By DPA
Sydney : The opening event of the Live Earth global pop music extravaganza to inspire activism against global warming drew to a close at Aussie Stadium here Saturday with at least 45,000 enthusiasts attending.
Aboriginal dancers opened the show before Al Gore appeared on a screen urging all to be better global citizens and help reduce global warming – the overriding theme of all the day's concerts.
The former US vice president, one of the principal organisers, is hoping to persuade fans to adopt a seven-point pledge to reduce their own carbon footprint and to press for meaningful legislation that would cut carbon output by 90 percent by 2050.
Hollywood actor Toni Collette, fronting a band called Finish, thanked the crowd for braving the chill of the southern hemisphere winter.
"Just by being here today, just by turning up, is helping to create awareness of this very life-threatening situation," Collette told the Sydney crowd. "So I take my hat off to you."
Local dance band Sneaky Sound System admitted to being new to environmentalism.
"All we can do is put on a show that people will come and enjoy and let others give the message," band leader Angus McDonald said.
Headlining the Sydney concert is a re-formed Crowded House. The band broke up after a farewell concert on the steps of Sydney Opera House in 1996 but are back playing together.
After coming off stage John Butler said he hoped the music hadn't drowned out the global warming message.
"The show was billed as an awareness concert but action is what should come of it," the frontman of the John Butler Trio said.
"People have had a great day but have been handed a lot of information to be able to do something about the way we live and how we affect our environment."
From Sydney, the 24-hour event spread to official venues in Tokyo, Shanghai, Hamburg, Johannesburg, New York, Rio de Janeiro and London, as well as to more than 7,000 local events, including one in Antarctica.
Australian Live Earth promoter Michael Chugg said the event had "put global warming and the future of the earth on the front pages of newspapers for the past five months."
It was a claim not borne out by reality. Ticket sales have been slow, the line-up lacklustre and Sydney's dailies consigned concert coverage to the middle pages.
Proceeds from the event, subtitled Concerts for a Climate in Crisis, are to benefit the Alliance for Climate Protection, a group chaired by Gore.