Kathmandu, Oct 14 - In 1953, when Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa became the first men to summit the highest mountain in the world, Mt. Everest was considered the ultimate challenge in adventure and human endurance. But with increasing leaps in technology and human imagination, the king of mountains is now poised for a makeover - as the king of showbiz!The transformation started Saturday when a group of gritty musicians began a journey to the 8,848-m mountain, which is to turn into their stadium in less than 10 days.Under the aegis of Love Hope Strength Foundation, a British-American NGO, a team of 40 musicians, mountaineers, artistes and supporters began their journey from Kathmandu to the base camp of Mt. Everest where they will hold the world's highest gig at 18,000 ft.Besides hoping to climb into the Guinness Book of World Records, the music makers have another aim - to raise money for the Bhaktapur Cancer Hospital, Nepal's only hospital dedicated to cancer treatment.In addition to music and love for sports, cancer is the other common factor among the group members.The Foundation was started by Welsh rock band The Alarm's frontman Mike Peters, who was diagnosed with leukaemia in 1995 and 2005, and entertainment insurance executive James Chippendale, who successfully staved off bone marrow cancer.The team also includes Nick Harper, the singer/guitarist son of folk rock maestro Roy Harper, whose mother Monica died of breast cancer in 2000, and mountaineer Sean Swarner, who conquered both lung cancer and the Everest.'Everest Rocks' aims to be the coolest show on record, fusing music with sports, technology and philanthropy.The band aims to hike to the base camp during the day and at the end of the trek in the evening, make acoustic recordings that would be fed to iTunes.After a full-fledged concert at the base camp on Oct 23 or 24, depending on the weather, they will return to Kathmandu for a grand finale at the Durbar Square Oct 29.Though the shows were planned in August-September, when the peace process in Nepal seemed on track with a crucial election scheduled for November, the team's arrival in Kathmandu last week however saw a sea-change in the political landscape.The election was put off indefinitely and the threat of fresh unrest hung over the kingdom with the Maoist guerrillas warning they would start a new street revolt.
(c) Indo-Asian News Service
