TORONTO -- More than 17,000 shreiking fans crammed Maple Leaf Gardens for a long night of rock 'n' roll and human rights consciousness-raising by Bruce Springsteen, Sting and other performers as the Amnesty International tour arrived in North America.
Musical stars Springsteen, Sting, Youssou N'Dour, Peter Gabriel, Tracy Chapman and K.D. Lang opened the first North American stop on Amnesty's 'Human Rights Now!' roadshow on stage together Thursday night, singing Bob Marley's 'Stand Up For Your Rights.'
Expectant fans, mostly in their teens and 20s, arrived at the big hockey arena to find tables full of petitions seeking freedom for 11 political prisoners in the Soviet Union, Vietnam, China and Brazil.
Toronto was the eighth concert for the core group of performers who have already played in London; Budapest, Hungary; Torino, Italy; Barcelona, Spain; San Jose, Costa Rica and twice in Paris.
They are to perform in Montreal's Olympic Stadium Sept. 17.
U.S. shows are scheduled for Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Oakland, Calif. Stops are also planned in Asia, Africa and South America.
Amnesty officials said the concert was aimed at consciousness-raising, not fundraising. The tour marks the 40th anniversary of the signing of the organization's Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
After the stars appeared together on stage, N'Dour led off the solo sets. The rest of the lineup was Lang and her band, the Reclines; Chapman, a quiet figure with acoustic guitar; Gabriel; Sting and finally Springsteen and the E Street Band.
The concert sold out in 90 minutes the first day of ticket sales. Security staff claimed scalpers received as much as $600 for a pair of tickets to the show, but as the concert began some scalpers offered tickets for as little as $130 each, without any takers. The face value of tickets was $30.
