The Aftershock Benefit Concert scheduled for July 29 at the Compaq Center in San Jose, Calif. was cancelled due to lack of corporate sponsorship for the hastily booked show, which was to have featured Luther Vandross, Marc Anthony, Lauryn Hill and Anoushka Shankar. The goal was to raise $5 million for earthquake victims in India and El Salvador.
Organizers were holding the concert in San Jose because of the area's many high-tech companies and its significant Indo-American and Latino populations, but they couldn't find enough local corporate sponsors to fund the show. "This is an unfortunate turn of events, but we couldn't with a good conscience ask the artists to perform the benefit pro bono, without funding from major corporations to underwrite the cost of the show," entertainment lawyer Mickey Shapiro, the benefit's organizer and producer, said in a release. "I'd rather have people send monetary contributions directly to our foundation, so that we can help victims more immediately."
