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U2, Coldplay And Darkness Play Tsunami Benefit?

added 04 January 2005 at 10.11

Chiefs at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff are attempting to organise a concert to raise money for victims of the Asian tsunami, with U2, Coldplay, Franz Ferdinand and The Darkness all rumoured to appear.

Bosses at the stadium are hoping to stage the event on Saturday January 22, giving them only three weeks to book a line up capable of filling the 60,000 capacity venue and raise the target of £1 million.

“It's going to be tight,” Stadium manager Paul Sergeant explained, “The pitch comes back into the stadium on the 24th [of January]. We won't be able to stage anything after that until the summer."

While Sergeant hasn’t confirmed any band names as yet, he has explained that he is expecting to stage an "event of international proportions" and that all it needed was two or three acts to sign up and the "whole thing would snowball."

Though no bands have been officially confirmed, there are rumours that Sergeant is currently in talks with a huge list of A-list bands including U2, Coldplay, The Darkness and Franz Ferdinand.

"As soon as the enormity of the disaster was known we opened discussions with a number of musical agents to see if it would be possible to get a money-spinning event up and running. I was involved in two such charity concerts during my time as manager at Wembley.
 
"We put on the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in just three weeks to raise money for aids awareness and we didn't have much longer to organise the Amnesty International event at the same venue. It is my experience that if there is a will to do something special like this on all sides then it can come together very quickly.
 
"We have the experience of hosting major concerts at the Millennium Stadium and we could easily accommodate 50,000 or more fans at a charity event. It would give everyone the chance to do their bit and would considerably boost the £3m already raised in Wales for the disaster fund."

The money raised will be used to provide support for those left homeless, starving and at risk from disease in the aftermath of the tsunami which caused massive devastation in over 11 countries in Asia and India on December 26 and resulted in the loss of over 150,000 people’s lives.

Xfm Online users who wish to donate to the appeal can contact numbers below:

• Oxfam: 0870 333 2500
• The Red Cross: 0870 512 5125
• Unicef: 0845 731 2312
• CAFOD: 0500 858 885
• Save The Children: 020 7012 6400
• Christian Aid: 020 7620 4444

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Matt Everitt

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