Selected Miscellaneous Shows

The Chimes of Freedom - Marking the 40th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...

These were not the faces of pop concert fans. Aging women, their heads wrapped in shawls, stared silently. Some held young children; others wept. Joining hands high, they moved slowly in a circle as music rose around them.

The faces, captured by television cameras earlier this year, were projected on screens above the stage as the Human Rights Now! tour made its North American debut earlier this fall at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens. The imagery was repeated at each show. On the stage, Sting and his band were performing "They Dance Alone," a sad, stately song of mourning, written for women of Chile like these whose husbands and sons have "disappeared" in that totalitarian state.

The fans at this concert came, of course, mostly to see the musicians recruited by Amnesty International for this tour-Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman and Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour. But with those images overhead, they could turn their attention briefly from the stars, the songs and the speeches. They could see the faces of those victimized by the denial of human rights.

In three years since the Live Aid mega-benefit marked a resurgence of social consciousness in pop music, concerts for causes have become almost commonplace. Still, the globe-circling Human Rights Now! tour, which spanned five continents in six weeks, was the most ambitious effort yet to tap the emotion and power of rock for humanitarian aims.

Encouraged by the success of its collaboration with U2 on the 1986 Conspiracy of Hope tour, which increased awareness of its work in the U.S., Amnesty International launched this rock caravan to mark the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Another presentation of this rock event of the year will take place this week. HBO plans a three-hour program about the tour, including excerpts from the Buenos concert, due to air this Saturday, the anniversary of the human rights declaration.

That 30-point proclamation, endorsed in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly, is considered a milestone in the human rights movement. Prompted by the. atrocities of World War II, the declaration includes prohibitions against torture, slavery, political killings and imprisonment. It affirms the right to fair trial, free expression and economic opportunity. And it is routinely violated around the globe. Amnesty Action, the newsletter of Amnesty International USA, observes: "Most of the flags that fly over the United Nations Plaza in New York represent governments where the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is breached daily as a matter of state policy."

That does not have to continue, said Jack Healey, the executive director of Amnesty International USA. "What we were really trying to do with this tour was get the world and all its people conscious of this declaration so they can ask their governments for all those rights," he said. "We want to use the 40th anniversary as a magical moment to start an international dialogue between people and governments to stop the oppression, the killings, the torture."

The challenge was to draw that attention to the declaration, particularly in Third World nations with high rates of illiteracy. To spark that magical moment, Healey convinced Amnesty International leaders to let pop musicians carry their message. And as the Human Rights Now! concerts unfolded, art mixed potently with activism.

"Get up...Stand up...Stand up for your rights!" The singers took the stage together, chanting as one to a reggae beat. Black and white, male and female, from America, Europe and Africa - the very makeup of the bill was a conscious statement about the universality of the human rights declaration. At each stop, they were joined by performers native to that nation, and each show opened with Bob Marley's "Get Up, Stand Up."

It was just past 5pm as the Human Rights Now! artists stepped out before the crowd at Maple Leaf Gardens. The music continued, with breaks for set changes, past one in the morning. The audience was still trickling in as a banner was hoisted above the stage. "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights - 1948-1988," it read. The words appeared over a map of the world crossed with thick, gray prison bars.

Other banners above the crowd `were less conspicuous but seemed more out of place in this politicized setting. Woven in trendy pastels and hung on the sides of the hall, each banner bore one word: "Reebok."

Early on, Amnesty International confronted the need for corporate sponsorship of the Human Rights Now! tour to subsidize its concerts in the Third World. In the less-affluent nations of Africa, Asia and South America, tickets could be priced no higher than five dollars. Although the acts on the Amnesty bill donated their time and talent, the tour was expected to cost upwards of $23 million in production, travel and staff costs. Reebok International, the sportswear manufacturer, agreed to underwrite Amnesty's losses up to $10 million. But the arrangement, a keen and curious balance of corporate promotion and political idealism, made both sides initially uneasy.

As compromises were worked out with Reebok International for sponsorship of the Human Rights Now! tour, scepticism toward this event came easily. Some of the familiar excesses of big-money rock events - luxury hotels, choice rows of tickets held for the well-connected, profiteering by ticket scalpers - all were part of the tour picture. Some fans, suffering from charity concert burnout, might well ask what impact all this musical sloganeering will have now that the tour has concluded.

Amnesty International is ready with an answer and a far better track record than other cause- related concert organizers. In the wake of the 1986 Conspiracy of Hope tour, the organization recruited as many as 100,000 new members. All received regular res on human rights violations through Amnesty Action. Many engaged in letter writing campaigns on behalf of political prisoners, at Amnesty International's direction.

And on this tour, concert-goers were provided with pocket-sized copies of the human rights declaration which they were asked to sign. At each tour stop, the signature cards piled up in cardboard boxes, by the hundreds and then by the thousands, as the concerts proceeded. By the tour's conclusion, an additional three million people had endorsed the goals of the declaration.

After the chorus of 'Get Up, Stand Up', Youssou N'Dour took command of the stage. Despite concert appearances with Peter Gabriel and a U.S. recording deal, N'Dour is not yet well-known in the West. He sang in his native language, in a stirring, wavering falsetto. If the lyrics of his songs were not clear to the crowd, the spirit of his music certainly was. As dancers stomped and flailed around him, N'Dour and band created fiery funk with the complex percussion of West African pop. With his set, the concert began building its bridge to the Third World.

Later in the evening, in their respective styles, Gabriel and Sting did the same. Gabriel, once rooted in the English art rock of the 1970s, has increasingly explored more exotic sounds of late. His band on this tour included African talking drums, congas and the wailing electric violin of Indian instrumentalist Shankar.

Sting synthesized the sounds of South American flutes on 'They Dance Alone'. He tapped Brazilian rhythms on 'If You Love Somebody, Set Them Free'. He spiced numerous songs with flamenco guitar. With ace sidemen, particularly Branford Marsalis and Minu Cinelu, he created a fusion of rock and jazz marked by dazzling shifts of mood and texture.

For any message to get through, the music had to be this good. Gabriel and Sting also offered lyrics and stage remarks that further highlighted the tour's intent. "This is a song about nationalism which, like racism, has a tendency to destroy the rights of others," said Gabriel introducing 'Games Without Frontiers'. Dedicating the song to victims of the war in Nicaragua, he choreographed it with a frightening goose-step. With stark lightning during 'Shock the Monkey', he conveyed the atmosphere of a torture session. And as he introduced 'Biko', a song written 10 years ago for the murdered South African black activist Stephen Biko, Gabriel noted another black union leader was killed in that apartheid state only weeks earlier. "You can blow out a candle, but you can't blow out a fire," the song proclaims, in a line that has become a mainstay of the Amnesty International concerts.

'King of Pain' opened Sting's set. His Spanish guitar accented 'Fragile', before Gabriel joined him for 'They Dance Alone'. The film projected overhead at that point was shot at Sting's own stadium concert in Buenos Aires several months ago. He brought the Chilean women onstage as mute witnesses to the political imprisonment in their nation. A live telecast of the concert carried in Chile was abruptly cut off.

Neither Tracy Chapman, who preceded Gabriel and Sting at most of the Amnesty concerts, nor Bruce Springsteen, who followed them, play with the global melange of styles adopted by their colleagues. Their songs are more firmly rooted in Western folk and rock styles. Nor have they become known - as have Gabriel and Sting - for songs inspired by struggles in the Third World.

Instead, for Americans introduced by this tour to the human rights movement, Chapman and Springsteen were bringing it all back home. The articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights don't solely concern political imprisonment or torture in foreign lands. The document also declares that access to housing, health care, education, employment and equal pay for equal worth are all fundamental human rights regardless of nationality. And all are still as elusive for many in the United States as in the Third World.

Particularly elusive, as Chapman sings, "across the lines...over the tracks/that separate whites from blacks." Accompanied solely by her ringing and rhythmic acoustic guitar, Chapman gave a chilling reading of her hit 'Fast Cars' which has brought images of homelessness and deprivation to the Top 40. She sang, as one lyric states, for those whose "sole misfortune is having 'mountains of nothing' at birth."

Ultimately, the success of the Human Rights Now! tour, said Healey, depended on the cooperation of a major pop artist capable of drawing stadium-sized crowds throughout Europe and the U.S. That artist turned out to be Springsteen.

It was past 11:30pm when Springsteen and the E Street Band took the stage. Yet the energy level in the crowd soared as Springsteen strutted out. Gone was the dapper look of his recent 'Tunnel of Love' tour. Bare, muscular arms bulged from beneath his black vest.

The opening beat of 'Born in the U.S.A.' resounded like a cannon volley as Springsteen roared for the veteran deprived of his dignity upon returning from an unwanted war. For this uncharacteristically short set, the pace was relentless as the band pounded through 'Promised Land', 'Cover Me', 'War', 'Thunder Road' and more. 'Glory Days' and 'Dancing in the Dark' lightened the mood.

Springsteen's involvement in the Amnesty International tour was seen by some as a public relations coup for the rocker at a time when tabloid tales of his troubled marriage had tarnished his image. But there is no denying he also gave the tour its ticket-selling linchpin and its most eloquent spokesman for this connection of rock and human rights. As the music softened behind him, Springsteen spoke to the audience.

"If you believe one man or one woman can make a difference in these cynical times," said Springsteen, "Amnesty International gives you an opportunity to put your ideas into practice. And you can let that voice of freedom ring a little bit louder."

(c) The Valley Advocate by Thom Duffy