Live Aid 25th Anniversary

Twenty-Five years ago on this very day I witnessed one of, if not the greatest concert of all-time. I am of course speaking of Live Aid which took place on July 13, 1985. The concert was held in two different countries in both London and Philadelphia and was seen by a record worldwide audience.

I’ve written about Live Aid once before on my blog so I won’t go too deeply into the details and my memories but this was the concert for my generation. You can read my Live Aid blog from 2007 here.

Sir Bob Geldof of the band The Boomtown Rats was the driving force behind the show. He saw the shocking images of people starving in Africa and felt compelled to act in some way. Money needed to be raised to help those who were starving to death. The “Global Jukebox” was his idea. Not knowing if it could be done or if people would be interested in getting involved, Bob went about contacting fellow performers both young and old and one by one they answered the call. Any artists who didn’t take part likely wished they had after it was over.

I don’t think I fully understood how truly amazing the concert was as a then 16-year-old music fan. To me it was something that had never been done before with separate concerts on two different continents and performances from other locations. Live satellite feeds were still relatively new and untested for something of this magnitude and there were a few minor glitches but nobody seemed to care.

Sitting in front of my television from the early morning hours until late in the night I was tuned to the concert on Much Music; the relatively new Canadian music video channel. Every so often J.D. Roberts (now known as John Roberts on CNN) would come on between sets and talk with other VJ’s about what we were seeing and who was yet to come.

The line-up of performers was as star-studded as it could possibly be. Anyone who was worth listening to at that time in history made their way on stage. Among my personal favourites were Queen, U2, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Phil Collins, Duran Duran and Howard Jones. Of course they were all fantastic. Freddie Mercury was at his best with Queen and sadly we lost his amazing talent only six years later.

It was a concert that defined a generation; much like Woodstock had in the 60’s. Many others have tried to duplicate the impact of Live Aid but none have succeeded. It was one of those events that happened at the exact moment in time it needed to with the right cause to unite the world.

All-Time Concert Event

I've been fortunate to see my share of bands and attend plenty of live concerts in my lifetime.

I've seen Van Halen a few times, AC/DC once, Rolling Stones and U2 twice. I was front row at Maple Leaf Gardens for Great Big Sea and Blue Rodeo. I've watched Loverboy, BTO, Heart, Alice In Chains and numerous other Canadian acts like Gowan, David Wilcox, Barenaked Ladies, RUSH, Tea Party, 54-40, Northern Pikes, Glass Tiger and does anyone else remember the band FM featuring Nash the Slash? I left out Celine Dion but she doesn't count since I saw her while attending the JUNO Awards in Toronto and she performed as part of the show. A great singer but just not my cup of tea.

I often wished I'd kept a running total or list of the bands I've seen over the years just so I could remind myself of all of the shows I've been to because my list above hardly scratches the surface.

There's nothing like attending a live concert and being there in person to experience the spectacle. While the concert itself is usually great, the sights and smells and craziness that takes place in the crowd is something to behold. I remember my very first "real" concert on August 18, 1986 at the old Exhibition Stadium at the CNE in Toronto. It was one of the hottest nights of the summer and the place was packed as we watched Bachman Turner Overdrive, Loverboy and Van Halen perform a great show. We started out on the floor quite a ways back but by the time Van Halen took the stage we were right up front. They had to hose us down to keep us cool as we were jammed in so tightly but it didn't matter as the concert rocked. This was also the first time I can remember seeing marijuana. As we sat in our seats during BTO, people were passing it up and down our row, back and forth sharing the weed with all. There was plenty to go around. I can honestly say I never inhaled.

As I'm writing this the latest global concert has come to an end. This time the message was "Save the Planet" or something like that. It was the "Live Earth" concert. This was a 24-hour music marathon spanning seven continents, everyone from aboriginal elders to famous scientists to country singers called on the world to turn interest in the Live Earth events into environmental activism. Blah blah blah blah blah.

Sorry, I'm all for taking care of our planet and doing our part to keep our environment going strong but what the heck does a concert have to do with this? Sure you can argue it raises awareness but will the people the concert appealed to actually do something about it or will they just wake up on Sunday morning and continue on with their average lives and not change a thing?

When I look at the list of performers for the show I don't see too many artists or groups that I'd class as legendary. The only one's who come close would be Madonna, Genesis, Metallica (I guess), The Police and Bon Jovi.

I don't know, maybe I'm getting old but as far as I'm concerned there has only been one true global concert with a purpose and a goal to raise money for African Famine Relief and that was on July 13, 1985 with LIVE AID. No, not LIVE 8 the poorly run sequel but the original.

I remember waking up that morning as a 16-year-old music fan and turning on the TV at 7:00am to watch something that had never been done before on that scale. I was watching history being made with a live television feed from London, England. Other than running to use the bathroom or a quick dash to the kitchen, I didn't take my eyes off the show all day which had so many great performers and moments.

Billed as a "global jukebox", the main sites for the event were Wembley Stadium, London, attended by 72,000 people, and JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, attended by about 90,000 people, with some acts performing at other venues such as Sydney and Moscow. It was one of the largest scale satellite link-ups and TV broadcasts of all time -- an estimated 1.5 billion viewers in 100 countries watched the live broadcast.

On a television program in 2001 one of the organizers stated that while initially it had been hoped that Live Aid would raise £1 million ($1.64 million), the final figure was £150 million (approx. $245.4 million) for famine relief.

Here's a list of some of the amazing musicians who performed on that day: Queen, The Who, Led Zeppelin, U2, Dire Straits, INXS, B.B. King, Black Sabbath, Phil Collins, Howard Jones, CSN&Y, Judas Priest, Beach Boys, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Tina Turner, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Madonna, Bob Dylan and many many more. Now that's a line-up.

The concert had many great moments and stories but my favourites include:

• While U2 performed the song "BAD", lead singer Bono jumped from the stage to pull a girl out of the crowd who was being crushed. He danced with her before climbing back on stage.

• On the stage was a set of lights (green, yellow, red). Green meant you were good for time, yellow meant you were running out of time and red meant times up and it's time to get off the stage. During The Who's performance, which was amazing, Pete Townshend kicked out the lights. He was having a good time and nobody was telling him when to get off the stage. They played an extra 5 minutes.
  

• When Bob Dylan broke a guitar string, Ron Wood (Rolling Stones) took off his own guitar and gave it to Dylan. Wood was left standing on stage guitarless. After shrugging to the audience, he played air guitar, even mimicking The Who's Pete Townshend by swinging his arm in wide circles, until a stagehand brought him a replacement.

• Queen played better and more tightly than ever, and the antics of lead singer Freddie Mercury got the entire Wembley crowd clapping in unison to "Radio Ga-Ga" and singing along, word-for-word, to "We Will Rock You" and "We Are The Champions."

• It wasn't even an American who opened the U.S. concert as Canadian Bryan Adams opened at JFK Stadium.

An event such as Live Aid can never be duplicated. It happened at the right time and was one of a kind.

Events like Live 8 and Live Earth are all just cheap copies that don't even come close to having the same impact or effect on a generation. People, like myself who lived through it and witnessed it, will always remember the original Live Aid concert just like those who went to Woodstock will always know it was one of a kind. The Woodstock and Live Aid concerts are very different in many ways but they are the same in that they touched a generation, stood for something and changed lives.
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Below is a clip of Queen performing their first two songs from the show. Bohemian Rhapsody and Radio Ga Ga.

Rock and Roll

Since my last entry was a bit more political and serious than I normally am, I thought I'd share some more entertaining stuff with you.

I love music! That's probably the number one reason why I once found myself working in the radio business, so I could feel like I was part of the industry in some small way.

Here now are a couple of interesting videos.

First...one of my favourite bands is Van Halen and I've been lucky enough to see them live in concert three times. This video was actually shot at one of the concerts I attended in 1995 at the Molson Amphitheatre in Toronto during the CNE. Here are the boys singing "Jump".


And the second video is from, in my opinion, the best concert ever held...Live Aid in 1985. At the age of 16 I sat down in front of the TV early in the morning on July 13, 1985 to see the concert begin at Wembley Stadium in London and didn't stop watching until it ended late in the evening at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. It features my all-time favourite band U2 and the performance that catapulted them to instant world wide fame. This is their performance of the song "Bad".