I thought Clapton was superb. Pati Labelle also at the end..

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The Sicilian
Thinking back on this event I sometimes wonder if this was the climax of three decades of music as we know it.

It kind of was a last hurrah for rock in a way. It was an amazing event.

I think it was the death knell for rock in many ways. No doubt it was a hugely worthy cause and way more important than 'artistic integrity' - but it really (inadvertantly) launched rock as a full on corporate entity.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-03-17 14:00 by Roll73.

Elvis Costello doin 'All you need is Love' alone with a electric guitar..beats Dylan and the Stonesboys...U2 did fine also, and Mick and Bowie..

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Come On
... Mick and Bowie..

They didn't perform live together ...
They did premier their dancing in the streets video ... which was still cool

some great performances that day ... and it was such a thrill to see The Who and Zeppelin get back together (even if their performances were spotty, esp. Zep)

Live Aid was for me the inspiration to going to live concerts. I saw it complete from Status Quo till Mick Jagger & Tina Turner. The best act was Queen in my opinion.

This would be great to see this year.

Patti Labelle, Mick Jagger/Tina Turner,U2, Queen, George Thorogood, BB King from The Hague (north Sea Jazz) What a wonderfull day sat in front of the tv all day waiting for Jagger finally shows up at 5 in the morning local time, But it was worth every minute.

I taped it all on my betamax machine, those were the days! Mick with Hall/Oates as his backing band. It actually sounded good, I was not a fan of H/Os 80s hits period,but they were great musicians. I remember going out for pizza and Dylan came on..I started choking on my slice, I am guessing there was no rehersal. Clapton and his band were very tight. There was so much anticipation and excitement.

Although not a huge fan of theirs, Queen gave the best performance that day and the Wembley crowd was wild when they performed.

The image that sticks in my mind is that of the unshaven Phil Collins, performing a very annoying song in London, then getting on a jet, and flying to America, so he could perform the same annoying song, on the same afternoon, in Philadelphia, where he then took part in Led Zeppelin's shambolic, yet genuinely very moving, reunion.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-07-04 02:30 by tatters.

25 years, to this very day. I see where there's an all female Led Zeppelin tribute band called Lez Zeppelin performing here in Detroit tonight to mark the occasion.

I was just thinking about it again, I still remember spending the whole sunny summer day watching it from my apartment. I taped the entire show on VHS.

Post some more videos of your favorite highlights.

"Live Aid wasn't a fantastic concert. But it didn't need to be"

by Neil McCormick

[blogs.telegraph.co.uk]

Today is the 25th anniversary of Live Aid.

I went to the gig at Wembley as a 24-year-old music fan on 13 July 1985 with a ticket I paid for myself (its not often I do that, these days). I can remember my feeling of amazement at the bands and stars sharing one astonishing bill, musical heroes that I hardly believed I would ever see perform live, let alone the same stage: The Who, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Queen. And there were my own local heroes U2, diving into the audience and stealing the show. I was utterly dazzled by the whole event.

I’m not sure a contemporary 24-year-old would feel quite so impressed. Such big, portmanteau events have become commonplace. Between charity shows and festivals, reunion tours and televised concerts, it almost feels like anyone can see every band that ever existed (and press the red button for alternative angles).

So what did Live Aid bequeath us? There is a twitter campaign to make #liveaid a trending topic (although it is not having much success as I write, with Hannah Montana and Mel Gibson keeping it at bay). And there is a fan campaign to make Band Aid’s song ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’ an unseasonal download hit again (but I don’t think JLS have much to worry about).

Live Aid is remembered as one of the all time great musical events. But, if we remove those rose-tinted glasses and recall it honestly, it wasn’t actually such an fantastic concert. Even as a wide-eyed music fan, I could tell The Who were criminally under-rehearsed, messing up their set piece anthems (the only good thing that came out of their performance was their conviction that they were so bad, they would eventually have to get back together and do it properly). Over on the other side of the Atlantic, Led Zeppelin were even worse, sabotaging their own aura by playing with Phil Collins on drums. Badly. Indeed, it is worth recalling that Phil Collins was one of the big stars of the event, jetting across the Atlantic to play both countries and sit in on drums with anyone who would have him. Live Aid was a lot less cool than it seemed at the time. It was all shoulder pads and hair spray (though not on Phil Collins, obviously). The bill was overloaded with minor league 80s pop stars who have disappeared from history: The Style Council, Nik Kershaw, Howard Jones, Paul Young, The Hooters, Billy Ocean, The Thompson Twins. Arguably the biggest stars of the era – Michael Jackson, Prince and Bruce Springsteen – all declined to appear. Duran Duran played Wild Boys, with Simon Le Bon comically failing to hit the high note in front of a televised audience of billions. U2 were depressed after their slot because they only got through half of it when Bono went walkabout forcing the band to vamp on a couple of chords, a moment that (as it turned out) worked better on television than it did in the stadium and launched them towards superstardom. Paul McCartney’s sound cut out, and no one could hear him in Wembley. Over in Philadelphia, Bob Dylan, Keith Richards and Ronnie Woods played an acoustic set at the US climax, apparently somewhat the worse for wear after a long day at the backstage bar, with Dylan wittering on about giving some of the money being raised for starving Ethiopians to pay the mortgages of US farmers.

The 20-year-anniversary line up at the Live 8 shows certainly boasted a better line up, and was a much better organised concert to boot. But it is not remembered with anything like the same warmth. Because Live Aid was a magical and essentially unrepeatable moment. It was a curiously innocent occasion. Nothing like it had ever been attempted before and people got carried away with the spirit of generosity. Live Aid established the unlikely notion that (to use Bob Geldof’s phrase) pop music was “the lingua franca of the planet”, the one thing people all over the world had in common. Geldof (then, it should be remember, just the fading star of a once popular punk pop band) and his superstar phone book mobilised possibly the greatest act of mass compassion witnessed by man. It demonstrated that, given the opportunity, people were more than willing to show how much they cared about the fate of fellow human beings. Rock has a reputation for cynicism, but Live Aid made giving hip. Against the allegedly selfish spirit of the eighties it put charity centre stage.

Of course, that has been a double edged sword. Live Aid helped create a whole new genre of multi-star charity singles. Every time there was a natural disaster, there would be a bunch of pop stars augmented by soap opera actors wailing away to some tarted up europop version of a classic hit. They’re still at it (witness Simon Cowell’s Haitian farrago ‘Everybody Hurts’). Does a good cause justify a bad record? Probably. At least the people who benefit from the money raised generally don’t have to hear the damn things.

And then there were the concerts for every cause going. Hurricanes in the Carribean, bankrupt farmers in America, the unemployed in Ireland: all worthwhile, I’m sure, but somehow diluting the effectiveness of the original idea. Live Aid inspired musicians with the notion that they could make a difference. But too often, from the outside at least (and probably unfairly) these shows were presented like a magical panacea, a chance for pampered pop stars to demonstrate that they care without marshalling the kind of political will to produce real change. Live Aid gave pop stars instant validation. Now they weren’t just musicians, they were philanthropists. And it can’t have hurt that a well received appearance for charity generally boosts their own sales at the same time.

Live 8 in 2005 at least had a philosophical drive and purpose and it went some way towards achieving apparently impossible goals, despite the predictable backsliding that quietly followed. Yet it is perhaps unfairly tainted with a perception of failure because it’s so hard to accurately measure its achievements, and that creates a disempowering factor, where participants (and by that I mean audiences as much as artists) begin to question the value of their contribution. I remember after the middle of the road Concert For Diana and utterly limp Live Earth shows in 2007, thinking it might be time to call a moratorium on global satellite-linked rock charity events. I don’t think the real universality of Live Aid can be achieved again. Not until a new generation come along and do it their own way.

Live Aid worked because it was an urgent, emotive, simple, single-issue event aimed at achieving immediate, tangible results. It had an uncomplicated spirit of universal charity that corresponds with the ethos of popular music, and it was run with a haphazard, devil-may-care approach that tapped into rock’s favoured anti-establishment pose. Live Aid evoked a sense of manning the barricades, not preaching from a podium. Maybe (when you take away the sentimentality of nostalgic recollection) Live Aid really wasn’t such a great concert. But it didn’t need to be. It worked because it risked failure for a genuinely humanitarian cause, and people responded to that sense of risk.

I am proud to say I was there but in a sense everyone was there. It really was a pioneering moment, a revelation of the global village, presaging the connected world to come. Two billion people took part in Live Aid. It worked because we wanted it to.

Remember a long long and very hot day being in front of our Tv set with my parents and brother. Remember being blown a way by Quo and Queen, Phil Collins in both London and Philly, Bowie was amazing, Tom Petty and Led Zeppelin were somehow skipped from the broadcast here in Germany, the rumours off the Beatles reuniting, all day, with Julian lennon replacing his father. It was, in my opinion the biggest day in Music History. it was the Woodstock of that generation and maybe even "bigger" than Woodstock. ALL bands were there, new and old, from rock to rap, from jazz to pop everybody was there for that same cause. Too bad and actually VERY sad that now, 25 years later NOTHING has changed, the kids we saved back then are dead now and millions of kids are dying and NOBODY is doing something! Just talk and do nothing. Still selling arms to certain goverments or aggressors, still building plants where no Africans are employed. Health care that doens't reach the people who need it etc. etc.

A great day, a magical day but in the end it didn't change a thing!:-(

I wonder if ol' Phil took his piano on the plane with him. Maybe he chartered a SEPARATE plane on which his instrument could travel. It DID kinda look like he was playing the SAME piano.

I remember the broadcast. The spirit on the day was beautiful, amazing, exciting, thrilling. Maybe it didn't change much that was tangible, but it did change our awareness and our dialogue. Anyway, Queen were absolutely amazing, and watching the DVD I have to take my hat off to them- they put on a great show that day, especially Freddie Mercury.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-07-13 17:49 by bolexman.

It's sad that such a remarkable event that changed many people life's and opinions on the music of many bands (at least it opened my eyes to band i never evn knew or noticed) miss its initial cause. Wouldn't it be great that we could had all said today that music changed the course of history and defeated starvation in Africa? Like the revolution the Beatles and Stones created in the 60's?

So true... It makes the idealism of the event very bittersweet.
When I watch the DVD, especially the Wembley footage, the emotion and spirit is palpable. Bu when Bowie plays the footage from Ethiopia, it is heartbreaking for a different reason now- one realises all the goodwill from the day did not have a lasting effect on the lives of the Ethiopians (I presume). The music and emotions were real, but some gestures were left unfulfilled.

Geldoff recruited all these artists by heart and the project came FROM his heart. He thought he could cause THAT revolution. Not for his own glory but for the people of Ethiopia/Africa and you know what, he still does to this very day! Also he's still recording, he recently released an anothology box and his new album will be out in September followed by a small tour of Europe!

Clapton's set was great, U2 and Queen fantastic, Dire Straits also good. You can see why Zep were left off the DVD! I've always loved Midge Ure's great version of Dancing With Tears In My Eyes, such a great, soaring voice.

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tatters
I wonder if ol' Phil took his piano on the plane with him. Maybe he chartered a SEPARATE plane on which his instrument could travel. It DID kinda look like he was playing the SAME piano.

I always thought it a bit bloody stupid that on a day that was supposed to be geared towards fundraising, huge sums of money were wasted flying Collins across the Atlantic on Concorde just for a 'gimmick'.

Anyway, for all its faults, it was a memorable day (the Woodstock of our generation indeed, as said above) and the motives were excellent.

I was at Kings Dominion that day. Missed it. But when I came back home that evening, this was all my mother could talk about:

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Gazza

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tatters
I wonder if ol' Phil took his piano on the plane with him. Maybe he chartered a SEPARATE plane on which his instrument could travel. It DID kinda look like he was playing the SAME piano.

I always thought it a bit bloody stupid that on a day that was supposed to be geared towards fundraising, huge sums of money were wasted flying Collins across the Atlantic on Concorde just for a 'gimmick'.

Anyway, for all its faults, it was a memorable day (the Woodstock of our generation indeed, as said above) and the motives were excellent.

I don't know about that Gazza. I see your point, but wasn't that flight scheduled anyways, I doubt Phil was the only passenger on board. Even if the ticket was paid for by Live Aid, it was still nominal compared to the money raised. Chances are, Phil paid for it himself or BA comped him. Either way, I can't see it being huge sums of money, unless of course it flew that day only for him, but I doubt that was the case.

Now if they would have pulled that stunt for an environmental concert, that would be a different story.

I suppose you're right about the flight. Just struck me more as an ego thing or a gimmick, which sort of missed the whole point of the occasion.

Some classic Queen:

I think IORR is having trouble posting pics and videos at the moment.

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The Sicilian
I was just thinking about it again, I still remember spending the whole sunny summer day watching it from my apartment. I taped the entire show on VHS.

Post some more videos of your favorite highlights.

what an amazing day that was....recorded from beginning to end...i was at an all day pool party in Toronto with giant outdoor speakers to rock the neighborhood....

Queen/U2/Clapton were my favorites.....

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susannewortmann
Geldoff recruited all these artists by heart and the project came FROM his heart. He thought he could cause THAT revolution. Not for his own glory but for the people of Ethiopia/Africa and you know what, he still does to this very day! Also he's still recording, he recently released an anothology box and his new album will be out in September followed by a small tour of Europe!

lets not forget Midge Ure.

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stateofshock
I was at Kings Dominion that day. Missed it. But when I came back home that evening, this was all my mother could talk about:

what did she say?