If You Can't Trust UNESCO Who Can You Trust? (Venice 1976)

 

If You Can't Trust UNESCO, Who Can You Trust? Says Paul McCartney at a Benefit Concert for Vience

By Alvin Shuster

Times News Service (Venice, Italy)

September 27, 1976

    It was hardly music to sail gondolas by, but it was music enough to enthuse more than 25,000 fans, raise money to help save Venice, and provide St. Mark's Square with an event unique in its long history.

     For the first time, a contemporary rock group, Paul McCartney's Wings, took over the Square for a live concert. Violinists, given to injecting the piazza with a heavy dose of "Three Coins in a Fountain" and other tourist sentiments, went home early Saturday night and abandoned it to the former Beatle and his group.

     McCartney's special effects included smoke, strobe lights, and speakers across the sides of the square, and attached even to the walls of the doge's palace beyond. Famous pop people rarely come to Italy these days, so 1000s of Italians, mostly young but some old, crowded into the Square to applaud with their hands over their heads, and shout "Paolo" at the group's leader, and concluded at the end that it was all "fantastico."

     The purpose of the concert was to help the city by raising funds for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which is working to stop decay here, restore works of art and buildings, and prevent the city of canals from sinking.

     The Wings concert yielded about $50,000 for the cause after some costs. UNESCO and the city, for example, paid for the construction of the huge stage and electricity, a total of about $40,000. But the rock group, apart from contributing the talent, paid for transporting the heavy equipment, which arrived in trailer trucks sailed down the canals on ferry boats to the Square. 

    "They told us that our concert would help keep the city going," said Paul afterwards. So he said, "Fine, take the profits from the show and lift a building up. I hope it doesn't cost us too much, but if you can't trust UNESCO, who can you trust?"

     The for the the 34 year old musician incidentally added that the Beatles were definitely a "past thing," and that efforts to revive the group, even for one performance, appeared doomed to failure. "We have just been separated too long," he said. "We are still all friendly. There's no animosity."

     The performance Saturday, which included songs from all the recent albums of Wings, plus a solo by Paul of the Beatles' song "Yesterday", was the climax of a week-long effort by UNESCO to focus public attention on the continuing needs of Venice. Earlier in the week, there were performances in less dramatic surroundings by La Chunga, the Spanish dancer, Ravi Shankar on the sitar, and other musicians. 

    Not a vacant hotel room was to be found in Venice all weekend, and Peter Asdonov, who presided over a UNESCO gala Sunday, watched the chaos in the hotel housing the Wings Saturday night, said it "resembled the stock exchange on the day of collapse."

     "We wanted to alert public opinion to the problems of Venice," said a spokesman for UNESCO. "We all want solutions urgently, and we thought Wings could raise at least a symbolic sum that would go to restoring something." 

    The money from the concert will be turned over to city authorities, who will decide how to spend it after talks with the UNESCO officials. The organization's consultative committee met here last week and decided that it was not satisfied with the pace of work here so far. By all accounts, work is lagging. There has been some progress. The land has apparently stopped sinking, but UNESCO, which is coordinating many of the programs, is now trying to instill new life into the salvage efforts; obviously, the violinists of Venice need no help. The square was cleared overnight, and they were back with the sentiment Sunday afternoon.