Live Earth 7/7/07

Nunatak, an unknown rock band from Antarctica, is about to become famous.

However brief its moment in the limelight, the group comprising two engineers, a marine biologist, a meteorologist and a polar guide will be watched by millions around the world when it appears as part of the Live Earth concerts on Saturday.

Billed as the "coolest gig in Live Earth", the outdoor performance at the British Antarctic Survey's Rothera Research Station will be pre-recorded and broadcast on the day on television, the Internet and possibly at the gigs themselves.

While rock royalty like Madonna struts her stuff before a live audience of up to 90,000 at London's Wembley Stadium, Nunatak can expect to perform in front of 17 colleagues braving the freezing temperatures of a Southern Hemisphere winter.

"At the moment we have had a sudden drop in temperature -- it is minus 18 degrees (Celsius) outside," Matt Balmer, lead singer of the band, told Reuters by telephone from Antarctica...

Live Earth will air two songs by Nunatak performed against a backdrop of icebergs, mountains, and sea.

Organisers hope the series of concerts across the world will attract a global audience of up to two billion people, raise awareness about climate change and encourage people to alter their lifestyles to help the environment...

Nunatak gets it name from a Greenlandic word which means an exposed summit of a ridge mountain or peak within an ice field or glacier.

The British Antarctic Survey says temperatures in the western part of the Antarctic Peninsula have risen by nearly three degrees Celsius during the last 50 years, several times the global average and matched only by Alaska and Siberia.