I was at the Hyde Park concert on Friday night & it was a great moment when the video was played-very emotional.
Nelson Mandela visited London last August to unveil a statue of himself in Parliament Square & he announced then that he hoped to return in 2008 for a 46664 concert to celebrate his 90th birthday.The timing of it is probably logistical / costs.As it is a charity event, it will have saved them some of the costs to have it this weekend when the same stage set up etc is also being used for 2 other major concerts-Eric Clapton, Sheryl Crow & John Mayer gig on Saturday night & The Police , KT Tunstall & Starsailor on Sunday night.Nelson Mandela has been in UK since last Monday for other events climaxing with the concert on Friday night.Now he can spend his actual birthday-18th July- back home in South Africa with his family & friends.
I had been hoping for Bono & Edge to appear in person at the concert, but in the end wasn't too disappointed as I felt the video worked really well-a polished performance.With it being pre-recorded there was no chance of any potentially embarassing mistakes being made.It would have been a difficult song to sing live & with the show being watched globally by millions on tv, internet etc this was probably in their thinking.