UK News 15-11-2004 TV Launch For Band Aid who: Madonna what: To launch Band Aid 20 single on all five terrestrial TV channels when: Thursday night snippet: "Madonna will spearhead the launch of the new Band Aid single Do They Know It`s Christmas, 20 years after the original rocked the world," says The Sun. "The Material Girl will introduce the new version of the 1984 charity hit when it is played on all five main TV channels at 6.05pm on Thursday." The news comes the day after more than 40 performers - from Coldplay`s Chris Martin to Pop Idol Will Young - got together at Air Studios, a converted church in Hampstead, north London owned by Sir George Martin, to form a group known as Band Aid 20 for a charity single due for release two weeks from today. "Twenty years on, a new generation of rock, pop and R&B stars yesterday cast aside recording schedules and petty rivalries," says The Guardian, "to reconvene Band Aid under the avuncular gaze of Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, the songwriters and organisers who created a seminal moment in pop history and raised millions for famine relief in Africa." Yet The Mirror tells a slightly different version of the story, using the word "feud" to describe the dispute between Justin Hawkins of The Darkness and U2 frontman Bono over which of them should sing the line: "Well tonight thank God it`s them instead of you." "We both recorded the same line," says Hawkins, accusing the Irish elder statesman of pulling rank. "I did it better than him but his management kicked up a stink and he is going to do it again today. It means politically I`m not allowed to sing it." [... more]

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