Human Rights Now! Concert: Harare 1988 - Part 4
The ongoing story of my experiences travelling to the 1988 Amnesty International Human Rights Now! concert in Harare, Zimbabwe continues. In Part 3 the concert had got underway with the main acts still to come. Let's get rocking with them.
Youssou N’Dour
Youssou N’Dour was the first main act to take to the stage. To be honest, I didn't know much about him, but it didn't take me long to understand why he had been asked to join such a stellar bunch of artists. His large band were incredibly skilled and professional, brilliantly merging North African with Western rock music. His voice, clear and piercing rang around the vast stadium.
I recognised his voice at once, though: he sang the coda in Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes.
Youssou N'Dour is from Dakar, Senegal. He's been described as, "perhaps the most famous singer alive" in Senegal and much of Africa.
At times he was joined on-stage by both Tracy Chapman and Peter Gabriel. Here is the last song from his set, Seven Seconds:
Tracy Chapman
The lady with all the current hits took to the stage amid wild applause. Tracy Chapman had concurrent hits in South Africa and around the world with Fast Car and Talkin' Bout a Revolution off her debut No 1 hit album, Tracy Chapman. She had been an unknown street singer before the release of her album, just 6 months before. By the time of the concert, the album had sold over 4 million copies. So expectations were huge.
I have to admit that her performance sounded a bit flat. This was probably mainly because she did her set solo, accompanied only by her acoustic guitar - not an easy thing to pull off in a massive, packed stadium.
Here is the highlight of her set, Talkin' Bout a Revolution:
It was dark by now, just in time for an amazing light show. More about that in Part 5.