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July 14, 2025 • 12 mins

This week is 40 years since the greatest concert of all time - Live Aid. 

Wellington Mornings music man James Irwin joined Nick to talk the very best and worst of of the event, as well as revisiting Aussie rockers The Superjesus and pondering why Lorde isn't coming to Wellington.

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Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from news Talk. Said Biggs new releases and keeping tabs
on local artists. It's music time on Wellington Mornings.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Well as you know, every two weeks on a Tuesday,
at this time we go next door to the recording
studio of Enzime. We grabbed James Irwin and we pull
them into the studio. And today he wants to start
off by talking about it's forty years ago since Live Aid.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Yeah, forty years on Sunday just gone. So it was
the thirteenth. I think that was Sunday, wasn't it. Yeah?
Can you remember watching it?

Speaker 4 (00:49):
Nick?

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Like bits some pieces. I mean, my memory is not
that great, but yes I can.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Remember, yeah, because I remember it being you know, apart
from telethons back in the day, I remember it as
being one of those huge events. I was right in
that zone nineteen eighty five. I was just one year
away from going to college and we didn't get you know,
we hardly got concerts that I could go to as
a young fella. And suddenly I had all these artists
that were the biggest artists in the world coming to

(01:15):
me live on my TV. Screen and it went for
I can't remember, it was twelve or twenty four hours
between the two shows, jumping between the sets. It was
an incredible show.

Speaker 5 (01:25):
So the last for twenty four hours.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Yeah, it was a twenty four hours yeah, yeah, twenty
four hours and none of the acts played huge sets.
That was the nice thing when I look back, you know,
I've been watching a lot of footage over the weekend.
I've had two weeks, you know, a weekend before I
did the whole Glastonbury. Now I'm doing live eight and
it's stunning. You can get on YouTube and pretty much
all the clips are there and you can watch, you know,

(01:49):
David Bowie doing doing Heroes to eighty thousand people at
Wembley Stadium, and it's when he's in that blonde here,
the big quiff, the white suits, just looking dapper. Now
he had just followed on from Queen who quite frankly
probably there before, which is one of the great live
performances of all time, apart from and me and you

(02:10):
have talked about this before, Prince Tom Peddy at the
two thousand and four Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Make a little note, listeners, go and watch that and
then go and watch Queen Who play at Live eight,
I mean spectacular. I still really miss David Bowie. I
watched it the other night.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
And I'm like, the thing about David Bowie is that
every five or we said decade when we were younger,
but every five or seven years he changed.

Speaker 5 (02:38):
He just changed it up, didn't he completely?

Speaker 3 (02:40):
You know that crazy thin thing he did with the
Mars you know, Life on Mars and in the eighties
he jumped in before that whole sort of new romantic era.
We're just gone past punk and he jumped in and
everyone's like, what's Bowie doing? But we're doing now? Yeah,
and superb. So his I just think he's stunning. And
Elton John plays.

Speaker 5 (03:01):
Where did you get the footage on YouTube?

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Yeah? So YouTube there's tons of clips. There's tons of
terrible clip as well, where people have just uploaded their
old vhs. You know, Live Aid happened in JFK Stadium
in Philly, Philadelphia, and it happened at Wembley Stadium and
there is just massive crowds. It cost twenty five pound
to get in. Now you had, you know, say in Philly,

(03:25):
they had let's see who did they have that Tina Turner.
They had Keith and Ronnie Wood playing, but not with
Mick played Keith and Ronnie Wood played with Bob Dylan.
Who else did we have? We and we had Madonna,
We had Tina Turner and Mick Jagger playing together, you

(03:46):
know all these judges. Well, I'm not even a big
Queen fan, but I've got to say the Queen reliving
that I remember it at the time of Bumps they played,
they played obviously Bohemian Rhapsody, they played Radio gagash we
ever listened to Radio Gaga and.

Speaker 5 (04:02):
Just this is this is live.

Speaker 6 (04:04):
Yeah, everyone clap your hands above your head and that's
what eighty thousand people were doing.

Speaker 3 (04:14):
And Unison.

Speaker 5 (04:19):
It's incredible.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
And this call and answer that pretty does, it's a
little pat just eating out of the palm of his hands.

(04:51):
It's goosebumps. It's goosebumps watching, you know, note it down
after the show, go and have a listen. Go and
have a watch of that. If you want something spectacular,
whether you love Queen or don't love Queen, you cannot
not love it, how can you?

Speaker 5 (05:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah, I mean I'm not a huge fan, but when
I looked at that, I was like, I've got to
dive back into that catalog because I don't think there's
a better performer than Freddie Mercury on that stage in history.
You know, he just had and he looks fantastic. Goodness me,
he looks so cool.

Speaker 7 (05:19):
So that whole live aid set that Queen did, obviously
one of the greatest performances of all time, completely re
enacted in the Bohemian Rhapsody film from about sort of
five six years ago. They built the whole live aid
set almost word for word, action for action. It's incredible.
Well worth watch.

Speaker 3 (05:35):
You're a bit of a live aid nut, aren't you,
a little bit?

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Yeah, I believe you might have collected a few bits
of merchandise and every single documentary.

Speaker 5 (05:44):
Watched over the years.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
I love that. For a young fellow, that's awesome because
it just it was life changing for me as a
young and I got into music.

Speaker 5 (05:52):
I was almost the worst.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
I tell you what the worst was. And the blam
has been put on Phil Collins, and it should not
because when you listen to this, you listen to the
singer of this band very shortly, and you listen to
the guitar out of tune and the singer who it's
the lyrics are it's been a long time since a
rock and roll and by goodness, you can tell it's
been a long time since his rock and roll. He's

(06:14):
got a lot better since. But at this performance they
did not practice. They chucked in a spear drummer. Of course,
the band is led Zeppelin, Phil Collins playing, you know,
on the drums. John Bonhams obviously died in nineteen eighty
eighty one. This is eighty five. He's filling in at
live aid wasn't rehearsed. I think Phil Collins saves the day,
and probably John Paul Jones. You just have a listen.

Speaker 4 (06:36):
This is terrible, awful, awful.

Speaker 5 (06:56):
I don't think it's mine.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
He's out of tune and his voice, I mean they
only played about three songs, so his voice sounds like
he's played two and a half hours. That if that
was the end of a concert, fair enough. But he's
there shot that that voice is shot. So no good.

Speaker 5 (07:10):
All.

Speaker 3 (07:10):
Hey, I've got something something good to give away. There's
a gig this Thursday, and if you want to ring
Ethan now you can get in only only ring him.
If you can go to the gig. I'm coming to it,
so I'm gonna check that your name's been crossed off
the door. I'm going to this gig. There's a band
called the Super Jesus. Now, they had a huge single
called Gravity in the early two thousands, and then the
lead singer went off. She did a whole lot of

(07:32):
other stuff. She's her name is Sarah McLeod. She's performed
in musicals The American Idiot, Timely that musical she performed
as one of the leads in that. She's also the
cheer person of the Australian Woman in Music Awards. And
they've just released a new album. This band, the Super Jesus.

(07:53):
Let's have a listen. If you want to come along,
you're gonna see me at the concert on Thursday night.
We'll have fun. They're they're a classic assie rock pop
band and what was you got it?

Speaker 5 (08:03):
Gravity?

Speaker 3 (08:03):
We're gonna have let's have listen.

Speaker 5 (08:04):
Here's their big She back in the band.

Speaker 3 (08:20):
Ye, she's in the band front up.

Speaker 5 (08:22):
Through a second, someone's just text through set.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
I played with Nick Kershaw at Live Aid A fantastic memory.

Speaker 5 (08:27):
Thanks Keith Wow Wow.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
He played at Live Aid and Nick Kershaw's came out,
come out here. You interesting. I was talking with Ethan
before you had Bob Geldoff on earlier in the year, right,
you talked to him. So Madure is coming later in
the year with his band in October Ultravox.

Speaker 5 (08:48):
And I got that right.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
You thought Ultravox, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, I've got that right.

Speaker 5 (08:52):
I'm having it.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
And he played in thin Lerzie. We talked about him
a few weeks ago. So if you got if we
can organize for you to talk to Madure because he
was huge, then you could have that. You and Ethan
and News Talks be and Nick Mills wanting to mornings,
could have the holy trinity of the Live Aid people
who organized it in the studio all in the one year.

Speaker 5 (09:10):
Let's do it to make that happen.

Speaker 3 (09:12):
Hey, I saw Dartfield and I talked about it last
time with you down the waterfront, and remember Dartfield audio sound.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
To a container where that Ethan was trying to push
me into it. I said, no, you thought it.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
Was a plane crash and you were scared arash. No,
it wasn't a plane crash. I went along to it,
and so I went along with my wife and my
eighteen year old son. I really loved There's two things.
I really loved. One of them it's it's you can
find dartfields down outside shed twenty two. Yeah, still there
this that July twenty seventh. I you know, I'm an

(09:44):
audio engineer, so I really loved the three hundred and
sixty degree sound. Some interesting things happening in the plane.
There's not a plane crash. Yeah, and it felt like
people were moving. You're sitting in an actual aircraft inside
a shiping container. This movement is pretty cool, you know,
like it was movement.

Speaker 5 (09:59):
Yeah, this movement.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
And I think it's like twenty twenty two bucks is
about the minimum price twenty two to twenty seven dollars
to go. And you know, my teenager loved it. My
wife was a bit up and down. She wasn't so
keen on the seance. She was more into the plane.

Speaker 5 (10:14):
So what happened in the seance because I know that
one of my.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
Yeah see, my wife found it incredibly spooky and scary,
and I found it not as spooky as I thought
it would have been. But these whispery things happening in
your ears and the headphones, you feel like people are
moving around you. There's a table that does things. You
put your hand on your table like a seance. You're
sitting opposite a whole group of people. I just thought
it was a fun experience that we haven't had in
willing to for a while.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
And can I just let our listeners know what you're
talking about, because someone's been turning in and what the
hell you?

Speaker 5 (10:43):
Dark Fields?

Speaker 2 (10:43):
It's called dark Fields and it's down on next to
Shed twenty two.

Speaker 5 (10:46):
Yeah, the old crane. Yeah, next to the two big.

Speaker 2 (10:49):
Containers there, and you pay to go in one of
the ones of seance. One of them I thought was
a plane crash. Is it not a plane crash?

Speaker 7 (10:55):
It was a little bit plaining crashing a lot of that.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
Yeah, there was elements where you thought it was like
a door blew off and things.

Speaker 5 (11:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
Yeah, but you don't.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
Crash, okay. So and it's like not that expensive.

Speaker 5 (11:05):
So experience, Like.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
I say, like, you go with the family. Some some
will love it more than others. My teenager just thought
it was the best thing in the world because he
hasn't probably experienced lots of different things. I was doing
the audio engineer side of things. I was like, oh,
I would have done this, and I would have done that,
but I thought it was pretty cool. And then my
wife not so keen on one of them and the others.
You know, I just think we've got to if something
comes to Wellington, we've got to support it because you know,

(11:29):
moving on, we've got Lord just announcing christ Church concert,
Auckland concert. What's happening there, Nick Mills? Where's our Worlington concert?

Speaker 2 (11:38):
See? The issue that I have with us is there's
never going to get those ones. And we missed out
on another guy. I'm trying to think who we missed
out and we missed out on someone else as well,
because Lewis Lewis Capoli. Yes, because we don't have nine thousand,
and that's simple thing to do it.

Speaker 3 (11:52):
Because Lord's not going to fill the stadium, is she well?

Speaker 5 (11:54):
Some say she would.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
I don't think she would.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Some say she would, but the cost would be too great.
Always a pleasure rather from another mother. Go back into
your studio, work on it.

Speaker 5 (12:04):
Hey.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
By the way, our mate Louis Baker, How mate Louis
Baker's doing apparently going to do the national anthem at
the Saints final on Sunday.

Speaker 5 (12:12):
Now that's cool that's Bega.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
But hey, yeah, and I went to the semifinal and
that was spectacular.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
So Louis Baker apparently discussions our people and their discussions
and that discussing Louis Baker to do the national anthem,
how big were best?

Speaker 3 (12:25):
That's the best entertainment and warnings and I've been to
it for a long time.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
All right, See, I wanted you know that. Seven minutes
to twelve, come back and wrap the show on a second.
Thanks James Ewin.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
For more from Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills, listen live
to news Talks It'd be Wellington from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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