the potential by tuning 2 million viewers on air (apart from the 80,000 who attended the fest) to the musical notes and beats of one of the finest performers. “The growing movement of more than 8 million GCs around the world will keep campaigning to make sure leaders deliver on these promises, and commit to do even more.”
Asked how he would do so, Evans told DNA Money at the event, “I have data from the US, Canada, Australia and Britain to prove that very high percentage of people continue to do so year-around because we keep following up with them.”
Music, known to have no boundaries, definitely had its way. With people having penchant for rhythm travelling from world-over, Coldplay was right there, for the cause, in our place. An evening dawned by the presence of celebrities like SRK, Demi Lovato, Amitabh Bahchan, Shankar Ehsan Loy and Farhan Akhtar, saw another performance of a lifetime.
In the span of just two months, not only did Global Citizen India (GCI) make 5 lakh people aware of the basic issues prevalent in the country, but also got political leaders engaging: with an investment of Rs 22,700 crore, there were 25 announcements of new campaigns towards ending extreme poverty. Even Sachin Tendulkar and Ratan Tata pledged Rs 300 crore to end open defecation, and HP committed Rs 24 crore for making education accessible to 15 million people in rural areas.
There have been live music performance for social causes in the past—Live8 and Live Earth— where ticketing was an issue, and have ended up becoming only a thing of the riches and the posh.Though, gone are those days.
Of the 80,000, 20,000 were sold out at Rs 5,000 -25,000, while the rest given for free by way of a lucky draw.
However, its wasn’t actually a free show for the entire 60,000 audience. The loophole being, people who got the two free tickets, sold them away at a subsidised rate ranging from Rs 4,000-8,000 each. This was definitely not in the spirit of what GC was trying to achieve, Evans said. “We are always looking to eliminate the secondary market; it has been a bit more in India than in other countries,” he added.
“As we go in this 15-year journey, we’ll learn more lessons year-after-year, and find ways to refine experience,” Evans added. Hey, wait! In this long a journey, is it a hint to another Coldplay of sorts next year?
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