MAKE POVERY HISTORYPaul McCartney will join up with U2 to kick off today's massive Live8 concert in London's Hyde Park with a version of The Beatles' classic song Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
The hastily-convened super-group will open the concert at 2pm with U2 going on to play their hit song One. The band will then have to make a rushed journey by private plane to Vienna where they are playing a concert later tonight.
As details emerge of who will be singing what at today's historic concert, it's clear that Bob Geldof and the concert promoter Harvey Goldsmith have gone for a duet-friendly set-list.
Following McCartney and U2, Coldplay will take to the stage at about 2.30pm to perform a duet with ex-Verve singer Richard Ashcroft on the latter's Bittersweet Symphony song.
Coldplay also have to make a speedy exit from the show as they have a gig in Glasgow later tonight.
Although there are only 150,000 tickets available for today's show (which were allocated on a random basis to members of the public), thousands more music fans are expected in Hyde Park to listen to, if not to see, the musical action. Bob Geldof has already incurred the wrath of the local police by suggesting that anybody who turns up at Hyde Park without a ticket might be "facilitated". Certainly the fencing put up around the Live8 concert area will not pose many problems (given its meagre height) to dedicated fans.
Twenty-five acts will appear over the seven hours of the show. Following Coldplay's set, the presenters of the hugely popular TV show Little Britain will introduce Elton John, who will be doing a duet with rock's new "bad boy", Pete Doherty from the band Babyshambles, on the T Rex song Children Of The Revolution.
As the show winds on, REM, Keane, Travis and Annie Lennox will each perform between two to three songs before Madonna takes to the stage at about 7.30pm, when she will perform her hits Like A Prayer, Music and Ray Of Light. She is followed by Northern Irish band Snow Patrol, who will perform their songs Chocolate and Run.
Sting, who appears at about 8.10pm, will be changing the lyrics to his song Every Breath You Take to include the lyric "We'll be watching you" which is directed at the G8 leaders meeting in Gleneagles later in the week.
Robbie Williams follows at 8.30pm and he will be performing Let Me Entertain You, Rock DJ, and a cover version of the Queen song We Will Rock You. The latter song is in acknowledgment of how Queen stole the show at the Live Aid concert in Wembley in 1985.
The much-anticipated reunion of Pink Floyd takes place just before 9pm with the band playing Money, Comfortably Numb and Wish You Were Here.
Younger members of today's audience might well think Comfortably Numb is a Scissor Sisters' song, as the New York band - who are also playing - had a hit with it just last year.
The show will close at 9.30pm, with Paul McCartney again taking to the stage. He will sing the Beatles' song The Long And Winding Road, which will symbolise the journey taken by protesters to the G8 summit in Scotland. And finally, an all-star ensemble cast will sing a song "of special significance" - believed to be Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas?