| Music Festival Name: | World Liberty Concert |
| Location: | , Arnhem, Netherlands |
| Years Active: | 1995 |
| Founders: | Arno Geul Alan Parsons |
| Dates: | 8 May 1995 |
| Genre: | Rock music Pop music |
The World Liberty Concert was a concert that took place on 8 May 1995 next to the John Frost Bridge in Arnhem in the Netherlands. The concert was held in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the liberation of Europe and is the largest memorial concert ever held in the Netherlands and was thought of by Arno Geul.[1] Preparations lasted for about a year.[2]
Performances were provided by Alan Parsons (with Chris Thompson and Mick Mullins), Art Garfunkel, Joe Cocker, Cyndi Lauper, Wet Wet Wet, Candy Dulfer, UB40 and René Froger. Also present was the Metropole Orkest consisting of 80 men and the Gelders Opera and Operetta Gezelschap (GOOG) choir. The event-specific configuration of The Alan Parsons Project, which had been a studio group only, was one of the first live performances of the band's material, albeit without cofounder Eric Woolfson (who had split from Parsons before Try Anything Once and the accompanying tour captured on Alan Parsons Live); it was performed under the name of Alan Parsons Band.[3] The musical performances were accompanied by historical readings by Walter Cronkite and an illustrative performance by the Royal Netherlands Army.
The broadcast portion of the concert lasted about 2 hours, was attended by 85,000 people and was broadcast in 45 countries, of which 31 were live. The entire concert lasted over 12 hours.
The evening concert was broadcast live and was initiated by a seven-and-a-half-minute introduction, showing the various preparations for the concert. The video featured a medley of classical songs of the soundtrack of the movie Glory. In total, the evening concert covered 21 songs:
| Artists | Song | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Walter Cronkite makes his appearance at the broadcast during this song. | |||
| Black Horizon | Quite a dramatical classical piece, accompanying the invasion by the aggressor (dressed in brown). | ||
| Imagery of the Normandy landings is shown during the song. | |||
| At the beginning of the song an Air alarm is run for a couple of swoops. | |||
| Fireworks were lit halfway down the song. | |||
| Old video material of WWII paratroopers is shown. Near the concert's location voluntary parachutists are coming down. | |||
| White Dawn | The allied forces presents themselves (dressed in white) and capture the aggressor at the bridge. | ||
| On the Rhine rubber boats of the Army make circles, while carrying flags of the United Nations. On the bridge young female performers wave the flags of the United Nations in a choreographed manner. | |||
| Rubber boats of the army cross the Rhine. | |||
| Fireworks were lit halfway down the song. | |||
| A helicopter hovered above the Rhine. | |||
| Volunteers held burning torches at the side of the Rhine, which was also decorated by spraying water fountains. | |||
| The end of the song was accompanied by fireworks. |
During the concert, Walter Cronkite narrated parts of history during and after the Second World War, in order to illustrate the historical meaning of the concert. During the concert Walter Cronkite was positioned at the side of the Rhine, in a military Jeep.
In his initial appearance at the beginning of the concert, Walter Cronkite both describes the reason for his presence and the reason for the concert:
I am here tonight, because as a war correspondent, I was part of the allied airborne operation that for a brief moment in history, more than fifty years ago, focused the world's attention on this crossing of the Rhine and this Dutch City of Arnhem. I speak tonight from hallowed ground, for here more than 1500 brave British parachutists died in a futile attempt to gain the bridge. 6000 were captured, many of them wounded. They represent for us tonight, the millions of others, soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians, claimed in history’s worst calamity. In a war whose long delayed ending, this concert commemorates and celebrates. In May 1944 the European continent had been a major battleground for almost four years. The country's provinces, cities and more importantly the people of Europe were devastated by the toll of mankind’s Second World War. Beginning just 50 kilometers upstream from this City of Arnhem, stretched the heartland of the aggressor's war industry. While the sounds of the factories were of course too far off to be heard from here, life was dominated by the ominous sound of a not so distant thunder.
In total, Walter Cronkite makes 11 appearances during the concert, covering the history in chronological order:
The evening concert was supposed to be released as video and CD. A legal dispute made only a single, You're the Voice,[4] [5] be released, which included the live recordings of "White Dawn"[6] and "You're the Voice",[7] [8] the latter however as a "radio edit" that fades out after four minutes, while the live performance lasted a minute longer. Despite the lack of a full release, bootlegs of the broadcast are circulating.[9] A studio recording of "You're the Voice" was recorded a few months earlier and featured on the 15-track edition of the Alan Parsons album The Very Best Live, albeit in a longer version.[10]