July 13, 2025 • 47 mins
The day the world stopped to listen. July 13, 1985 stands as a pivotal moment when music transcended entertainment to become a global force for humanitarian change. Live Aid connected London's Wembley Stadium and Philadelphia's JFK Stadium through groundbreaking satellite technology, reaching nearly 2 billion viewers.
What made Live Aid revolutionary wasn't just its scale but its immediacy. Unlike Woodstock or other historic concerts we experience through curated footage, Live Aid happened in real-time before our eyes. From Status Quo kicking off with "Rockin' All Over The World" to the "We are the World" finale, we witnessed music history unfiltered—technical glitches, microphone failures, and all. This raw authenticity created an unprecedented shared global experience.
The performances ranged from career-defining triumphs to disappointing reunions. U2 transformed from cult favorites to superstars with their electrifying 11-minute rendition of "Bad," featuring Bono's spontaneous rescue of a fan from the crushing crowd. Queen delivered what many consider rock's greatest live performance, with Freddie Mercury commanding 72,000 people like a conductor before his orchestra. Phil Collins made the impossible happen—performing in London, flying on the Concorde to New York, and helicoptering to Philadelphia to play with Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin all in the same day.
Beyond raising millions for Ethiopian famine relief, Live Aid fundamentally changed how we understand music's potential impact. It created the blueprint for benefit concerts that continues today, proving that artists could mobilize massive global action. Four decades later, in our fragmented media landscape, Live Aid's achievement seems even more remarkable—a singular moment when music united humanity across continents, cultures, and borders for a cause greater than ourselves.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
He's got the feeling in his toe-toe.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
He's got the feeling and it's out there growing.
Hey everybody, this is Jim Boge, and you're listening to Music
In my Shoes.
That was Vic Thrill kicking offepisode 87.
As always, I'm thrilled to behere with you.
Let's learn something new orremember something old.
40 years ago, on July 13th 1985, Live Aid took place in London
(00:56):
and Philadelphia.
First of all, it's hard tobelieve 40 years.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Is it, though?
I mean, I think we'veestablished that, like, 40 is
okay for the 80s, 30 is not okayfor the 90s.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, you're right about that, Jimmy.
You are right about that.
So concerts formed to continueto raise money for the famine in
Ethiopia and there was thefamine.
I think it was from like 1983to 1985.
It starts back in November 84.
Band-aid has the famine.
I think it was from like 1983to 1985.
It starts back in November 84.
(01:28):
Band-aid has the song, thecharity song.
Do they Know it's Christmas?
And in March 1985, usa forAfrica did their charity song we
Are the World.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So the London concert began at noon their time,
London time, whatever that'scalled and it was gmt, I believe
they call it greenwich meantime.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Oh, there you go.
Yeah, it was 7 am my time,eastern time.
I was living in new york at thetime, so I set my alarm for 6
am so I wouldn't oversleep andmiss anything Like.
I was really amped up andcouldn't wait and notice.
I said, my, you know my alarm,it was my alarm clock.
(02:13):
It wasn't like you know yourphone or anything, you had an
actual clock that you needed tomake sure.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Was it a digital one, a beep one, or was it a actual,
like it had a bell in it thatrang digital one, a beep one, or
was it an?
Actual, like it had a bell init that rang.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
It had the bell.
Yeah, it did have the bell.
So I bought a box of 10 TDKcassettes and you know I was
ready to record the whole day.
Like I said, set my alarm forsix o'clock and it was going to
be broadcast first of all on MTV, all day on MTV here in America
(02:47):
, all different stationsthroughout the world, and then,
I believe, ABC in America wasgoing to do like the last three
hours of the show On radio.
It was on New York radio station92.3 K-Rock and it was the
former disco station 92 KTU,which was this, you know, first
(03:10):
big station in New York thatwent all disco after a guy spent
, you know, station manager,spent a bunch of time at Studio
54.
And he's like, why is there noradio station that plays this
music?
And then it became contemporaryhit radio and then at midnight
the night before Live Aid, itgoes off the air and then when
(03:32):
it becomes K-Rock, the firstsong they play is Long Live Rock
by the who Okay, which I thinkis pretty cool.
I mean, it's something I'veremembered for 40 years.
It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Which is funny because 96 Rock in Atlanta.
The first song they ever playedwas a who song.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Bob O'Reilly, really, yeah, something about the who
makes you want to have that asthe first song.
So you know, I mentioned thatit was broadcast on MTV and this
is the first time that a bigevent can be watched and
listened to globally.
You know, when they had a fewyears earlier, they had the Us
Festival, but it was kind oflike a syndicated best of
(04:18):
package that they broadcast onthe radio.
Maybe you could have bought thevideo, I don't remember, but
this was free.
You know, yeah, mtv cost if youhad cable, but for the most
part it's considered free.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
And it was broadcast live like really live, Correct?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Really live broadcast .
You know everywhere, throughoutthe entire world, and I just
thought that was super coolbecause you know I'm a big
Woodstock fan and you knowWoodstock is just watching the
video footage of film that theymade or whatever.
You know what people wanted youto see and that's my
(04:57):
interpretation of what it is,whereas here you're watching it
live and you know I form myopinions on what was actually
happening and not someonetelling me you understand what
I'm saying.
I do, yeah, so I thought thatwas pretty cool.
Almost 2 billion people werewatching this at one point.
(05:18):
Amazing, it's insane.
It's absolutely insane.
I just find that you knowsomething that you can't believe
(05:39):
you couldn't.
That wouldn't happen today.
You can't get that many peopleto be on one topic.
Almost 40 percent of theworld's population had Live Aid
on July 13th 1985.
Wow, so in 2000, yeah, I meanseriously like to think about
that.
In 2016, I wrote on socialmedia some of my thoughts on
Live Aid and then I reposted andupdated a couple of times
afterwards and I'll share someof those thoughts, some of the
(06:01):
comments that people made.
You know, as I'm talking aboutLive Aid.
So I put a cassette tape in myboom box and I started recording
.
16 hours later.
When it was done, I hadlistened to and watched some
pretty good bands and some goodbands who sounded terrible.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, bands and some good bands who sounded terrible.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yeah, all in all, you know, as a music fan, it was
definitely worth the hype, itwas definitely worth everything.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
I thought it was super cool because it was
something I had neverexperienced before and most
people hadn't, and because itwas really live, you had all
those technical problems and,you know, made it more real.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, oh yeah, definitely made it real.
I wish I made it toPhiladelphia.
I don't really know why Ididn't even really try that hard
to go to Philadelphia and youknow I kicked myself that I wish
that I did.
But at the same point, bywatching it on TV, I got to see
the best of you know everythingfrom London, from Philadelphia,
(07:07):
right there in my own livingroom.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
So didn't they show the people in Philadelphia all
the London stuff too?
I mean, wasn't there a screenthere that they were watching it
on?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
There was, but it wasn't all shown and I might
have it backwards, but what theydidn't really think about is
that the video went satelliteand then the sound went under
the ocean cable or vice versa.
So it wasn't you know it wasn'tin sync.
It wasn't in sync.
So they had to put it in sync,because the timing was off by
(07:43):
the time they would get each one, in order to be able to put it
together then to show it over inLondon.
So there was definitely sometechnological issues that they
had with it.
So I'm going to start.
I'm going to talk about London.
I think it's easier.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Let's just hit.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
London, go through London and then go to
Philadelphia.
Now again, for those of you notfamiliar with Live Aid, that's
not how it happened.
It did start in London.
A couple hours later it startedin Philadelphia.
At times, you know, you kind ofhad bands playing in both of
them.
Sometimes it would just beLondon, sometimes it would just
be Philadelphia.
But really, to kind of make itsimpler, I figured let's just
(08:25):
start with London.
So, prince Charles, princessDiana, you know, they make their
way to the Royal Box at WembleyStadium.
That's really the opening ofLive Aid.
And then Diana died in a carcrash in 1997.
And Charles became the King ofEngland in 2022.
Just to kind of give you alittle history lesson of from
(08:48):
the beginning of Live Aid,british broadcaster Richard
Skinner started it all off bysaying it's 12 o'clock noon in
London, 7am in Philadelphia andaround the world, it's time for
Live Aid.
And with that, status Quo opensthe show with what I think is a
(09:08):
fantastic choice of songsrocking all over the world.
A John Fogerty cover that kindof says it all.
Oh, here we are and here we are, and here we go all around and
we're hitting the road.
And here we go all around andwe're hitting the road.
Here we go, rocking all overthe world.
I had never heard the songbefore that day and I was
(09:36):
singing along within no timebecause, you know, they kind of
repeat all the lyrics.
All of England knew who theywere.
I knew them, you know, I hadheard about them when they did
the Do they Know it's Christmas.
Some of the members you knowtook part of that.
But what a fantastic song toopen up something that is
worldwide, rocking all over theworld.
I just loved it.
Just loved it, thought it wasso cool.
(09:57):
So Paul Weller, formerly of theJam.
He had a new band out at thetime, the Style Council.
They played next, followed bythe Boomtown Rats, fronted by
Bob Geldof, who was really themain organizer, mid-jour of
Ultravox, organized with him,along with Do they Know it's
(10:20):
Christmas and Band Aid.
But, bob, it was really his petproject.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Definitely Bob's project, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
So they did an excellent version of I Don't
Like Mondays and they soundedgreat.
Boontown Rats absolutelysounded fantastic at the show
and I was just like I rememberthinking like man, this is
unbelievable.
Atta man played.
Atta man only played one song.
Then Ultravox came out and theydid Reap the Wild Wind and
(10:53):
Dancing with Tears in my Eyes.
That were just highlights forme.
I really love both of thosesongs and Midyore.
You know he can hit the highnotes.
It's not one of those thingswhere they sing, but they're
live and it doesn't sound asgood as the record.
Really good.
Spandau ballet, elvis Costello,nick Kershaw, then Sade.
(11:15):
In 2016,.
I wrote about Sting and PhilCollins.
While I'm not a big PhilCollins fan, phil Collins While
I'm not a big Phil Collins fanalternating between each other's
songs made me think that waskind of cool, you know.
So Sting starts first and thenhe has Phil join him a couple of
(11:39):
songs later and then they goback and forth playing their own
songs and then at the end, theyplay two songs together and
they have Brantford Marsaliswith them.
And we talked about BrantfordMarsalis back on episode 72 for
one of the iconic Grateful Deadshows in 1990 at the Nassau
(12:02):
Coliseum.
Five years earlier he's playingthere with Sting and Phil
Collins at Live Aid.
So it was cool.
You know, it was definitelycool.
Too many cameras and not enoughfood, because this is what
we've seen Driven to tears.
So that song Driven to Tears apolice song came out in 1980,
(12:25):
and it was due to commercialsthat Sting was seeing here in
America about people starvingover in Africa.
And five years later, here heis part of Live Aid.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
That is, you know, the same premise you know, yeah,
so it was a good song choice.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Good song choice.
Phil Collins comes out, playsAgainst All Odds on piano.
He actually hits the wrongchord at one point and makes a
face.
That's a premise of things tocome.
Sting does Message in a Bottle,you know, Phil Collins does In
the Air Tonight, and then bothof them on Long, long Way to Go
(13:03):
and every breath you take, andit was still cool, even though
it was a little bit slow, butbecause it was Live Aid, you
know you give some, uh, someroom to people you know to do
things.
Yeah.
So the set ends and PhilCollins makes his way to the
airport.
He actually hops on ahelicopter at Wembley Stadium,
(13:24):
goes to London Heathrow and hegets on a Concorde plane,
british Airways Concorde.
You remember the Concordes?
Oh yeah, they don't fly themanymore.
Yeah, and I want to say it waslike a three-and-a-half-hour
flight from London to New Yorkand while, you know, I had MTV
on MTV like sometimes all of asudden would just show like Phil
(13:47):
Collins sitting in the you knowhelicopter, and then it would
be him at the airport and thenhe's on the Concorde and they
just kind of followed himthroughout the whole thing.
Oh there's Phil, he's sleeping,he's getting some rest.
Before you know, he gets overto America, because he ended up
going and playing on the sameday in America, played some of
(14:08):
the same songs and wanted tomake some history do something
kind of cool.
Again, I might not be a big fan, but I think that's cool.
Sure, my hat's off to you.
So Howard Jones comes on.
He plays one song.
Brian Ferry of Roxy Music takesthe stage with David Gilmour of
Pink Floyd on guitar and it wasreally cool because he didn't
(14:31):
play all the solos.
The regular guy from BrianFerry's band would play some of
them, but as soon as DavidGilmour would play his, you know
he's bending the strings likehe's doing a Pink Floydyd.
Like it was cool, like I reallyenjoyed.
It was not expecting it, so itwas fun, really cool to see uh
(14:51):
that happen.
Paul young does a few songs andthen you two took the stage.
So I had seen you two with mybrother in december 84, radio
city and then at the Gardenthat's Madison Square Garden for
those of you who don't know inApril 1985.
(15:11):
We've talked about that before,but nothing prepared me for
their performance at Live Aid.
Okay, I was like that's whatI'm waiting for, like U2 is the
big first thing that I'm hopingthat's going to be, you know,
like this really cool thing.
And it was like hello world, weare U2.
And you will know who we areafter today and I truly believe
(15:34):
that that was like that pinnaclemoment for them that so many
people got to know who they were.
You watch the performance andmy favorite views are in the day
and when they had the camerabehind the band so that you
could see the audience, and thatI really dug.
I thought that was so cool.
(15:54):
Now, at nighttime, when theywould do it, it wasn't that good
.
You didn't see anybody, ohright.
But in the day you could seethe audience react and the
audience was just really into it.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
So one thing about U2's performance is you think,
okay, we're this band that theaverage person still doesn't
know who we are, right, andwe've got a 15-minute slot and
so let's put our best songs,like let's play, I Will Follow,
let's play, like the greatesthits of all these songs, so
(16:27):
people know who we are.
No, no, they come out and theydo an 11-minute version of the
slowest song from their latestrecord, bad.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Right, which I thought when that album came out
.
That song was bad, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I didn't, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
But through their live performances, radio City.
The first time I saw them itwas good, but then, when I saw
them, even in know what is that?
April, uh, four months later,they did even better.
Now we're talking, you know,three months after that, and it
was unbelievable what they hadmade, the song, and that, you
(17:06):
know, it was just insane.
I mean, it's just to me, it'sjust powerful.
That song was powerful.
You know, bono was powerful.
Bono jumping off of the stageonto that platform that was
below for the TV cameras.
And just so you know, the TVcameras were actually on wheels.
They were these big, hugethings that they would have to
(17:28):
turn.
I don't know if you rememberwhat the TV cameras were like.
It's not like today, these tinylittle small things, or you
know, you can just do somethingfrom your computer.
Back then this thing wastremendous, you know.
So they had to build a platformfor them.
And you know he's just trying toget closer to the audience and
(17:50):
you know bad you talk about.
It starts off with Lou Reed'sSatellite of Love and he sings a
couple of words, a couple oflines from that and then, if you
twist and turn away, if youtear yourself in two again.
I mean, it's just so powerfuland the audience is reacting,
(18:19):
reacting the TV shots of Bono,like I said, from behind and
panning the crowd.
They're just like digging itand just loving it and having a
great time, and to me that'swhat it's all about, you know.
Is the audience enjoying it?
How are they reacting?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
And, granted, people in England knew U2, you know the
people in attendance at theconcert.
U2 was already a big band.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yes, and when you go to a festival and people bring
those flags.
There were a lot of flags thatpeople had U2.
They had made a flag, differentU2 things, because when you go
to the bathroom you have to beable to find your people and you
have those flags and they kindof let you know hey, we're over
here, you know.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah, I mean, sometimes they're because people
like the band, but sometimesit's bathroom related.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
That's what I thought it always was.
Is that it was bathroom related?
You don't think it was?
Speaker 1 (19:06):
I mean, I think there are two different things that
people do.
One is yeah, you're at afestival and you're trying to
tell people where you are andyou have a thing with like a, a
troll at the top of it orwhatever, and like, hey, yeah,
look for that flag.
But I think when you're goingto see a band and you have a a
flag with the band on it, thatthat's because you like the band
(19:28):
.
Okay, it might help with thebathroom too, though.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
I think it does.
Okay, I think it does.
So when he jumps down to theplatform again and then he jumps
down to crowd level, has thesecurity people pull that one
girl out of the audience andthen just like—.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Because she was being crushed.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
She was being crushed , so he gets her pulled out and
then he dances with was beingcrushed.
She was being crushed, so hegets her pulled out and then he
dances with her for a fewminutes and it just was like
this is insane, this is so coolyeah, very, very impromptu.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Right, there's no way that that was planned no, it's
not, you don't know.
So he goes she said he saved mylife.
Yeah, he goes back up.
She said he saved my life.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, he goes back up .
There were two other girls thatthey had pulled out of the
crowd before her, but that's notwho he was pointing to and he
kept pointing to the other.
They pulled those two girls upat the stage level.
Bono went over, kind of huggedthem, you know, and let them
(20:34):
just enjoy their 30 seconds offame and then they were off.
And then he's back into thesong.
You know.
He gets back into singing thesnippets of the Rolling Stones,
ruby Tuesday and Sympathy forthe Devil, and it's like this is
so cool that he can do thiswith these songs and dance with
(20:54):
these people and jump into the,you know, down by the crowd.
And then, lastly, he goes intoLou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side
and it always amazed me like hestarts off with Lou Reed, he
ends with Lou Reed.
Holly came from Miami.
Fla hitchhiked all the wayacross the USA.
You could hear the satellitecoming down Pretty soon.
(21:18):
She was in London town, inWembley Stadium, and all the
people went do, do, do and theywent with the whole thing and I
just want to say chills at thispoint are like it's like, this
is unbelievable, like the songshould be over.
(21:38):
But I don't want it to endBecause he just keeps doing
different things to make it justso memorable.
And you know, I just think it'sone of the greatest rock and
roll moments, live rock and rollmoments that you see.
And today you can go to theInternet, you can look at it.
(21:58):
You can keep seeing it over andover and over, but for me it is
definitely one of the greatestmoments of all time.
So, friend of the show, chrisCassidy commented on my social
media posts back in the day I'llnever forget U2's performance
and its impact on me, especiallythe song Bad, seeing them play
(22:21):
in a stadium in broad daylight,then pulling the girl up
incredible stuff.
After that.
Dire Straits follows up withMoney for Nothing.
Sting, who had just played withPhil Collins, joins them and
it's really great to see themtogether doing the whole Money
for Nothing thing.
It sounded great live.
You know I love live music.
(22:43):
I really do so.
When a band plays it and theycan pull it off and it sounds as
good as the record, I justthink it's something cool.
Dire Straits does Sultan's ASwing after.
I just think it's somethingcool.
Dire Straits does Sultan's ASwing after.
Queen was up next with thebeginning of Bohemian Rhapsody
and Freddie Mercury's on piano.
(23:03):
And if you notice, that pianohas got to have like 15 Pepsi
cups on it.
Oh really.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
It's one thing that I've always noticed.
I guess Pepsi was a sponsor,because when you see
Philadelphia later on, on someof the pianos there's a bunch of
Pepsi cups also.
It was kind of crazy.
It's funny how things stay inyour mind through all of time.
You know the Pepsi challenge.
There you go.
So Radio Gaga, which I was nota big fan of, no, so Radio Gaga,
(23:33):
which I was not a big fan of,was actually pretty cool when
you watch the people clapping intime as Freddie Mercury was
singing.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
You know, I think it's something like you know all
we something Radio Gaga and youknow radio All we hear is Radio
.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Gaga and the people clapping and their arms in the
air.
Everyone was just in unison.
It was kind of really cool howthey all did it and were just so
much into it more than I am.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Well, and did you see the Queen biopic?
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I have never seen it pick.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I have never seen it.
So they make a big deal aboutthis show and how freddie wasn't
sure that he was going to evenbe able to play it, you know
physically, with everything hewas going through and uh, they
literally decided at the, the11th hour like they had to call
Geldof and Live Aid and saywe're going to do it and they
had to rearrange the schedule toget Queen that set and they
(24:39):
showed up and it was incredible.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah, I mean it was incredible.
It definitely was.
I did see recently I saw like alittle quick five, six minute
documentary on how theyrecreated the set and how they
wanted to make sure like posterswere in the same spot as where
they were in Wembley and theyhad some of the members of Queen
(25:04):
come and check out the wholething and it was so cool.
I mean, when you looked at thestage and it had the feed the
world, that whole Live Aid thing, it looked like they had saved
it from you know 1985 andactually just used it again for
the movie.
But they didn't, they justrecreated everything.
So I like the AO moment withthe note heard around the world
(25:29):
and that's when Freddie Mercurywould do the AO and have the
crowd do it and then, you know,continue going on and that's
something that the Foo Fighters,taylor Hawkins, he would do
that during shows.
I've seen him do that.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Billy Joe Armstrong Green Day.
Yeah, you know Way too muchyeah.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Way too much.
But it's kind of cool thatpeople know that that was an
important thing and, again,almost two billion people
watched it.
It was something Queen had beendoing for a long time.
I think they started doing it,you know, late 70s or so, and by
this time they kind ofperfected the whole AO thing.
(26:07):
So, yeah, it was good.
So a couple of more songs andthen they finished up with we
Will Rock you and we Are theChampions.
Five years ago, on one of myupdated social media posts,
Randy, a friend of mine,commented Queen's performance
has been called the best liveperformance of all time by some.
(26:31):
U2's was epic as well.
Could they possibly be numberone and number two of all time?
I responded with Live A was thebeginning of U2 becoming
superstars.
Up until this time, I stillthought of them as a band that I
just listened to with myfriends.
(26:52):
That it wasn't, they weren'thuge.
It was my friends and I, that's, who listened to U2.
That day started their rise tobecoming the band that everybody
started listening to.
Queen was already well knownand they put on a good
performance, but, in my opinion,not as career-making and
(27:17):
electric as U2 on that summerday.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Well, it was kind of the beginning of U2 for a
worldwide audience and it was,in a way, kind of the end of
Queen, just because of wherethey were at.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Very true.
I think they only toured 1986.
The following year was theirlast, you know, tour.
That they did.
Randy replies with definitelysubjective.
My friend and you know what.
Music's not a competition.
You know it's not.
But you know the way that welook at things and what appeals
to me and what appeals to you,jimmy, or to Randy, or to
(27:56):
anybody, chris Cassidy, orsometimes we have these things
that we think the same andsometimes we don't think the
same.
But that's what I love aboutmusic is that you're not gonna,
you know, fight about it.
You know it's not a competition, it's just cool things that
happen, right.
So you know, queen playedearlier than what most people
(28:19):
would have expected a big bandto play.
You kind of mentioned that,jimmy, but I think it almost
worked into their favor by doingthat, because you know people
wanted to have that excitementat that time In the daylight,
like I talked about.
You got to see the reactions.
It really worked out well.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
I believe True, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
So David Bowie he did TVC15, which I love.
I love that song, I've alwaysloved that song and it was
really cool, like I was, likeyou know, oh, he opened up my
favorite Bowie song.
You know, as a kid, I was 18 atthe time.
Things like that matter, youknow.
(29:01):
Like you know as a kid, youknow I was 18 at the time.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Things like that matter.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
You know, like they do, rebel, rebel, modern love
and a great version of Heroes.
And he had Thomas Dolby onkeyboards and synth and it was
really cool Made sure that heannounced everyone, especially
Thomas Dolby, who's done a lotof great things the who.
Their final tour was threeyears earlier in 1982.
(29:25):
I know, I'm laughing.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Who's?
Speaker 2 (29:30):
last.
Yes, but they reunited for theshow.
And the funny thing is one ofthe things that Bob Geldof did
is that when he talked aboutLive Aid, he said you know,
elton, you know the who'splaying and this band's playing.
And then Elton felt like heneeded to play and then he says
(29:54):
you know, hey, queen, thisband's playing.
And then all of a sudden youturn around and be like hey,
queen's playing.
He announces that the who isreuniting and Pete Townshend
says we had no plans to reunite.
And that's how they actuallyplayed.
They decided to come back.
They did a great set, really dida great set, and Roger Daltrey
(30:16):
looks so young, like, if youlook at him, you'd think that
he's from the Tommy movie.
That's how he looks.
He just looks fantastic.
So one of the things thathappened one of the technical
difficulties, shall we say isthat the feed was lost during
the first song of my Generation.
(30:37):
So just after Daltrey sang, whyDon't you All Fade Away, all of
a sudden there was like somestatic and that was it.
They were done, you know it wasover.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
They got Fuse Blue or something.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Yeah, they ended up getting them back.
I don't know if it was RainOver Me that they got them back.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
It was Pinball Wizard .
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Was it Pinball Wizard ?
When it came back?
Yeah, that was the second songthat they played, but it was
just so funny.
The timing couldn't have beenbetter going out.
Why don't you all just fadeaway?
Anyway, Elton John comes out,he sings I'm Still Standing
Benny and the Jets Rocket man.
(31:16):
But my favorite part is whenKiki D sang Don't Go Breaking my
Heart with Elton.
I was seven in 1974 when thatwas a hit.
Ooh ooh, nobody knows it.
When I was down, I was yourclown.
Ooh ooh, nobody knows it,Nobody knows.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Yeah, sounds so good the way you do it knows it,
nobody knows.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Yeah, sounds so good the way you do it.
I love that song.
I still do.
And again, you know you didn'thear a lot of rumors.
In all honesty, most of therumors that you heard didn't
come true during live aid.
But things like this, wherekiki d shows up and you're not
expecting it, I like that songand I'm sure a lot of people out
there like it too, and I'll sayit one more time.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
I'm sure Kiki D didn't have any better place to
be than singing in front ofWembley Stadium.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
No, I'm going to go with no Ooh-hoo Anyway.
So George Michael, he joinsElton and he sings Don't Let the
Sun Go Down on Me.
Elton doesn't sing it at all,he just plays piano.
The Elton John band's playing,and I thought it was really cool
.
I thought George Michael did areally good job with it.
(32:30):
A few years later, georgeMichael is on tour I think it
was 91, on his 91 tour and hisfinal show was back, I think at
Wembley.
I know it was in London.
I think it was 91, on his 91tour and his final show was back
, I think, at Wembley.
I know it was in London, Ithink it was at Wembley.
And he has Elton John come outand they both kind of sing parts
of it and they released thatand it became a hit single in
(32:53):
America.
In 1992 Freddie Mercury andBrian May of Queen did another
song and then Paul McCartneyperformed Let it Be on piano.
His microphone malfunctions.
You can't hear him and it wasprobably, like you know, a
minute and a half, two minutes,but you can hear him faintly
(33:17):
Because there's some mics off tothe side that are picking up
him singing.
The crowd can't hear him at all, so you end up having Bob
Geldof, david Bowie, alisonMoyet and Pete Townsend to come
out to try and sing along ondifferent mics so that it can
(33:39):
make some sense.
But by then they got it allfixed and everything was good.
Yeah, did you know that PaulMcCartney went into the studio
the next day and re-recorded thevocals so that if they ever had
any sort of future film ordocumentary or whatever, they
would have vocals that went toit?
Oh, that's nice of him.
Yeah, so if you go and watchthere's a Live Aid channel film
or documentary or whatever, theywould have vocals that went to
(34:00):
it.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Oh, that's nice of him.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Yeah, so if you go and watch, there's a Live Aid
channel.
You can go to YouTube Live Aidchannel and you watch it.
You don't know anything aboutwhat I just talked about,
because he's singing and itsounds fine.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Ah yeah.
So he like, matched his mouthand everything perfectly, he did
.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
And I've watched it over and over.
I'm not gonna say it's 100perfect, but if you're not
looking for it, you think thathe did it right, you know.
So one of the things about mtvthat I didn't like is during a
lot of the songs they would talkin the beginning of songs, like
a band would start and they'dstill be talking and then they'd
(34:37):
finish up whatever they wantedto say.
Or during the show they wouldsay what was on their mind at
that time.
And at one point they keptsaying that they thought there
was going to be a Beatlesreunion.
And when Bob and David andAllison and Pete came out, I
remember something like on MTV,them saying this is the Beatles
(35:00):
reunion, or or they're walkingout and things that never happen
, and it just was kind of alittle crappy just to keep
hearing them over and over dothings like that.
But I'm glad they broadcast itbecause it was great to watch
and see all of that.
All the day's performers cameback out on stage one last time
(35:21):
to sing Band-Aids.
Do they Know it's Christmas?
And just like that the day wasover in London.
Moving on to the Philadelphiaportion of the show, bernard
Watson, who was 18, sleptoutside JFK Stadium in
Philadelphia for a number ofdays before it convinced Bill
(35:45):
Graham to let him open the show,and he did with a Bob Dylan
cover.
I haven't heard anything fromBernard Watson in the last 40
years and supposedly they don'teven have any footage of him.
The only footage that is knownis someone taped it on VHS.
(36:05):
He has it Like nobody knows ofany footage of it.
It's kind of crazy.
So Joan Baez, a Woodstockperformer, was followed by the
Hooters Ennui Dance, entered theBillboard Hot 100 in August and
peaked at number 21 in Octoberof 1985.
Obviously, a lot of help a bandnot known getting help from
(36:28):
Live Aid.
Four Tops played some of theirclassic songs Bernadette it's
the same old song I Can't HelpMyself Sugar Pie, honey Bunch,
which was a number one song onthe Billboard Hot 100 20 years
earlier, in the summer of 1965.
Billy Ocean and then BlackSabbath took the stage with the
(36:50):
classic lineup of Ozzy, tonyIommi, geezer Butler and Bill
Ward for the first time togethersince 1978.
Children of the Grave, iron man, paranoid and Paranoid is
probably the most popular song.
If you go to Live Aid and wantto see about Black Sabbath,
(37:11):
paranoid actually is in theirtop ten.
Of all the videos that havebeen watched of Live Aid, it was
really good to see them backtogether.
It was just fun because youdidn't think it was going to
happen.
You know they just had brokenup in.
You know, not broken up, kickedOzzy out what was in like 79
and so forth, and then Ozzy wenton and did his own solo stuff
(37:34):
and Ronnie James Dio came in asthe singer and you just didn't
see it happening.
But it was great, really good.
Run-dmc Rick Springfield, reo,speedwagon, crosby, stills and
Nash, judas Priest, brian Adams,the Beach Boys I mean this is a
ton of talent that was playingas part of Live Aid, george
(37:56):
Thurgood and the Destroyers, andthey had Bo Diddley and Albert
Collins come out, which is cool.
I love stuff like that, youknow.
So it was cool.
Simple Minds, pretenders,santana, another Woodstock band,
ashford and Simpson Jimmy, doyou remember their song Solid?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Solid as a rock.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
And now it's Solid.
Solid as a rock.
That's what this love is.
That's what we got.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Music is not a competition, but I hated that
song.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
I just I don't know why, but I like it.
It peaked at number 12 onBillboard earlier that year, in
February 1985.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
I remember the first time I heard it on the radio and
I thought it was a commercial.
That's how bad that song is.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Oh man, oh, that's why I'm glad you're part of the
show, jimmy, because here I'mtalking about solid.
I'm like, for some reason Ilike it, I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
I'm sure a lot of people like it.
It was a hit.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
So, speaking of hits, madonna was up next, and then
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
They included American Girl,the Waiting Refugee, and I'm not
sure if I'm 100% correct, butthey weren't going to play
American Girl, but they foundout that they were going to be
broadcast in London.
So last minute they went intoAmerican Girl because they
thought that would be reallycool to be broadcast live in
(39:18):
London to hear about.
You know.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
American.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah, kenny Loggins, the Cars, neil Young, the Power
Station had Michael DeBar as asinger and it was so-so Thompson
Twins.
And I mentioned Phil Collinsplayed with Sting in London and
he took a helicopter fromWembley.
He got on the Concord, he getsto New York, he takes another
(39:43):
helicopter to Philadelphia andI've got to be honest, I'm kind
of exhausted just talking aboutall of that, so I've got to
think he's pretty tired.
Well, phil joins Eric Claptonas a second drummer for White
Room she's Waiting and Layla.
And Layla was a pretty goodversion that they did.
(40:04):
White Room actually was apretty good version.
It was good.
I really enjoyed that.
After that, all right, philCollins now does two songs solo
on a piano in front of the stage.
They pull the curtains over andwhen he's done then he
announces Robert Plant, jimmyPage and John Paul Jones Wow.
(40:28):
So he goes from one to two tothree because Led Zeppelin takes
the stage and they've got PhilCollins and Tony Thompson on
drums.
And warning, this is a lowlight.
How could this be so bad?
Robert Plant sounded terribleand I'm not really one.
(40:50):
First of all, let me say I'm abig Led Zeppelin fan.
We've talked about the manytimes on the show.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
You're wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
I am wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt.
Okay, quite candidly, jimmyPage seemed to be totally out of
it.
Okay, guitars out of tune.
Clearly there was no practice.
Now I've read that there was anhour.
Maybe there was an hour and ahalf.
(41:18):
Phil Collins wasn't part of it,and Phil Collins really had no
clue how to play drums for someof these songs.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
That's weird.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
And you know it kind of was like how could this
iconic band that hadn't playedin five years, since their last
show, since John Bonham died?
And it was just like it was ajoke that day and I know that
wasn't the intention, but that'swhat it became and it was just
kind of sad.
So my friend Jim wrote on oneof my social media posts
Zeppelin was my favorite band atthe time.
(41:57):
I remember waiting all day forthem to come on and they sucked.
But I remember sitting aroundall day watching it.
So Phil Collins tells a storybecause he played on Robert
Plant's first two albums and hesays Robert Plant said, hey,
wouldn't it be cool if we gotJimmy Page and we did something
(42:18):
for Live Aid?
And you know he's like, yeah,wouldn't it be cool if we got
Jimmy Page and we did somethingfor Live Aid?
He's like, yeah, that soundsgood, but there was no mention
of John Paul Jones, there was nomention of a Led Zeppelin
reunion there was no mention ofbecause that's a lot of pressure
, you know and none of that.
He thought they were going togo out, they were going to just
play some, they were going tojust have some fun.
And he said if he had known itwas going to be a Led Zeppelin
(42:39):
reunion, he wouldn't have playedat all.
He just would have steppedaside because that wasn't kind
of his thing.
Next up Crosby, Stills, Nash andYoung.
So they played at Woodstock.
Here again, they played at LiveAid Duran, Duran, Patti,
LaBelle Hall, Oates with EddieKendricks and David Ruffin from
(43:01):
the Temptations.
It was pretty cool, because Ilove when people acknowledge
people from the past.
That's always a cool thing forme.
Mick Jagger he had Tina Turner.
She did two songs with him, andthen Bob Dylan with Keith
Richards and Ronnie Wood of theRolling Stones Acoustic guitars.
(43:23):
They did a few songs.
I think one of them was blowingin the wind, but I could never
understand how did you just haveMick Jagger on and then, at the
same stage, Ron Wood and KeithRichards comes out.
Like why couldn't you get theRolling Stones together?
Like, Like, why couldn't thathappen?
Speaker 1 (43:38):
That's strange.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
You know.
So, finally, usa for Africa andwe Are the World, and Bob
Geldof.
He originally told thepotential performers that it was
going to be this one-time thingand it wasn't going to again.
But MTV decided to keep theirtapes, not erase them.
(44:03):
Abc erased them and a bunch ofdifferent media outlets around
the world erased them.
Mtv did not, the BBC did not, sothat's how we're able to watch
it, because everybody didn'tlisten to Bob's wishes of just
get rid of it and that was neverthe intent to release it.
(44:24):
It got released because bootlegcopies were going out and
people were making money off ofit.
So they finally released a DVDbox set and you can go on
streaming services to be able tolisten to it.
I have it on my phone.
I listen to many of the songsand have for a number of years.
But the camera lenses wereaffected by the high sound waves
(44:50):
, I guess when they were close,and it caused these lines or
like these bands or bars ofdifferent colors to appear, and
really mostly in London.
And I think it had something todo a lot when they had those TV
cameras that I talked aboutthat were on wheels, you know,
(45:10):
because they use tubes back inthe day right and the whole
interaction would give it.
as you're watching it live, itgave it an effect of being an
old video, you understand whatI'm saying yeah, yeah.
So it was.
You know, I never understood atthe time, but then, years later
, I found out what it was allabout.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
There's also a different video standard in
England than there is in America, so it could have something to
do with converting from one tothe other that it looks worse.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Well, it was.
When you watch it live, youcould see the lines, but you
were watching it in America.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Yes, I was so it was being converted from their
standard to ours.
I gotcha.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
That makes sense, jimmy.
You are the man knowing allthose things, jimmy.
So it was a cool, fun day thatI still remember.
You know, I remember so muchabout it.
It was just kind of just staysin my mind.
You know it's different bandson two different continents, one
(46:11):
cause, and that was July 13th1985.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
And I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it, I
like, like, like, like, like.
Here we go, rocking all overthe world.
I like it a lot and here we go,because that's it for episode
87 of Music in my Shoes.
I'd like to thank Jimmy Guthrie, show producer and owner of
(46:36):
Arcade 160 Studios located righthere in Atlanta, georgia, and
Vic Thrill for our podcast music.
You can reach us atmusicinmyshoes at gmailcom.
Please like and follow theMusic in my Shoes Facebook and
Instagram pages and share withanyone that you think that might
enjoy this show.
This is Jim Boge, and I hopeyou learned something new or
(46:58):
remembered something old.
We'll meet again on our nextepisode.
Until then, live life and keepthe music playing.
Thank you.
He's got the feeling in his toe-toe.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
He's got the feeling and it's out there growing.
Hey everybody, this is Jim Boge, and you're listening to Music
In my Shoes.
That was Vic Thrill kicking offepisode 87.
As always, I'm thrilled to behere with you.
Let's learn something new orremember something old.
40 years ago, on July 13th 1985, Live Aid took place in London
(00:56):
and Philadelphia.
First of all, it's hard tobelieve 40 years.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Is it, though?
I mean, I think we'veestablished that, like, 40 is
okay for the 80s, 30 is not okayfor the 90s.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, you're right about that, Jimmy.
You are right about that.
So concerts formed to continueto raise money for the famine in
Ethiopia and there was thefamine.
I think it was from like 1983to 1985.
It starts back in November 84.
Band-aid has the famine.
I think it was from like 1983to 1985.
It starts back in November 84.
(01:28):
Band-aid has the song, thecharity song.
Do they Know it's Christmas?
And in March 1985, usa forAfrica did their charity song we
Are the World.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So the London concert began at noon their time,
London time, whatever that'scalled and it was gmt, I believe
they call it greenwich meantime.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Oh, there you go.
Yeah, it was 7 am my time,eastern time.
I was living in new york at thetime, so I set my alarm for 6
am so I wouldn't oversleep andmiss anything Like.
I was really amped up andcouldn't wait and notice.
I said, my, you know my alarm,it was my alarm clock.
(02:13):
It wasn't like you know yourphone or anything, you had an
actual clock that you needed tomake sure.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
Was it a digital one, a beep one, or was it a actual,
like it had a bell in it thatrang digital one, a beep one, or
was it an?
Actual, like it had a bell init that rang.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
It had the bell.
Yeah, it did have the bell.
So I bought a box of 10 TDKcassettes and you know I was
ready to record the whole day.
Like I said, set my alarm forsix o'clock and it was going to
be broadcast first of all on MTV, all day on MTV here in America
(02:47):
, all different stationsthroughout the world, and then,
I believe, ABC in America wasgoing to do like the last three
hours of the show On radio.
It was on New York radio station92.3 K-Rock and it was the
former disco station 92 KTU,which was this, you know, first
(03:10):
big station in New York thatwent all disco after a guy spent
, you know, station manager,spent a bunch of time at Studio
54.
And he's like, why is there noradio station that plays this
music?
And then it became contemporaryhit radio and then at midnight
the night before Live Aid, itgoes off the air and then when
(03:32):
it becomes K-Rock, the firstsong they play is Long Live Rock
by the who Okay, which I thinkis pretty cool.
I mean, it's something I'veremembered for 40 years.
It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Which is funny because 96 Rock in Atlanta.
The first song they ever playedwas a who song.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Bob O'Reilly, really, yeah, something about the who
makes you want to have that asthe first song.
So you know, I mentioned thatit was broadcast on MTV and this
is the first time that a bigevent can be watched and
listened to globally.
You know, when they had a fewyears earlier, they had the Us
Festival, but it was kind oflike a syndicated best of
(04:18):
package that they broadcast onthe radio.
Maybe you could have bought thevideo, I don't remember, but
this was free.
You know, yeah, mtv cost if youhad cable, but for the most
part it's considered free.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
And it was broadcast live like really live, Correct?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Really live broadcast .
You know everywhere, throughoutthe entire world, and I just
thought that was super coolbecause you know I'm a big
Woodstock fan and you knowWoodstock is just watching the
video footage of film that theymade or whatever.
You know what people wanted youto see and that's my
(04:57):
interpretation of what it is,whereas here you're watching it
live and you know I form myopinions on what was actually
happening and not someonetelling me you understand what
I'm saying.
I do, yeah, so I thought thatwas pretty cool.
Almost 2 billion people werewatching this at one point.
(05:18):
Amazing, it's insane.
It's absolutely insane.
I just find that you knowsomething that you can't believe
(05:39):
you couldn't.
That wouldn't happen today.
You can't get that many peopleto be on one topic.
Almost 40 percent of theworld's population had Live Aid
on July 13th 1985.
Wow, so in 2000, yeah, I meanseriously like to think about
that.
In 2016, I wrote on socialmedia some of my thoughts on
Live Aid and then I reposted andupdated a couple of times
afterwards and I'll share someof those thoughts, some of the
(06:01):
comments that people made.
You know, as I'm talking aboutLive Aid.
So I put a cassette tape in myboom box and I started recording
.
16 hours later.
When it was done, I hadlistened to and watched some
pretty good bands and some goodbands who sounded terrible.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, bands and some good bands who sounded terrible.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yeah, all in all, you know, as a music fan, it was
definitely worth the hype, itwas definitely worth everything.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
I thought it was super cool because it was
something I had neverexperienced before and most
people hadn't, and because itwas really live, you had all
those technical problems and,you know, made it more real.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, oh yeah, definitely made it real.
I wish I made it toPhiladelphia.
I don't really know why Ididn't even really try that hard
to go to Philadelphia and youknow I kicked myself that I wish
that I did.
But at the same point, bywatching it on TV, I got to see
the best of you know everythingfrom London, from Philadelphia,
(07:07):
right there in my own livingroom.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
So didn't they show the people in Philadelphia all
the London stuff too?
I mean, wasn't there a screenthere that they were watching it
on?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
There was, but it wasn't all shown and I might
have it backwards, but what theydidn't really think about is
that the video went satelliteand then the sound went under
the ocean cable or vice versa.
So it wasn't you know it wasn'tin sync.
It wasn't in sync.
So they had to put it in sync,because the timing was off by
(07:43):
the time they would get each one, in order to be able to put it
together then to show it over inLondon.
So there was definitely sometechnological issues that they
had with it.
So I'm going to start.
I'm going to talk about London.
I think it's easier.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Let's just hit.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
London, go through London and then go to
Philadelphia.
Now again, for those of you notfamiliar with Live Aid, that's
not how it happened.
It did start in London.
A couple hours later it startedin Philadelphia.
At times, you know, you kind ofhad bands playing in both of
them.
Sometimes it would just beLondon, sometimes it would just
be Philadelphia.
But really, to kind of make itsimpler, I figured let's just
(08:25):
start with London.
So, prince Charles, princessDiana, you know, they make their
way to the Royal Box at WembleyStadium.
That's really the opening ofLive Aid.
And then Diana died in a carcrash in 1997.
And Charles became the King ofEngland in 2022.
Just to kind of give you alittle history lesson of from
(08:48):
the beginning of Live Aid,british broadcaster Richard
Skinner started it all off bysaying it's 12 o'clock noon in
London, 7am in Philadelphia andaround the world, it's time for
Live Aid.
And with that, status Quo opensthe show with what I think is a
(09:08):
fantastic choice of songsrocking all over the world.
A John Fogerty cover that kindof says it all.
Oh, here we are and here we are, and here we go all around and
we're hitting the road.
And here we go all around andwe're hitting the road.
Here we go, rocking all overthe world.
I had never heard the songbefore that day and I was
(09:36):
singing along within no timebecause, you know, they kind of
repeat all the lyrics.
All of England knew who theywere.
I knew them, you know, I hadheard about them when they did
the Do they Know it's Christmas.
Some of the members you knowtook part of that.
But what a fantastic song toopen up something that is
worldwide, rocking all over theworld.
I just loved it.
Just loved it, thought it wasso cool.
(09:57):
So Paul Weller, formerly of theJam.
He had a new band out at thetime, the Style Council.
They played next, followed bythe Boomtown Rats, fronted by
Bob Geldof, who was really themain organizer, mid-jour of
Ultravox, organized with him,along with Do they Know it's
(10:20):
Christmas and Band Aid.
But, bob, it was really his petproject.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Definitely Bob's project, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
So they did an excellent version of I Don't
Like Mondays and they soundedgreat.
Boontown Rats absolutelysounded fantastic at the show
and I was just like I rememberthinking like man, this is
unbelievable.
Atta man played.
Atta man only played one song.
Then Ultravox came out and theydid Reap the Wild Wind and
(10:53):
Dancing with Tears in my Eyes.
That were just highlights forme.
I really love both of thosesongs and Midyore.
You know he can hit the highnotes.
It's not one of those thingswhere they sing, but they're
live and it doesn't sound asgood as the record.
Really good.
Spandau ballet, elvis Costello,nick Kershaw, then Sade.
(11:15):
In 2016,.
I wrote about Sting and PhilCollins.
While I'm not a big PhilCollins fan, phil Collins While
I'm not a big Phil Collins fanalternating between each other's
songs made me think that waskind of cool, you know.
So Sting starts first and thenhe has Phil join him a couple of
(11:39):
songs later and then they goback and forth playing their own
songs and then at the end, theyplay two songs together and
they have Brantford Marsaliswith them.
And we talked about BrantfordMarsalis back on episode 72 for
one of the iconic Grateful Deadshows in 1990 at the Nassau
(12:02):
Coliseum.
Five years earlier he's playingthere with Sting and Phil
Collins at Live Aid.
So it was cool.
You know, it was definitelycool.
Too many cameras and not enoughfood, because this is what
we've seen Driven to tears.
So that song Driven to Tears apolice song came out in 1980,
(12:25):
and it was due to commercialsthat Sting was seeing here in
America about people starvingover in Africa.
And five years later, here heis part of Live Aid.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
That is, you know, the same premise you know, yeah,
so it was a good song choice.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Good song choice.
Phil Collins comes out, playsAgainst All Odds on piano.
He actually hits the wrongchord at one point and makes a
face.
That's a premise of things tocome.
Sting does Message in a Bottle,you know, Phil Collins does In
the Air Tonight, and then bothof them on Long, long Way to Go
(13:03):
and every breath you take, andit was still cool, even though
it was a little bit slow, butbecause it was Live Aid, you
know you give some, uh, someroom to people you know to do
things.
Yeah.
So the set ends and PhilCollins makes his way to the
airport.
He actually hops on ahelicopter at Wembley Stadium,
(13:24):
goes to London Heathrow and hegets on a Concorde plane,
british Airways Concorde.
You remember the Concordes?
Oh yeah, they don't fly themanymore.
Yeah, and I want to say it waslike a three-and-a-half-hour
flight from London to New Yorkand while, you know, I had MTV
on MTV like sometimes all of asudden would just show like Phil
(13:47):
Collins sitting in the you knowhelicopter, and then it would
be him at the airport and thenhe's on the Concorde and they
just kind of followed himthroughout the whole thing.
Oh there's Phil, he's sleeping,he's getting some rest.
Before you know, he gets overto America, because he ended up
going and playing on the sameday in America, played some of
(14:08):
the same songs and wanted tomake some history do something
kind of cool.
Again, I might not be a big fan, but I think that's cool.
Sure, my hat's off to you.
So Howard Jones comes on.
He plays one song.
Brian Ferry of Roxy Music takesthe stage with David Gilmour of
Pink Floyd on guitar and it wasreally cool because he didn't
(14:31):
play all the solos.
The regular guy from BrianFerry's band would play some of
them, but as soon as DavidGilmour would play his, you know
he's bending the strings likehe's doing a Pink Floydyd.
Like it was cool, like I reallyenjoyed.
It was not expecting it, so itwas fun, really cool to see uh
(14:51):
that happen.
Paul young does a few songs andthen you two took the stage.
So I had seen you two with mybrother in december 84, radio
city and then at the Gardenthat's Madison Square Garden for
those of you who don't know inApril 1985.
(15:11):
We've talked about that before,but nothing prepared me for
their performance at Live Aid.
Okay, I was like that's whatI'm waiting for, like U2 is the
big first thing that I'm hopingthat's going to be, you know,
like this really cool thing.
And it was like hello world, weare U2.
And you will know who we areafter today and I truly believe
(15:34):
that that was like that pinnaclemoment for them that so many
people got to know who they were.
You watch the performance andmy favorite views are in the day
and when they had the camerabehind the band so that you
could see the audience, and thatI really dug.
I thought that was so cool.
(15:54):
Now, at nighttime, when theywould do it, it wasn't that good
.
You didn't see anybody, ohright.
But in the day you could seethe audience react and the
audience was just really into it.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
So one thing about U2's performance is you think,
okay, we're this band that theaverage person still doesn't
know who we are, right, andwe've got a 15-minute slot and
so let's put our best songs,like let's play, I Will Follow,
let's play, like the greatesthits of all these songs, so
(16:27):
people know who we are.
No, no, they come out and theydo an 11-minute version of the
slowest song from their latestrecord, bad.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Right, which I thought when that album came out
.
That song was bad, you know.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
I didn't, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
But through their live performances, radio City.
The first time I saw them itwas good, but then, when I saw
them, even in know what is that?
April, uh, four months later,they did even better.
Now we're talking, you know,three months after that, and it
was unbelievable what they hadmade, the song, and that, you
(17:06):
know, it was just insane.
I mean, it's just to me, it'sjust powerful.
That song was powerful.
You know, bono was powerful.
Bono jumping off of the stageonto that platform that was
below for the TV cameras.
And just so you know, the TVcameras were actually on wheels.
They were these big, hugethings that they would have to
(17:28):
turn.
I don't know if you rememberwhat the TV cameras were like.
It's not like today, these tinylittle small things, or you
know, you can just do somethingfrom your computer.
Back then this thing wastremendous, you know.
So they had to build a platformfor them.
And you know he's just trying toget closer to the audience and
(17:50):
you know bad you talk about.
It starts off with Lou Reed'sSatellite of Love and he sings a
couple of words, a couple oflines from that and then, if you
twist and turn away, if youtear yourself in two again.
I mean, it's just so powerfuland the audience is reacting,
(18:19):
reacting the TV shots of Bono,like I said, from behind and
panning the crowd.
They're just like digging itand just loving it and having a
great time, and to me that'swhat it's all about, you know.
Is the audience enjoying it?
How are they reacting?
Speaker 1 (18:28):
And, granted, people in England knew U2, you know the
people in attendance at theconcert.
U2 was already a big band.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yes, and when you go to a festival and people bring
those flags.
There were a lot of flags thatpeople had U2.
They had made a flag, differentU2 things, because when you go
to the bathroom you have to beable to find your people and you
have those flags and they kindof let you know hey, we're over
here, you know.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah, I mean, sometimes they're because people
like the band, but sometimesit's bathroom related.
Speaker 2 (19:01):
That's what I thought it always was.
Is that it was bathroom related?
You don't think it was?
Speaker 1 (19:06):
I mean, I think there are two different things that
people do.
One is yeah, you're at afestival and you're trying to
tell people where you are andyou have a thing with like a, a
troll at the top of it orwhatever, and like, hey, yeah,
look for that flag.
But I think when you're goingto see a band and you have a a
flag with the band on it, thatthat's because you like the band
(19:28):
.
Okay, it might help with thebathroom too, though.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
I think it does.
Okay, I think it does.
So when he jumps down to theplatform again and then he jumps
down to crowd level, has thesecurity people pull that one
girl out of the audience andthen just like—.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Because she was being crushed.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
She was being crushed , so he gets her pulled out and
then he dances with was beingcrushed.
She was being crushed, so hegets her pulled out and then he
dances with her for a fewminutes and it just was like
this is insane, this is so coolyeah, very, very impromptu.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
Right, there's no way that that was planned no, it's
not, you don't know.
So he goes she said he saved mylife.
Yeah, he goes back up.
She said he saved my life.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah, he goes back up .
There were two other girls thatthey had pulled out of the
crowd before her, but that's notwho he was pointing to and he
kept pointing to the other.
They pulled those two girls upat the stage level.
Bono went over, kind of huggedthem, you know, and let them
(20:34):
just enjoy their 30 seconds offame and then they were off.
And then he's back into thesong.
You know.
He gets back into singing thesnippets of the Rolling Stones,
ruby Tuesday and Sympathy forthe Devil, and it's like this is
so cool that he can do thiswith these songs and dance with
(20:54):
these people and jump into the,you know, down by the crowd.
And then, lastly, he goes intoLou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side
and it always amazed me like hestarts off with Lou Reed, he
ends with Lou Reed.
Holly came from Miami.
Fla hitchhiked all the wayacross the USA.
You could hear the satellitecoming down Pretty soon.
(21:18):
She was in London town, inWembley Stadium, and all the
people went do, do, do and theywent with the whole thing and I
just want to say chills at thispoint are like it's like, this
is unbelievable, like the songshould be over.
(21:38):
But I don't want it to endBecause he just keeps doing
different things to make it justso memorable.
And you know, I just think it'sone of the greatest rock and
roll moments, live rock and rollmoments that you see.
And today you can go to theInternet, you can look at it.
(21:58):
You can keep seeing it over andover and over, but for me it is
definitely one of the greatestmoments of all time.
So, friend of the show, chrisCassidy commented on my social
media posts back in the day I'llnever forget U2's performance
and its impact on me, especiallythe song Bad, seeing them play
(22:21):
in a stadium in broad daylight,then pulling the girl up
incredible stuff.
After that.
Dire Straits follows up withMoney for Nothing.
Sting, who had just played withPhil Collins, joins them and
it's really great to see themtogether doing the whole Money
for Nothing thing.
It sounded great live.
You know I love live music.
(22:43):
I really do so.
When a band plays it and theycan pull it off and it sounds as
good as the record, I justthink it's something cool.
Dire Straits does Sultan's ASwing after.
I just think it's somethingcool.
Dire Straits does Sultan's ASwing after.
Queen was up next with thebeginning of Bohemian Rhapsody
and Freddie Mercury's on piano.
(23:03):
And if you notice, that pianohas got to have like 15 Pepsi
cups on it.
Oh really.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
It's one thing that I've always noticed.
I guess Pepsi was a sponsor,because when you see
Philadelphia later on, on someof the pianos there's a bunch of
Pepsi cups also.
It was kind of crazy.
It's funny how things stay inyour mind through all of time.
You know the Pepsi challenge.
There you go.
So Radio Gaga, which I was nota big fan of, no, so Radio Gaga,
(23:33):
which I was not a big fan of,was actually pretty cool when
you watch the people clapping intime as Freddie Mercury was
singing.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
You know, I think it's something like you know all
we something Radio Gaga and youknow radio All we hear is Radio
.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Gaga and the people clapping and their arms in the
air.
Everyone was just in unison.
It was kind of really cool howthey all did it and were just so
much into it more than I am.
Speaker 1 (24:06):
Well, and did you see the Queen biopic?
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I have never seen it pick.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I have never seen it.
So they make a big deal aboutthis show and how freddie wasn't
sure that he was going to evenbe able to play it, you know
physically, with everything hewas going through and uh, they
literally decided at the, the11th hour like they had to call
Geldof and Live Aid and saywe're going to do it and they
had to rearrange the schedule toget Queen that set and they
(24:39):
showed up and it was incredible.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah, I mean it was incredible.
It definitely was.
I did see recently I saw like alittle quick five, six minute
documentary on how theyrecreated the set and how they
wanted to make sure like posterswere in the same spot as where
they were in Wembley and theyhad some of the members of Queen
(25:04):
come and check out the wholething and it was so cool.
I mean, when you looked at thestage and it had the feed the
world, that whole Live Aid thing, it looked like they had saved
it from you know 1985 andactually just used it again for
the movie.
But they didn't, they justrecreated everything.
So I like the AO moment withthe note heard around the world
(25:29):
and that's when Freddie Mercurywould do the AO and have the
crowd do it and then, you know,continue going on and that's
something that the Foo Fighters,taylor Hawkins, he would do
that during shows.
I've seen him do that.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Billy Joe Armstrong Green Day.
Yeah, you know Way too muchyeah.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Way too much.
But it's kind of cool thatpeople know that that was an
important thing and, again,almost two billion people
watched it.
It was something Queen had beendoing for a long time.
I think they started doing it,you know, late 70s or so, and by
this time they kind ofperfected the whole AO thing.
(26:07):
So, yeah, it was good.
So a couple of more songs andthen they finished up with we
Will Rock you and we Are theChampions.
Five years ago, on one of myupdated social media posts,
Randy, a friend of mine,commented Queen's performance
has been called the best liveperformance of all time by some.
(26:31):
U2's was epic as well.
Could they possibly be numberone and number two of all time?
I responded with Live A was thebeginning of U2 becoming
superstars.
Up until this time, I stillthought of them as a band that I
just listened to with myfriends.
(26:52):
That it wasn't, they weren'thuge.
It was my friends and I, that's, who listened to U2.
That day started their rise tobecoming the band that everybody
started listening to.
Queen was already well knownand they put on a good
performance, but, in my opinion,not as career-making and
(27:17):
electric as U2 on that summerday.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Well, it was kind of the beginning of U2 for a
worldwide audience and it was,in a way, kind of the end of
Queen, just because of wherethey were at.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Very true.
I think they only toured 1986.
The following year was theirlast, you know, tour.
That they did.
Randy replies with definitelysubjective.
My friend and you know what.
Music's not a competition.
You know it's not.
But you know the way that welook at things and what appeals
to me and what appeals to you,jimmy, or to Randy, or to
(27:56):
anybody, chris Cassidy, orsometimes we have these things
that we think the same andsometimes we don't think the
same.
But that's what I love aboutmusic is that you're not gonna,
you know, fight about it.
You know it's not a competition, it's just cool things that
happen, right.
So you know, queen playedearlier than what most people
(28:19):
would have expected a big bandto play.
You kind of mentioned that,jimmy, but I think it almost
worked into their favor by doingthat, because you know people
wanted to have that excitementat that time In the daylight,
like I talked about.
You got to see the reactions.
It really worked out well.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
I believe True, yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
So David Bowie he did TVC15, which I love.
I love that song, I've alwaysloved that song and it was
really cool, like I was, likeyou know, oh, he opened up my
favorite Bowie song.
You know, as a kid, I was 18 atthe time.
Things like that matter, youknow.
(29:01):
Like you know as a kid, youknow I was 18 at the time.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
Things like that matter.
Speaker 2 (29:03):
You know, like they do, rebel, rebel, modern love
and a great version of Heroes.
And he had Thomas Dolby onkeyboards and synth and it was
really cool Made sure that heannounced everyone, especially
Thomas Dolby, who's done a lotof great things the who.
Their final tour was threeyears earlier in 1982.
(29:25):
I know, I'm laughing.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Who's?
Speaker 2 (29:30):
last.
Yes, but they reunited for theshow.
And the funny thing is one ofthe things that Bob Geldof did
is that when he talked aboutLive Aid, he said you know,
elton, you know the who'splaying and this band's playing.
And then Elton felt like heneeded to play and then he says
(29:54):
you know, hey, queen, thisband's playing.
And then all of a sudden youturn around and be like hey,
queen's playing.
He announces that the who isreuniting and Pete Townshend
says we had no plans to reunite.
And that's how they actuallyplayed.
They decided to come back.
They did a great set, really dida great set, and Roger Daltrey
(30:16):
looks so young, like, if youlook at him, you'd think that
he's from the Tommy movie.
That's how he looks.
He just looks fantastic.
So one of the things thathappened one of the technical
difficulties, shall we say isthat the feed was lost during
the first song of my Generation.
(30:37):
So just after Daltrey sang, whyDon't you All Fade Away, all of
a sudden there was like somestatic and that was it.
They were done, you know it wasover.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
They got Fuse Blue or something.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Yeah, they ended up getting them back.
I don't know if it was RainOver Me that they got them back.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
It was Pinball Wizard .
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Was it Pinball Wizard ?
When it came back?
Yeah, that was the second songthat they played, but it was
just so funny.
The timing couldn't have beenbetter going out.
Why don't you all just fadeaway?
Anyway, Elton John comes out,he sings I'm Still Standing
Benny and the Jets Rocket man.
(31:16):
But my favorite part is whenKiki D sang Don't Go Breaking my
Heart with Elton.
I was seven in 1974 when thatwas a hit.
Ooh ooh, nobody knows it.
When I was down, I was yourclown.
Ooh ooh, nobody knows it,Nobody knows.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Yeah, sounds so good the way you do it knows it,
nobody knows.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Yeah, sounds so good the way you do it.
I love that song.
I still do.
And again, you know you didn'thear a lot of rumors.
In all honesty, most of therumors that you heard didn't
come true during live aid.
But things like this, wherekiki d shows up and you're not
expecting it, I like that songand I'm sure a lot of people out
there like it too, and I'll sayit one more time.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
I'm sure Kiki D didn't have any better place to
be than singing in front ofWembley Stadium.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
No, I'm going to go with no Ooh-hoo Anyway.
So George Michael, he joinsElton and he sings Don't Let the
Sun Go Down on Me.
Elton doesn't sing it at all,he just plays piano.
The Elton John band's playing,and I thought it was really cool
.
I thought George Michael did areally good job with it.
(32:30):
A few years later, georgeMichael is on tour I think it
was 91, on his 91 tour and hisfinal show was back, I think at
Wembley.
I know it was in London.
I think it was 91, on his 91tour and his final show was back
, I think, at Wembley.
I know it was in London, Ithink it was at Wembley.
And he has Elton John come outand they both kind of sing parts
of it and they released thatand it became a hit single in
(32:53):
America.
In 1992 Freddie Mercury andBrian May of Queen did another
song and then Paul McCartneyperformed Let it Be on piano.
His microphone malfunctions.
You can't hear him and it wasprobably, like you know, a
minute and a half, two minutes,but you can hear him faintly
(33:17):
Because there's some mics off tothe side that are picking up
him singing.
The crowd can't hear him at all, so you end up having Bob
Geldof, david Bowie, alisonMoyet and Pete Townsend to come
out to try and sing along ondifferent mics so that it can
(33:39):
make some sense.
But by then they got it allfixed and everything was good.
Yeah, did you know that PaulMcCartney went into the studio
the next day and re-recorded thevocals so that if they ever had
any sort of future film ordocumentary or whatever, they
would have vocals that went toit?
Oh, that's nice of him.
Yeah, so if you go and watchthere's a Live Aid channel film
or documentary or whatever, theywould have vocals that went to
(34:00):
it.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
Oh, that's nice of him.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Yeah, so if you go and watch, there's a Live Aid
channel.
You can go to YouTube Live Aidchannel and you watch it.
You don't know anything aboutwhat I just talked about,
because he's singing and itsounds fine.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Ah yeah.
So he like, matched his mouthand everything perfectly, he did
.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
And I've watched it over and over.
I'm not gonna say it's 100perfect, but if you're not
looking for it, you think thathe did it right, you know.
So one of the things about mtvthat I didn't like is during a
lot of the songs they would talkin the beginning of songs, like
a band would start and they'dstill be talking and then they'd
(34:37):
finish up whatever they wantedto say.
Or during the show they wouldsay what was on their mind at
that time.
And at one point they keptsaying that they thought there
was going to be a Beatlesreunion.
And when Bob and David andAllison and Pete came out, I
remember something like on MTV,them saying this is the Beatles
(35:00):
reunion, or or they're walkingout and things that never happen
, and it just was kind of alittle crappy just to keep
hearing them over and over dothings like that.
But I'm glad they broadcast itbecause it was great to watch
and see all of that.
All the day's performers cameback out on stage one last time
(35:21):
to sing Band-Aids.
Do they Know it's Christmas?
And just like that the day wasover in London.
Moving on to the Philadelphiaportion of the show, bernard
Watson, who was 18, sleptoutside JFK Stadium in
Philadelphia for a number ofdays before it convinced Bill
(35:45):
Graham to let him open the show,and he did with a Bob Dylan
cover.
I haven't heard anything fromBernard Watson in the last 40
years and supposedly they don'teven have any footage of him.
The only footage that is knownis someone taped it on VHS.
(36:05):
He has it Like nobody knows ofany footage of it.
It's kind of crazy.
So Joan Baez, a Woodstockperformer, was followed by the
Hooters Ennui Dance, entered theBillboard Hot 100 in August and
peaked at number 21 in Octoberof 1985.
Obviously, a lot of help a bandnot known getting help from
(36:28):
Live Aid.
Four Tops played some of theirclassic songs Bernadette it's
the same old song I Can't HelpMyself Sugar Pie, honey Bunch,
which was a number one song onthe Billboard Hot 100 20 years
earlier, in the summer of 1965.
Billy Ocean and then BlackSabbath took the stage with the
(36:50):
classic lineup of Ozzy, tonyIommi, geezer Butler and Bill
Ward for the first time togethersince 1978.
Children of the Grave, iron man, paranoid and Paranoid is
probably the most popular song.
If you go to Live Aid and wantto see about Black Sabbath,
(37:11):
paranoid actually is in theirtop ten.
Of all the videos that havebeen watched of Live Aid, it was
really good to see them backtogether.
It was just fun because youdidn't think it was going to
happen.
You know they just had brokenup in.
You know, not broken up, kickedOzzy out what was in like 79
and so forth, and then Ozzy wenton and did his own solo stuff
(37:34):
and Ronnie James Dio came in asthe singer and you just didn't
see it happening.
But it was great, really good.
Run-dmc Rick Springfield, reo,speedwagon, crosby, stills and
Nash, judas Priest, brian Adams,the Beach Boys I mean this is a
ton of talent that was playingas part of Live Aid, george
(37:56):
Thurgood and the Destroyers, andthey had Bo Diddley and Albert
Collins come out, which is cool.
I love stuff like that, youknow.
So it was cool.
Simple Minds, pretenders,santana, another Woodstock band,
ashford and Simpson Jimmy, doyou remember their song Solid?
Speaker 1 (38:14):
Solid as a rock.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
And now it's Solid.
Solid as a rock.
That's what this love is.
That's what we got.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Music is not a competition, but I hated that
song.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
I just I don't know why, but I like it.
It peaked at number 12 onBillboard earlier that year, in
February 1985.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
I remember the first time I heard it on the radio and
I thought it was a commercial.
That's how bad that song is.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Oh man, oh, that's why I'm glad you're part of the
show, jimmy, because here I'mtalking about solid.
I'm like, for some reason Ilike it, I don't know why.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
I'm sure a lot of people like it.
It was a hit.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
So, speaking of hits, madonna was up next, and then
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
They included American Girl,the Waiting Refugee, and I'm not
sure if I'm 100% correct, butthey weren't going to play
American Girl, but they foundout that they were going to be
broadcast in London.
So last minute they went intoAmerican Girl because they
thought that would be reallycool to be broadcast live in
(39:18):
London to hear about.
You know.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
American.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah, kenny Loggins, the Cars, neil Young, the Power
Station had Michael DeBar as asinger and it was so-so Thompson
Twins.
And I mentioned Phil Collinsplayed with Sting in London and
he took a helicopter fromWembley.
He got on the Concord, he getsto New York, he takes another
(39:43):
helicopter to Philadelphia andI've got to be honest, I'm kind
of exhausted just talking aboutall of that, so I've got to
think he's pretty tired.
Well, phil joins Eric Claptonas a second drummer for White
Room she's Waiting and Layla.
And Layla was a pretty goodversion that they did.
(40:04):
White Room actually was apretty good version.
It was good.
I really enjoyed that.
After that, all right, philCollins now does two songs solo
on a piano in front of the stage.
They pull the curtains over andwhen he's done then he
announces Robert Plant, jimmyPage and John Paul Jones Wow.
(40:28):
So he goes from one to two tothree because Led Zeppelin takes
the stage and they've got PhilCollins and Tony Thompson on
drums.
And warning, this is a lowlight.
How could this be so bad?
Robert Plant sounded terribleand I'm not really one.
(40:50):
First of all, let me say I'm abig Led Zeppelin fan.
We've talked about the manytimes on the show.
Speaker 1 (40:55):
You're wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
I am wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt.
Okay, quite candidly, jimmyPage seemed to be totally out of
it.
Okay, guitars out of tune.
Clearly there was no practice.
Now I've read that there was anhour.
Maybe there was an hour and ahalf.
(41:18):
Phil Collins wasn't part of it,and Phil Collins really had no
clue how to play drums for someof these songs.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
That's weird.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
And you know it kind of was like how could this
iconic band that hadn't playedin five years, since their last
show, since John Bonham died?
And it was just like it was ajoke that day and I know that
wasn't the intention, but that'swhat it became and it was just
kind of sad.
So my friend Jim wrote on oneof my social media posts
Zeppelin was my favorite band atthe time.
(41:57):
I remember waiting all day forthem to come on and they sucked.
But I remember sitting aroundall day watching it.
So Phil Collins tells a storybecause he played on Robert
Plant's first two albums and hesays Robert Plant said, hey,
wouldn't it be cool if we gotJimmy Page and we did something
(42:18):
for Live Aid?
And you know he's like, yeah,wouldn't it be cool if we got
Jimmy Page and we did somethingfor Live Aid?
He's like, yeah, that soundsgood, but there was no mention
of John Paul Jones, there was nomention of a Led Zeppelin
reunion there was no mention ofbecause that's a lot of pressure
, you know and none of that.
He thought they were going togo out, they were going to just
play some, they were going tojust have some fun.
And he said if he had known itwas going to be a Led Zeppelin
(42:39):
reunion, he wouldn't have playedat all.
He just would have steppedaside because that wasn't kind
of his thing.
Next up Crosby, Stills, Nash andYoung.
So they played at Woodstock.
Here again, they played at LiveAid Duran, Duran, Patti,
LaBelle Hall, Oates with EddieKendricks and David Ruffin from
(43:01):
the Temptations.
It was pretty cool, because Ilove when people acknowledge
people from the past.
That's always a cool thing forme.
Mick Jagger he had Tina Turner.
She did two songs with him, andthen Bob Dylan with Keith
Richards and Ronnie Wood of theRolling Stones Acoustic guitars.
(43:23):
They did a few songs.
I think one of them was blowingin the wind, but I could never
understand how did you just haveMick Jagger on and then, at the
same stage, Ron Wood and KeithRichards comes out.
Like why couldn't you get theRolling Stones together?
Like, Like, why couldn't thathappen?
Speaker 1 (43:38):
That's strange.
Speaker 2 (43:39):
You know.
So, finally, usa for Africa andwe Are the World, and Bob
Geldof.
He originally told thepotential performers that it was
going to be this one-time thingand it wasn't going to again.
But MTV decided to keep theirtapes, not erase them.
(44:03):
Abc erased them and a bunch ofdifferent media outlets around
the world erased them.
Mtv did not, the BBC did not, sothat's how we're able to watch
it, because everybody didn'tlisten to Bob's wishes of just
get rid of it and that was neverthe intent to release it.
(44:24):
It got released because bootlegcopies were going out and
people were making money off ofit.
So they finally released a DVDbox set and you can go on
streaming services to be able tolisten to it.
I have it on my phone.
I listen to many of the songsand have for a number of years.
But the camera lenses wereaffected by the high sound waves
(44:50):
, I guess when they were close,and it caused these lines or
like these bands or bars ofdifferent colors to appear, and
really mostly in London.
And I think it had something todo a lot when they had those TV
cameras that I talked aboutthat were on wheels, you know,
(45:10):
because they use tubes back inthe day right and the whole
interaction would give it.
as you're watching it live, itgave it an effect of being an
old video, you understand whatI'm saying yeah, yeah.
So it was.
You know, I never understood atthe time, but then, years later
, I found out what it was allabout.
Speaker 1 (45:29):
There's also a different video standard in
England than there is in America, so it could have something to
do with converting from one tothe other that it looks worse.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Well, it was.
When you watch it live, youcould see the lines, but you
were watching it in America.
Speaker 1 (45:45):
Yes, I was so it was being converted from their
standard to ours.
I gotcha.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
That makes sense, jimmy.
You are the man knowing allthose things, jimmy.
So it was a cool, fun day thatI still remember.
You know, I remember so muchabout it.
It was just kind of just staysin my mind.
You know it's different bandson two different continents, one
(46:11):
cause, and that was July 13th1985.
Speaker 1 (46:15):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
And I like it, I like it, I like it, I like it, I
like, like, like, like, like.
Here we go, rocking all overthe world.
I like it a lot and here we go,because that's it for episode
87 of Music in my Shoes.
I'd like to thank Jimmy Guthrie, show producer and owner of
(46:36):
Arcade 160 Studios located righthere in Atlanta, georgia, and
Vic Thrill for our podcast music.
You can reach us atmusicinmyshoes at gmailcom.
Please like and follow theMusic in my Shoes Facebook and
Instagram pages and share withanyone that you think that might
enjoy this show.
This is Jim Boge, and I hopeyou learned something new or
(46:58):
remembered something old.
We'll meet again on our nextepisode.
Until then, live life and keepthe music playing.
Thank you.
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