Live 8 kicks off with a whimper in Japan

The worldwide Live 8 charity extravaganza got off to a bit of an anticlimactic start today as Bjork and Good Charlotte joined a handful of Japanese bands for a concert that failed to generate much interest in Asia’s only G8 nation.

Added on to the Live 8 list at the last minute, the concert in Japan drew only about 10,000 people, all of whom were selected in a lottery. The venue in the Tokyo suburb of Makuhari normally holds about 20,000.