ABC/Paula LoboThe benefit shows that Sting has held on and off since 1989 to raise money for his and his wife Trudie Styler‘s charity the Rainforest Fund are always star-studded, but for the 30th anniversary edition of the concert series, they’re planning a real blowout.
The concert, dubbed We’ll Be Together after the Sting song of the same name, takes place December 9 at New York City’s historic Beacon Theatre, which is a change, as past events usually have been staged at Carnegie Hall.
The show will be hosted by Robert Downey Jr. and will feature performances by Sting, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, James Taylor, Bob Geldof, Shaggy, Ricky Martin, rising R&B singer/songwriter H.E.R. and Pose star Mj Rodriguez. More artists will be announced in the coming weeks.
Perhaps most exciting, though, is the fact that Eurythmics are also on the bill. The duo of Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart haven’t worked together regularly since 2005, but they do team up for occasional performances, most recently in 2014 for a Beatles tribute concert in Los Angeles that was taped for a TV special.
The concert is being billed as a tribute to the ’80s, the era in which music and social causes came together on a grand scale via events like Band Aid, Live Aid and Farm Aid.
The Rainforest Fund has been committed to protecting the world’s rainforests. As Styler says, “All life on earth depends on their survival.”
Tickets for the 2019 Rainforest Fund benefit concert go on sale at 9 a.m. ET on November 1 via Ticketmaster.com and, starting on November 2, at the box offices of New York’s Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall and Beacon Theatre.
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