July 13, 2025

When the Live Aid benefit concert took place on this day in 1985 I watched every minute on MTV; I got the official, 4-disc DVD set in 2004 and decided that it would be great fun to “rewatch” the whole show today for the fortieth anniversary.  Adding to the fun, I tried to “live blog” the show, writing notes on each performance as they happened, trying to observe what stands out to me now, guitar related trivia and other thoughts.   At over 7,700 words it’s not short, but I hope you find it interesting!

The show started at noon in London (Wembley) and 7:00 am in Philadelphia (JFK Stadium).  The camera showed Charles and Diana walking to their seats with Bob Geldof, piped in by Coldstream Guards and Royal Salute (God Save the Queen). Supposedly there were around 72,000 people at Wembley and 89,000 people in Philadelphia.  This blog post will only discuss the tunes and performances on the DVD, so certain songs that were played will be omitted and groups like Led Zeppelin with Phil Collins on drums, the Hooters, and Carlos Santana will not appear here (sadly).

First Act-Status Quo: with their double-telecaster boogie rock, Both Rick Parfitt’s and Francis Rossi had replaced their bridges: Parfitt’s white tele had a wrap-around tailpiece, while Rossi’s green one had added a tune-o-matic and stop tailpiece. First tune “Rocking All Over the World” was an apt choice, and the audience was quite into it, singing and clapping along. Next tune, “Caroline” was another Chuck Berry-type rocker, kind of the same tune, really.  Final number was “Don’t Waste My Time”. The stage was huge, and the drummer, piano player and bassist were far away from each other and probably couldn’t hear each other very well, but this was obviously a group that played a lot and seemed none the worse for it.

 

Second Act-Style Council (one of my all time favorites): Paul Weller played an Epiphone Casino. A much bigger group, with Mick Talbot on organ, bass, drums, percussion and second vocals from Dee C. Lee. The combo boldly started with song “The Internationalists” which criticized global capitalism and divisions of people along lines of nationality, color, etc. They followed that with “Walls Come Tumbling Down”, the most joyously socialist song ever, containing the line “Are you ever going to realize/the class war’s real not mythologized?”  I love this song! Weller put down the Epi and was just doing lead singer moves, “throwing shapes” as they say in the British rock press. These two songs are quite the “two fingers gesture” to the Prince and Princess of Wales in their fancy box. I wonder if Geldof was uncomfortably apologizing, or hiding a sly smile?

 

Third Act-Boomtown Rats: Geldof was perhaps already backstage prepping to go on when the Style Council was playing revolution soul. Anyway, he took the stage with his group to play their hit song “I Don’t Like Mondays”. Pretty awful that a song about a high school student bringing a gun to school to massacre her classmates might not even seem worth writing a song about 40 years later, when we have mass shootings nearly every day in America. This song has always been heavy handed, but Geldof sang very earnestly, and the audience seemed to be into his performance. Of course, he was also the “Guv’nor” of Live Aid, and had become world famous for his earnestness and saintliness.  Instrumentation-wise, that song was just keyboards and voice. At the end, he said “Thank you very much. I’ve just realized this is the best day of my life”, which got a nice home-town pop, as we say in professional wrestling. Second song. “Drag Me Down”, was more rocking, with guitar, bass and drums as well as synth horns. Geldof ran off the stage to gesture at the crowd down by the barricade. The first to go down there that day, but not the last.  He managed to get back to the mic by the end of the instrumental break.It’s worth noting right now that the sound mix from London was excellent! All the instruments come through clearly in stereo, and the vocals are very clear. And the audience sound is always present, and especially cool when they show blimp shots of the sea of humanity in the stadium.

 

Fourth Act-Adam Ant:  This is a guy I never got. Ant came out dressed like a punk rocker, with his guitarist on a doublecut Les Paul Junior with bass and drums doing “Viva Le Rock”. So back to more straightforward, uncontroversial rock music for the punters to enjoy. Guitarist was playing through a Roland JC-120 (or at least, it had a mic in front of it) but sounded pretty rocking nonetheless.

 

Fifth Act: Ultravox: Midge Ure, guitarist for Ultravox, was co-producer, and co-writer of Band Aid’s “Do they Know it’s Christmas” so his band got a good slot in the early afternoon. Ultravox was a synth band, and made “Dancing With Tears in My Eyes” sound just like the record. I wish I knew what was in Midge Ure’s huge custom pedalboard!  Also, his all-grey Ibanez Blazer guitar (body, neck and fingerboard) was pretty cool-looking. He was wearing mirrored sunglasses, and the camera got some great shots of the huge audience reflected in his eyes–good stuff! I recently learned that Midge Ure was briefly in Thin Lizzy–I wonder what that sounded like? 40 years ago I would have been baffled/bored by this “synth junk”, but my tastes have broadened, and this was a good performance, with a distorto-guitar/synth unison solo part that was pretty interesting. On the DVD we also get to see Ultravox’s huge hit, “Vienna”. Super-slow and synthy, Ure put away his axe, and the drummer was just standing around (actually, it looks like he was hitting electronic drum pads); this was all sequenced percussion and synth lines. It’s neat to see the synthesizers that top bands were using: Ure’s synth has two integrated 5 inch floppy drives! Oh, there was also live violin in this number–a nice touch.

 

Sixth Act: Spandau Ballet: Lots of people on stage here! Tony Hadley singing, the Kemp brothers on guitar and bass, but also there was bass, drums, percussion, baritone sax and multiple females backing vocalists.First song “Only When I Leave” was a really good tune, fast and danceable. Kemp was playing some kind of custom, blond Tele type guitar with gold humbuckers. Looked to be made of maple–I’d like to know more about that one! This was a high-energy, very professional performance, which makes me want to seek out other live recordings from the band. Also, btw, one of my favorite new records of the last year was Gary Kemp’s album–check it out, you won’t be disappointed (include hyperlink). The DVD also includes Spandau’s huge hit, “True”. Played outdoors in the daytime before a festival crowd, it still really worked. Hadley introduced it with a cheesy: “This song is very special to us, and we hope it is to you too. And to the world.  Why don’t you sing along with us, alright?”  I’m not gonna lie, this is one of my favorite songs, and it was good to hear live. Gary Kemp moved to a black strat with maple fretboard for this–the first time we’ve seen a multiple guitar situation so far in the show. Were the guitars tuned differently? Seems weird to need multiple axes for a three-song set…The audience loved the sax solo. Why did the saxophone disappear from pop? It sounds so great and everyone loves it.

 

Seventh Act-Elvis Costello:  Elvis out by himself with a red Stratocaster (distorty and chorusy, like an upmarket Billy Bragg–probably also using the Roland amp) to do “an old British folk song”: the Beatles’ “All You Need is Love”. Cool that this global satellite broadcast got to have the song that was written for the first ever global satellite broadcast. He tried to get the audience to participate, and they did, half-heartedly. It looks weird, to see one black-clad musician surrounded by five white-clad cameramen and assistants, but I guess that’s show-biz.

 

Eighth Act: Nik Kershaw: Wow-the crowd was really into this band. Two guitars, bass, drums and rather heavy synthesizer for this band. First tune, “Wouldn’t It Be Good” is the one thing I associate with Nik. He was playing a really weird axe, kind of a brown partscaster with a bolt on strat neck with Les Paul inlays and Burns pickups and a Kahler trem. I’d like to know more about that one, too! This performance seems lacking, but the crowd was singing along much more enthusiastically than they did for Elvis’ Beatle number; who can explain people? Speaking of which, I know it was really hot that day, but it’s surprising to see how many shirtless people were in the audience–I hope they didn’t wind up with melanoma. And among the shirted, there seemed to be general agreement not to wear bras to Wembley that day…

 

Ninth Act: Sade: “Your Love is King” slowed things down and raised the sophistication. Sade leading a band with keys, drums, percussion, bass, tenor sax, trumpet, trombone and guitar (an Antigua Strat!). Very nice harmony background vocals especially from the saxophonist. And no, Sade wasn’t wearing a bra either. I want to find more live tracks from this band, because they were cooking!

 

Tenth Act: Sting, Branford Marsalis, Phil Collins: Starting to get to real star power now. Sting had done a solo version of “Roxanne” before (at the Secret Policeman’s Ball shows), and he reprised that today with the chorusy, clean black Strat (the JC120 was MVP of Live Aid!), but this time had Branford Marsalis playing soprano sax with him (I think this might have been their first collaboration before The Dream of the Blue Turtles album project where Sting played with a bunch of legit jazz stars. The audience was super into this! Before he started, Sting mentioned “Phil will be with us in a minute”. Phil Collins was a huge star, and was going to do a stunt where he would play in London, take the supersonic Concorde to the US, and play later that day in Philadelphia with Eric Clapton AND the reunited Led Zeppelin. Super showy and wasteful, but I thought it was AMAZINGLY COOL when I was 15. Collins came out to rapturous applause and sat down at the Steinway grand piano to play “Against All Odds”, another of my favorite tunes from the 80s. Pretty cool to just do solo piano and voice in a giant stadium like that. At the end of the first verse, Phil played flat but kept plowing along though you can see a small smile in recognition of his blunder. A true pro, it didn’t affect his vocal performance at all.  It was also pretty cool to see Sting and Marsalis just sitting on the drum riser digging this private performance before they did their next tune.Next song on the DVD is “Every Breath You Take” which had been a huge hit for the Police, despite being a creepy song about a stalker–stop using it as a wedding dance song, people!  Sting fingerpicks the melody on his black Strat, Phil sings harmony back at the piano, while Marsalis complements the vocals with his soprano sax. After this set, Phil Collins rushed to the airport to catch his plane, and the tv broadcast made sure to keep us updated.

 

Eleventh Act-Howard Jones: Another solo piano performance! Howard Jones came out and did “Hide and Seek”, requesting the audience to “help me out on the chorus bits”. He must have been bigger than I remember, because the audience was really into this song! I think these solo acts were done to enable a bigger setup on the other side of the rotating stage.

 

Twelfth Act: Bryan Ferry (with David Gilmour): Pink Floyd had kind of broken up, but Gilmour was EVERYWHERE in the mid 80s, with his solo record (produced by Pete Townshend), playing in Townshend’s solo band and popping up here to play stunt lead guitar for Bryan Ferry at Live Aid. The band consisted of Ferry, the great Marcus Miller on bass, and drums, percussion, keyboards, and two other guitarists along with three backing vocalists. But Gilmour, in front of a wall of 8 Fender amps, playing his echoey solo lines overshadowed everyone else. Gilmour was only in his thirties then, and at the top of his game; it’s really neat to hear what he did to make “Slave to Love” and “Jealous Guy” his own.  There were some great camera shots of the crowd, and Ferry looked like a doofus dancing and whistling, but this was still a cool performance to watch again.

 

Thirteenth Act: Paul Young: Young was a big British soul-pop singer (but not the Paul Young from Mike and the Mechanics) then, and he was the first singer on the “Do They Know It’s Christmas” record. The crowd was super into him, and he was definitely a really good singer.The band consisted of Young on vocals, three male vocalists, a drummer, the legendary Pino Palladino on bass, and  keyboards and guitar. They started with an a capella first verse of DTKIC, and then launched into their huge hit “Come Back And Stay”–Pino was slapping that bass so good! It’s a great record, and the audience was dancing, but this seems to be the first performance where the sound is lacking somehow. The vocals seem a little submerged… Alison Moyet from Yaz came out to do “That’s The Way Love Is”. She upped the soulfulness quotient even more, but still, the audio mix seems lacking here. Also, I don’t think her voice and Young’s were a good match for each other. The final song, “Every Time You Go” (a Hall and Oates composition) is another of the greatest 80’s tunes. Young went down to the barricade to sing to the audience, and there was a lot of clapping, and a woman on a man’s shoulders right in front of Young singing right back at him. Paul Young worked hard with his performance (and by the end, thousands of people were singing the refrain), but it’s just “ok”, though the electric sitar solo on ETYG was badass.More interestingly were all of the homemade “U2” flags waving. I don’t think those flag bearers were going to be disappointed when their heroes took the stage next.

THE USA IS UP NEXT!!

At this point, Bob Geldof comes out to “welcome America to Live Aid” and an overhead shot of the stadium in South Philadelphia changes to compere Jack Nicholson introducing Bryan Adams.  I believe that local stars the Hooters had kicked things off, but are not on the DVD.

 

Fourteenth Act (Philadelphia): Bryan Adams: Adams’ band (BA on his oxblood Les Paul standard, the great Keith Scott (wearing a “tears are not enough” t-shirt) on a white, offset superstrat, with bass and drums rocked OUT on “Kids Wanna Rock”, one of the best stadium anthems of the decade. He followed that up with “Summer of ‘69”, and his performance shows why this guy was one of the decade’s biggest stars. The field at JFK was much bigger than Wembley, and lots of the audience had beach towels spread on the ground. Much hotter, and so even more shirtless people–I can smell the suntan lotion (as we called it then). There was an auxiliary video screen right in the middle of the field, which must have obscured the stage from view for thousands of people. Interesting decision!

 

Fifteenth Act: U2: Jack Nicholson did an intro of U2 in Philadelphia, and then it cut back to London, for the band. The audience was going NUTS from the first note! U2 were already a big international act, and their Live at Red Rocks performance was shown on MTV a lot.  But this was without question a starmaking performance–Bono does everything he can do to involve the crowd and they followed his lead for sure. The band (Edge on guitar, Adam Clayton on bass and Larry Mullen on drums) make a sound MUCH BIGGER than any three piece should be able to achieve on “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, and Bono’s foray into the crowd during “Bad” (turned into an extended medley) was so indelibly graven into my memory, that the first thing I looked for when I got these DVDs in 2004 was to turn to that performance to see if it was as good as I remembered. I was wrong: it was better… Bono (not yet wearing sunglasses!) grabs the cameraman and directs him what to shoot. Bono yells “You know the words, sing them: No More! No War! We are so sick of it!”.  Bono racing from the stage to the barricade. Such an athletic, masterful, lead singer performance, but not all that different from what we’d seen from them at Red Rocks.  It was “Bad”, that really made the impact. “We’re a band from Dublin City Ireland…This is a song called ‘Bad’”. But that is underselling things, because it starts out with Bono singing “Satellite of Love”, then gets into the actual song.   The groove for “Bad” is so simple (chiming guitar, insistent bass and steady drums) but so irresistible!  It goes on for so long as Bono runs down to the barricade (without a mic) IMPLORING fans to come closer. Eventually a young woman jumps the barricades and comes up to dance with Bono (while security tries to hold back others!). Bono jumps OFF the barricade to get closer to the young woman, and the crowd goes nuts as they hug and dance slowly together. The band can’t see Bono at this time, so they are just playing until he can make his way back. When he hits the barricade, two other girls who he tried to get to jump the barricade are waiting for a hug and a kiss… Bono gestures for the roadie to bring him his mic so he can finish singing (this is where the song segues into “Ruby Tuesday”, “Sympathy for the Devil”, and “Walk on the Wild Side”, though the music never changes, it’s just that Bono sings the words to these other songs over his own groove) What an amazing scene. And then as Bono walks off, we get a cut to the helicopter taking Phil Collins to Heathrow.  I get chills watching it again.U2 took the stage around 5:15pm, so the show was already five hours long, but they lifted it to a higher level, and the crowd, who must have been hot and tired, were so into it!  Was this the peak, or could there be a better performance to top them? What a good place to end DVD 1.

 

DVD 2:

Sixteenth Act (Philadelphia): The Beach Boys: The full 80s band, with Brian Wilson on keys and vocals, Carl Wilson with an Epiphone Casino, and Al Jardine on a Strat plus Brian Love in loud tropical shirt and parachute pants and extra keyboardists (2) and guitars (2). The Eighties!  Harmonies were quite ragged on “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”; the band was on tour that month, but it might have been weird on the rotating stage, not their stuff, etc. “Good Vibrations” and “Surfin’ USA” were also both kind of draggy, and again the harmonies were not what one might want. On the other hand, it’s a real, live performance without autotune or backing tracks, so that is admirable, compared to what one sees nowadays. Carl was on lead vocals for “Vibrations” playing a natural ES-355 with a gold Bigsby-tasty! “Surfin USA” finished stronger, and the audience was digging it, dancing in their bathing suits on their beach towels.

 

Seventeenth Act (London): Dire Straits and Sting: Just about to conquer the world, the 1985 version of Dire Straits (with the late Jack Sonni on second headless Steinberger guitar, and Chris White on tenor sax and tambourine), the band played “Money For Nothing”, with Sting reprising his role from the record, and standby “Sultans of Swing”.  Mark Knopfler played his sunburst Les Paul for “Money”, and his red Schecter Strat for “Sultans”. The Les Paul sold for almost six hundred thousand pounds at auction last year! “Money For Nothing” really rocked, and they stretched out instrumentally on both songs, which did a good job of simulating the full Dire Straits concert experience; I think that doing just two tunes gave more room for improvisation and building energy. The crowd seemed to really love this set, which, coming after U2, must have been hard. Knopfler, with the black cowboy shirt, and red headband, and red Schecter was on a poster on my wall, so it was neat watching this on my 13in color tv in my boyhood bedroom and looking at the picture with the performer dressed exactly the same. I wonder how many changes of clothes Mark Knopfler had?

 

Eighteenth Act (Philadelphia): George Thorogood and the Delaware Destroyers: Joined by Albert Collins, the Texas/California (not “Chicago”, as George claimed) Master of the Telecaster to rip through an incendiary “Madison Blues”. Philadelphia was a big market for Thorogood, and the crowd was into his rocking slide-guitar blues. Great tenor sax work on this tune. Albert Collins and George Thorogood playing duelling guitars in front of a giant festival crowd makes me smile. Plus, I had the same Alligator Records t-shirt that Albert was wearing–I never noticed that before! Photos indicate that George might have had Bo Diddley come up and play with him, but sadly that isn’t on the DVD.

 

Nineteenth Act (London): Queen: I can’t stand Queen, and do not appreciate them like most people do. But this performance was amazing! I remember thinking during “Radio Gaga” that the audience was clapping just like in the video for the song–it really made an impact on me.  Queen took a different approach from Dire Straits, cramming a six song medley into their set, but it worked and is another iconic moment from this concert, and from the 80’s. Brian May is playing his homemade guitar (maybe the best looking guitar ever made) through what look like 12 Vox AC-30s. That’s volume, baby! Freddie Mercury really hammed it up with the microphone, and introduced “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” (on which he and Brian May played Telecasters) “this song is dedicated to the beautiful people here tonight. Which means all of you”. Cheesy! Ok, this is three strong sets from top level British bands in a row (U2, Dire Straits, and Queen). My wife just asked “who is the sucker who has to follow this?”

 

Twentieth Act (Philadelphia): Simple Minds: Following Midge Ure, more Scots, but this time playing in Philadelphia. Riding chart success, this band got an early slot at JFK Stadium. They played with a lot of energy, playing the up-tempo “Ghost Dancing” to get the crowd revved up, then played their hit (which was #1 single in America in 1985) “Don’t You Forget About Me”. Singer Jim Kerr married Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders the year before, and both bands played Philadelphia for Live Aid; were they touring together? Jim Kerr was wearing a weird cowl-neck sweater, rolled up pants and white slip on shoes. I asked my wife if “capezios” is the right name for the shoes and she said “No man of my acquaintance would dress like that back then”. So let’s just agree that they looked comfortable and leave it there. Kerr did a walkabout to the barricade to engage the crowd for the finale, and they were really into it. Hearing the song every day on WMMR and other local radio stations (not to mention MTV) made it very popular, and the crowd was dancing and fist pumping totally out of proportion the quality of the tune. But good for them.

 

Twenty-first Act (London): David Bowie: Bowie threw together this band just a couple of days before the show, but they played extremely well together and seemed to have a lot of fun doing it. It was neat to see this version of Bowie, the well dressed, rock elder statesman persona. I really love the version of “Heroes” with Thomas Dolby playing the Robert Fripp guitar line. The band included two female backing singers, Clare Hurst playing tenor sax, a bassist, a drummer, a guitarist and a percussionist.Rewatching, I am amazed at the quality of the performance from this pickup band. These were real pros at work, and it’s quite inspiring. Bowie played a mid-career spanning set including “TVC15”, “Rebel Rebel”, “Modern Love” and “Heroes”.  Bowie also was probably tied with Paul Weller for “best dressed singer” at Wembley. It was so classy when he introduced the band before “Heroes” and said “I’d like to dedicate this song to my son, to all our children, and to the children of the world”.  The message during Live Aid was that by watching and donating we were going to save people’s lives, so playing a song that said “we can be heroes, just for one day”, was very “on point” for the event and I still find the performance very moving. People laugh at Bowie and Mick Jagger’s video for “Dancing in the Streets” but this was not a campy performance, it was really great. Ok, who’s up next at Wembley???

 

Twenty-second Act (Philadelphia)-Joan Baez: Joan Baez was at the March on Washington, she was at Woodstock, and she was an elder statesperson of political “rock” by 1985. She came out saying “this is your Woodstock and it’s long overdue. It’s great to know that your money will go to feed starving children.” IInterestingly, Judas Priest, who covered her “Diamonds and Rust” tune were also at JFK Stadium that day. I wonder if they hung out? Joan’s performance of “Amazing Grace” was painful–she was trying to get the audience to sing along, but there was no chance of that ever happening.

 

Twenty-third Act (Philadelphia): The Pretenders: The “Learning to Crawl” era Pretenders were next and were typically great. “Stop Your Sobbing”, “Chain Gang” and contemporary hit single “Middle of the Road” were all played with skill and energy.  The first number (a Kinks kover) was well received, but the crowd really popped for the next two songs. Robbie McIntosh (a criminally underrated guitarist) was with the Pretenders at the time, and he had what was probably a wet t-shirt wrapped around his head, but it looked like a diaper. Sigh.  On the other hand, he was playing a sunburst 1970’s strat that had been routed for a locking tremolo (though it seemed to have just a normal bridge); what’s the story of that instrument?

 

Before introducing the next act from London, Jack Nicholson told the crowd that the fire department was going to hose them all down. He announced the Who as a surprise act–did people not know about it?

Twenty-fourth Act (London): The Who: Reunited for the first time since their “farewell tour” (editor’s note, they are STILL doing farewell tours forty years later), this is another MAJOR act.  “My Generation” and “Pinball Wizard” (not on the DVD) and “Love Reign O’er Me” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” were already among the top tunes of “classic rock” and the crowds in both stadia justifiably went berzerk. I mean, I could imagine people saying that they came for the Who reunion, and that the rest was just gravy. Pete Townshend was 40, so was John Entwhistle. They, along with Kenney Jones and Roger Daltrey looked GREAT (Rabbit Bundrick always looked dissolute), hit all the notes, and Pete did the arm windmills on his gold Schecter tele (I have always wanted a black one like he played in the “Eminence Front” video, but the gold one is NICE) and Entwhistle did the dour and watchful “Thunderfingers” schtick. Even without the fancy lasers and stuff, their performance just as the sun was going down at Wembley was excellent. Neat to see Jones wearing big earphones during the finale (no doubt to hear the click track). Musing on age, it’s weird that I am now older than probably every Live Aid performer with very few exceptions.

 

Twenty-fifth Act (Philadelphia)-Kenny Loggins: Loggins was huge in the 80’s with movie soundtrack hits. He played “Footloose” here and people danced. He was introduced by Chevy Chase, also huge in the 80’s, but for no good reason. Nathan East, the great bassist was in Loggins’ band for this show along with Buzzy Feiten on guitar. Also huge in the 80’s, Loggins’ jacket’s shoulder pads made it look like he wanted to suit up in the Army-Navy game (which used to be played at JFK Stadium)

 

Twenty-sixth Act (London): Elton John w/ Kiki Dee and George Michael: Wow. The last few hours at Wembley went from strength to strength Billy Connolly (another Scotsman) did the introductions, and the crown went banana (as Pat Patterson would say)! Elton started with “Bennie and the Jets” and the band was huge!  Besides his normal musicians, there were at least four background vocalists a four-piece horn section and Ray Cooper (the Zelig of rock–when will he have an autobiography???) on percussion. Elton’s was the longest set at Wembley (according to Wikipedia) at 32 minutes long. The DVD also includes “Rocket Man”, “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” (with Kiki Dee) and “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down on Me” (with George Michael from Wham!, not the sports machine guy). Kiki Dee was hanging with the backup singers for the first two songs then took center stage for her star turn. She strutted around the stage like Mick Jagger (in fact she had the same hairdo) and the crowd ate up the high-energy nostalgia turn of the hit from the 70s.For the finale, Kiki went back to the background vocalists, and then here came George Michael (all leathered up with sunglasses at night) joined by Andrew Ridgeley (also of Wham!) who also went to sing with the other vocalists at the back of the stage. This performance is justifiably famous as an exceptional performance of a great song by two amazing singers.  Perhaps it would have been nice for them to finish on an upbeat number, but that’s just nit-picking, isn’t it?  The last images on this DVD are the Concorde in mid-air, with Phil Collins talking on airphone. So modern!!

DVD 3:

I kind of miss the VJs and the interviews that they did between sets. I vaguely remember that at some point there was a replay of Live Aid “as broadcast” shown on cable, but I don’t think that is available for home video. The Internet Archive has the “as shown on BBC” video of Wembley (https://archive.org/details/live-aid-1985-full-bbc-broadcast), but that wouldn’t be as meaningful to me as the actual show that I watched on the day.

Bette Midler (who was impossible to escape in the 80’s) came out to introduce the next act, who was probably just about the biggest new star in the firmament. “A woman whose name has been on everyone’s lips for the last six months. A woman who pulled herself up by her bra straps, and who has been known to let them down occasionally.”

Twenty-Seventh Act (Philadelphia): Madonna: Madonna came out in a shiny green jacket and two male dancers. Dancers are ubiquitous now, but this is the first (only?) performer who employed dancers at Live Aid. I am definitely an old fogey who thinks dancers are a waste of space and money on a concert stage, but maybe this was another example of Madonna blazing a trail. Madonna was sporting shoulder-length, auburn hair at this show, and stalked the stage like she owned it. I think that the Philadelphia market came for rock and was perhaps unsure of how to respond to this set of electronic dance music, but her energy seemed to win the crowd over by the end.  Her first tune on the DVD is “Holiday”, and she finished with “Get Into The Groove”.  By the end of “Holiday” she tried to get the crowd to cheer, and they kind of did? It’s a very energetic performance, but lacking in musicality, and the dancers and their tambourines look insipid. If this is the future, let me off now! That said, my wife thinks the dancers are amazing and totally in sync with Madonna and that it is a great performance. As my mother says, that’s why there’s chocolate and vanilla.

 

Twenty-eighth Act (London)-Freddie Mercury and Brian May: Filler to make way before the finale, May on a stool with a nylon string electro-acoustic and Freddy looking more relaxed and less “leather daddy” singing “Is This The World We Created?”. Wikipedia says that this tune was also written in response to African famine, so it was an appropriate number, but kind of plagued with feedback, and the audience whistling.

 

Twenty-Ninth Act (London): Paul McCartney: Well, if we needed to see the ultimate in British Rock Royalty, who else could there be but Paul McCartney? Of course he could have had Ringo and George with him, but that wasn’t in the cards. Paul came out alone to the piano to sing “Let It Be”, a tune I’d be perfectly happy to never hear again, but again, one that would be hard to argue against in the context of Live Aid. The crowd shrieked in amazement, and were all singing along. At this point, a long day’s journey into the night of rock was just about over, the audience were invisible in the dark except for flashbulbs, but this was a very good, low-key way to wrap up the evening.

Band Aid/ Group Finale: For the obligatory group finale, the acts that chose to stick around Wembley for the rest of the day came out on stage to join in singing. First it was Bob Geldof, Alison Moyet, Pete Townshend, and David Bowie which made the crowd erupt.

To finish up, we had yet another performance of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Geldof thanked the audience and the performers, and said “you know what’s coming next. It might be a cock up, but if you’re gonna cock it up, you might as well in front of 2 billion people”.

This was like a really impressive gathering of music talent and they seemed to have a fun time. It was definitely was better than jamming on “Johnny B. Goode”, and when the stadium of 70,000+ people joined in to sing “Feed the World”, it was undeniably moving.

 

We are now going to be in Philadelphia for the rest of the event.

Thirtieth Act: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: On tour that summer, the band was in good form playing “American Girl” and “Refugee” on the DVD, following an introduction by Miami Vice star and musician Don Johnson. Petty was wearing a wild, outer-space themed jacket and playing his Rickenbacker 360; Mike Campbell wielded his Fender Broadcaster and the chiming, twanging guitars were wonderful to hear. There was also a three-piece horn section which added to the big sound, as well as multiple female backup singers. It looks like they also did “Rebels” and “The Waiting”, which would have been good to see. The mid-day crowd ate up this thrilling rock and roll performance; it’s easy to see why Bob Dylan wanted to hire this group as his backing band the following year. For “Refugee”, Campbell pulled out his Les Paul goldtop, and the horns were a great addition to what is already a terrific “loud/soft”, “light and shade” kind of rock tune.  Also, Howie Epstein on bass contributed good harmony vocals. Weirdly, the camera never really showed Benmont Tench, which is unfortunate.

 

Thirty-first act: Black Sabbath with Ozzy Osbourne:  Philadelphia always loved the Sabs and Ozzy. I’m not sure that Ozzy did a lot of daylight shows at this point, but he managed to perform with his former group despite the bitter estrangement they had.  Ozzy was the focal point; at this point he was really the much bigger star. He also managed to avoid cursing on camera (or perhaps, that is why we only got one song?). The tune on the disc is “Paranoid”. It looks like they also played “Iron Man” and one of my favorites, “Children of the Grave”, but that’s not on the DVD. Three years later, I joined a German heavy metal group named Brainhammer, and that was one of our numbers. Pretty wild that just last weekend was the “last ever” show with all four original Sabs. Of course, if I had a dollar for every “final” concert for the Who, Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath I could cure world hunger…

 

Thirty-second act: REO Speedwagon: One of my all-time favorite groups, featuring one of my favorite guitarists (Gary Richrath). Introduced by a seemingly out of it Chevy Chase, they have two songs on the DVD, “Can’t Fight This Feeling” and the rocking “Roll With The Changes”. Kevin Cronin sang the first with an Ovation Adamas guitar, and the second at the piano. He told the crowd “we only have time for one more, we have a show in Milwaukee tonight”. Weirdly, the Beach Boys and Paul Shaffer and what looks like someone’s kids sang background vocals. Oddly, Richrath’s guitar vanished in the mix for much of “Roll”, which is unfortunate. I would have preferred that to Paul Shaffer…It is interesting to see that so far most American acts are just playing their hits, not trying to find songs that relate to the cause that brought them all there. I’m not sure if that means anything, but the Wembley acts seemed to be more focused topically. Speedwagon seem to have broken up in 2024, but Cronin is out on the road again 40 years later. It’s quite interesting how many Live Aid acts are still selling tickets after all of these decades. I don’t know how many people thought musicians could grow old in rock and roll in 1985, but we know now that once you’re in, you’re in for life.

 

Thirty-third act: Crosby, Stills and Nash: More Woodstock vets, they did “Teach Your Children” while the stage was changed behind them. They also seem to have done “Southern Cross” and “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” too, but those aren’t on the DVD. The guitars are not in tune, and the vocal harmonies leave a lot to be desired. Acoustic instrument amplification was still not great in the 80s, and they would have been better not using them, I think. I wonder if the missing songs are even worse-sounding? My wife saw them and said “who are those guys?” As Van Morrison didn’t sing, sic transit gloria…

 

Thirty-fourth act: Judas Priest: Quite a palate cleanser after the previous trio. We get “The Green Manalishi” and “Living After Midnight” here, but their hit “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin” is omitted for some reason. The twin guitars of Glenn Tipton (on Hamer) and KK Dowling (on a single pickup copy of a Flying V) spit fire while Rob Halford stalks the stage in his leather motorcycle/bondage enthusiast fapitz like the true god of rock that he is. These guys were slightly younger than Sabbath, and they brought so much more to the event than the Sabs. I could totally have gone for three more tunes, but the feedback from the vocal mics was ear-piercing. Good for the band for powering through, but you could tell that it bothered them. Cool to hear their version of the old Fleetwood Mac tune “Green Manalishi”, but it really makes me regret that they didn’t bring out Joan Baez to duet on “Diamonds and Rust”, especially because the song is about Bob Dylan and he was IN THE BUILDING! Oh well, woulda, shoulda, coulda…

 

Thirty-fifth Act-The Cars: While the stage was set, promoter/organizer Bill Graham came out and got a cheap hometown pop praising Philadelphia as “the city of brotherly and sisterly love”. The Cars did four songs, we get “Just What You Needed” (a great power-pop tune) and “Heartbeat City”, which isn’t. Nice to see the late Ben Orr and Rick Ocasic (playing a nice black ES 355), and Elliot Easton (one of the most underrated guitar heroes ever) rocked out on a red Telecaster (left handed, of course). Orr played a Guild bass. Speaking of synths, there is an Apple II computer sitting on top of Greg Hawkes’ keyboard. So wild! My wristwatch has more computing power than that!

 

BAD NEWS: Midway through the first song, my DVD froze, and I couldn’t advance to any other parts of the disk. So we will not be reliving the following:

Thirty-sixth act: Neil Young:

Thirty-seventh act: Thompson Twins, with Nile Rodgers and Madonna:

Thirty-eighth act: Eric Clapton (joined by jet setter Phil Collins):

Thirty-ninth act: Duran Duran:

Fortieth Act: Patti LaBelle:

 

DVD 4:

 

Forty-first act: Hall and Oates: It’s dark out now!   So the organizers had two Philadelphia native groups in a row, which was popular with the crowd.  As far as H and O go, the blue eyed soulsters were regularly on the charts in the mid 80s. On the DVD, we get their hit “Maneater” and then they are joined by soul legends Eddie Kendrick and David Ruffin of the Temptations  for “Get Ready (Here I Come)” , “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” and “My Girl”. “Maneater” sounded bad at first–Daryl Hall’s voice was pitchy.  John Oates played his famous Strat with the neck humbucker, and G.E. Smith (pre-Saturday Night Live) was rocking a sunburst Les Paul and a wild mullet!  T-Bone Wolk on bass played his usual Fender. The sound isn’t balanced well on the disc, which makes me wonder if they had audio trouble on stage. The band tries gamely, and “Maneater” gets better as it moves along, but screaming unintentional feedback during Smith’s REALLY GOOD solo is unfortunate. Seriously, that was an amazing guitar solo! The set started slow but really picked up, and the soul revue, withhorns and dancing by all of the vocalists was great and the audience was totally into it.  Nearly five years later Ruffin tragically died in Philadelphia, but he slayed (as the kids say) here.

 

Forty-second act: Mick Jagger (with Tina Turner): Mick was pursuing his ill-advised solo career at this time, and the Stones were on hiatus. Of course, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood were also in Philadelphia (and went on later in an embarrassing set with Bob Dylan) but the three supposedly didn’t really interact. We get four tunes here: “Just Another Night” and the Stones’ “Miss You”, then when Tina Turner comes out, they do “State of Shock” and “It’s Only Rock and Roll”. High energy? Of course! Mick got many of his moves from Tina Turner, whose career was back on the upswing in the mid-eighties. Great musicians? Yes! Eddie Martinez (who also played with Robert Palmer) was on lead guitar and everyone played exceptionally well (the rest of the band is the Hall and Oates band, so no surprise). But to me, Mick needs to be with the Stones, end of story. I actually like the song “Just Another Night”, and Mick throws shapes like only he can, pouting and strutting and running all over the stage. The numbers with Tina Turner try to come off as sultry and sexy, but since it was largely the same schtick he pulled with David Bowie in the “Dancing in the Streets” video, it was just confusing to teenage me.  At one point, the camera cut to the wings where it seemed that Grace Slick and Kenny Loggins were enjoying the show; in fact the whole crowd was SO into Mick Jagger’s set–they were roaring the whole time. In foreshadowing of his SNL “guitar wardrobe”, G.E. Smith switched to a Rickenbacker 12-string for “Miss You”. That song is a straight up disco banger, and can’t fail to get people moving. By this time we can’t SEE the audience on tv, but we can hear their cheers throughout the set. Tina Turner electrified any duet with her singing, but the hair, the short leather dress, the legs, all combined to make a vivid televisual presence. “State of Shock” is not such a good song, but the sight of two great singers having so much fun together was good to see. I wonder if Mick’s groping of Tina was an inspiration to Justin Timberlake when he caused Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl “wardrobe malfunction?  Except this time, it was Mick whose shirt came off, at least until he rips off Tina’s skirt! Like I said, I prefer my Mick Jagger in his natural environment, but the contemporary audience loved every minute of the show, and I bet that he moved some vinyl and cassettes in the following weeks too. So bravo, Sir Mick–you did well.

 

Forty-third act: Bob Dylan (with Keith Richards and Ron Wood): “Blowing in the Wind” is a great song, and was probably well suited thematically, but it isn’t really a “fun song”, and Keef and Ronnie were up there for a laugh, and were not playing in the same key, so musically, this was pretty unpleasant. It’s hard to imagine that Zeppelin could have been so bad as to not let their performance be on the DVD but this is here. But I think it’s just that Bob Dylan doesn’t take himself as seriously as Jimmy Page and Robert Plant do. And if BOB DYLAN doesn’t take himself seriously, why should anyone?I have to say, the audience really cheered for the performance, but at that time, they might just have been cheering out of habit and because they were in the presence of greatness.

 

USA For Africa/Grand Finale: Lionel Richie (why didn’t he perform?) comes out to bring on the finale. Harry Belafonte was there too (why didn’t he do a set?) and Richie kicked into “We Are The World” to great applause. It looked like G.E. Smith was trying to organize everyone and might also be the person playing the stirring leads ( I don’t think he could resist). Hey–was that Sheena Easton? Interestingly, Sheila E was on the original record, and my wife didn’t know they were different people until now. Wow-Melissa Manchester was there singing with Dionne Warwick–that was unexpected. Hey, it’s Peter Paul and Mary! I’m glad they didn’t do a set. This grand finale is way better than the one in England, though that is probably because the song is better. Now there is an interracial children’s choir on stage singing. I’d love to talk to one of those people to hear their story of Live Aid. Patti LaBelle is making up for my missing her on Disc 3 by taking this song to church! Wow. That said, she did “Imagine” and “Forever Young”, two great songs that probably don’t need the soul treatment. Oh wow-Cher was there!

No question, unless the missing (on my discs) performances were way better than I recall, the London show outshone the Philadelphia one. For a long time I rued the fact that I didn’t get to go to Live Aid (I lived about 30 miles away), but schvitzing in an uncomfortable stadium and having my ears pierced by feedback would have sucked, and I would have missed the great TV performances from London. So it all worked out for the best.

There is a lot more on the disc, including performances in other locations from INXS, BB King, Ashford and Simpson, Teddy Pendergrass, Cliff Richard and Run DMC, but I think we will stop here. Thanks for “watching with me”, and please tell me your memories of Live Aid in the comments!

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