It was 25 years ago today. What am I talking about? The greatest concert ever in this galaxy – Live Aid. You might remember that last December I wrote about the brilliant song “Do They Know It's Christmas”, which was the brainchild of Irish singer Bob Geldof, who was heavily assisted by British Midge Ure in writing and producing it. Some of the UK's most successful artists at the time performed that song and later, Bob, went to the States and witnessed the recording of an epic inspired by his song – written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and performed by numerous US legends, the song was “We Are the World.” The first track was recorded in November 1984 and the second one in January of the following year. All proceeds from the two songs went to famine relief in seven African countries. On July 13, 1985, Live Aid was performed. It started at Wembley Stadium in London at noon precisely and five hours later America joined in from JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. So those who were in London had the pleasure of watching stars performing live for minutes, then watched others playing in the States via satellites on huge monitors and vice versa. However, it seems that some performances were conducted simultaneously in Wembley and JFK. Other countries participated with short gigs and namely they were Australia, Germany, Russia and The Netherlands. I hope I didn't forget any country! How much money did Live Aid raise? £150 million and it went to those who needed it in Africa – while the concert was ongoing, viewers were asked to donate money and 300 phone lines were used to receive calls from donors who used their credit cards to give money. The phone number and an address that viewers could send cheques to were repeated every twenty minutes. At a certain point the money giving increased to £300 per second. After showing a video of starving and diseased Ethiopian children set to the Cars hit “Drive,” the rate of donations got even higher. Geldof mentioned that the Republic of Ireland gave the most donations per capita, but the single largest donation came from the ruling family of Dubai – it was £1 million. On the next day, the estimated total figure was between £40 and £50 million but now they say that about £150 million was raised as a result of this amazing concert. The show itself went like this. Prince Charles and Princess Diana were there, accompanied by Bob Geldof and other superstars. Then Coldstream Guards played the “Royal Salute” and “God Save the Queen.” That was followed by Status Quo's performance. This band started with the appropriately titled “Rockin' All Over the World.” It was then time for The Style Council, when Paul Weller was still the singer. One of the highlights was the performance given by Geldof's band Boomtown Rats. He was the hero of the day and after singing the band's greatest hit “I Don't Like Mondays,” he said “I just realized today's the best day of my life.” Yes I do have the concert on DVD, in case you were wondering how come I remember his exact words! The band's set was concluded with “For He's A Jolly Good Fellow” sung by the audience. Well deserved Bob. Punk rock star Adam Ant was next with a pathetic performance and then co-hero Midge Ure was on with his band Ultravox. This was followed by Spandau Ballet, which despite its German name, was one of Britain's most popular bands at the time. Elvis Costello chose to sing a Beatles number – “All You Need Is Love” and it was a very suitable choice for the day. Nik Kershaw and Sade followed, respectively. As you might have noticed, there was a very wide range of variety. Then it was time for one of the best and most elegant performances of the day – Sting and Phil Collins, accompanied by soprano saxophonist Branford Marsalis, went on stage to give a mellow acoustic but brilliant performance. It was of course wonderful of each of them to pay tribute to the other artist by singing in his song. One of the tracks they performed together was their duet “Long Long Way To Go.” Incidentally, Phil had a long, long way to go after that performance, but we'll get to that later. Howard Jones then Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music, who was accompanied by Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, were on. One of the most memorable performances was the one by Paul Young, who started with the intro to “Do They Know It's Christmas?” and also had a guest artist with him on "That's the Way Love Is" – singer Alison Moyet. Things got really good with Ireland's finest rock band U2, although it was rumored that the singer Bono was depressed because he thought he was not very good that day! COME ON! Speaking of rock, Dire Straits was next. To perform “Money for Nothing” the band was joined by the genius we know as Sting, who sang the same parts he did in the studio version of that song. That of course included the immortal wish “I want my, I want my, I want my MTV.” Have you noticed how similar the melody of those bars is to “Don't stand, don't stand so, don't stand so close to me” from Police's “Don't Stand So Close to Me”? Well, no one can accuse Sting of ripping anything off because the Police was his band and he wrote that song. Many people all over the world chose the next part as the best gig throughout history. Yes, it was the legendary rock band Queen, with the most charismatic singer ever to set foot on stage, Freddie Mercury. I personally think that he was the ultimate stage performer. You should watch that part on Youtube, especially when they played “Radio Gaga” and “We Will Rock You.” Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. David Bowie… Need I say more? I guess not. Before he was on, the video of his duet with Rolling Stones' singer Mick Jagger was shown on huge screens. That duet was a cover of Martha Reeves and the Vandellas' “Dancing in the Streets” and naturally it later topped the charts in every country that ever existed or something. The Who is definitely one of the most influential bands to come out of the rock era and I do like Roger Daltrey's vocal and stage performance, so it was brilliant to have this band on. This was followed by Elton John, who appeared with a relatively big band to play some of his hits. One of the backing singers was Kiki Dee, who in 1976 had a number one duet with Elton called “Don't Go Breaking My Heart” and of course it was performed that evening. Then Wham! was introduced. This duo consisted of George Michael and Andrew Ridgley. George sang Elton's classic “Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me” while Andrew joined the backing vocalists and despite performing one song it was received with a storm of applause. Queen's vocalist and guitarist Freddie Mercury and Brian May were next and they played an acoustic version of “Is This the World We Created?” Only one artist could top that and he was next – Sir Paul McCartney of the Beatles, who played the piano while singing “Let It Be.” Towards the end of that number he was joined by Geldof, Bowie, Alison Moyet and the Who's guitarist Pete Townshend. Upon finishing the song McCartney and Townshend carried Geldof on their shoulders. Raised up by a Beatle is… I can't find the right words. The UK finale was unbelievable. All stars joined forces to sing Band Aid's “Do They Know It's Christmas?” and Geldof said that two billion people all over the world were watching live! That is scary. I don't have as much space as I need to continue, so I'll make it short. The US concert went on with amazing artists, introduced by Hollywood stars like Jack Nicholson, who introduced the Canadian Bryan Adams and Bette Midler, who gave a nasty introduction of Madonna. The kings and queens of several music genres participated – people like folk prodigy Joan Baez, Motown legends the Four Tops, disco man Billy Ocean, heavy metal inventors Black Sabbath and rap icons Run-D.M.C. Other influential acts like Crosby, Stills and Nash, Judas Priest and the amazing Beach Boys were there too and they all did a very good job. Simple Minds' singer Jim Kerr was married at the time to the Pretenders' vocalist Chrissie Hynde and the two bands took part, in that order. Santana, Pat Metheny, Ashford & Simpson, Teddy Pendergrass, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Kenny Loggins, The Cars, Neil Young, the Power Station, the Thompson Twins with Nile Rodgers and Eric Clapton with Phil Collins followed. Back to Phil Collins, who after finishing his UK performance, took a helicopter and flew to Heathrow Airport, where he took a Concorde plane to the States and from there he got on another helicopter, which flew him to JFK Stadium to perform. He also played the drums with Led Zeppelin. New wave idols Duran Duran, soul legend Patti LaBelle, Hall & Oates, Eddie Kendricks, David Ruffin, Mick Jagger, Tina Turner, Bob Dylan, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood took part as well. The finale was of course with an all star lineup singing the epic “We Are the World”. Just writing about that makes me feel tired, so imagine what it was like to organise it. Sir Bob Geldof, I salute you. As Dionne Warwick sang on “We Are the World”, I'll finish by saying… “Send them your heart” to: [email protected]
