Live Aid - 25 Years Later

Today marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of Live Aid, a pair of charity concerts set up by Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats and Midge Ure of Ultravox, and it was undoubtedly one of the most boring and unsatisfying events of the 1980s. I ought to know. I was there. The Live Aid concerts took place simultaneously in London and Philadelphia, and I attended the latter show.

Live Aid had its origins in the fall of 1984 when Bob Geldof caught a BBC news report about the growing famine in eastern Africa in general and Ethiopia, ravaged by a civil war that had begun a decade earlier, in particular. Feeling a need to do something about it, Geldof and Ure wrote and produced "Do They Know It's Christmas?," a charity record issued that December to raise money to feed starving Africans. Recorded by British and Irish musicians working under the name Band Aid, it was a horrible song, not having any coherent verse/chorus structure. Also, the record largely featured post-punk performers, with very few members of the veteran British rock establishment. Nonetheless, it became the decade's bestselling single in Britain.

Not to be outdone, the Americans (who never like to be outdone) responded with their own charity record when noted activist and singer Harry Belafonte put together United Support of Artists for Africa. Pop stars Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson wrote the song "We Are the World," and numerous performers were recruited to sing on the record, to be produced by the great Quincy Jones. Unlike Band Aid, USA For Africa would feature a more eclectic mix of performers, representing soul, rock, country, and jazz. With a great jazz arranger producing a song composed by guys known for their charismatically slinky funk records of the seventies, it should have sounded wonderful. The main challenge, though, was this: How do you get such a diverse group of performers to gel together? Easy - produce a record so soft and homogenized it sounds like something Richard Carpenter could have produced.

"We Are the World" was hyped as rock's finest moment. This is preposterous. It wasn't even MOR's finest moment. That would be the Carpenters's recording of "Superstar." Nevertheless, the USA For Africa record, issued in early 1985, became the decade's bestselling single in America.

Geldof and Ure believed in their cause enough to push for a pair of concerts in both the U.K. and the U.S. in an effort to raise more money, and numerous acts signed on to appear in the shows, set for July 13, 1985. In the interim, more performers - Canadian pop stars, heavy metal bands, Latin performers - got on the charity record bandwagon. By the time the big day came, 23 acts at London's Wembley Stadium and 34 acts at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia were slated to appear. A few other expected acts bowed out, including Bruce Springsteen, who was invited to play at Wembley and would have been the only American at an otherwise all-British/Irish show. (The JFK show, by contrast, had a mix of American, British and Canadian performers.)

Live Aid lasted sixteen hours in Philadelphia, six hours longer than the London concert. During much of that time, I sat on a hard, uncomfortable seat on a typically hot summer day in the City That Loves You Back. No one was allowed to leave the stadium and return, meaning I had to sit through sets from Run-DMC, Madonna, Duran Duran, and other performers that inspired me to press my fingertips against my ear lobes. I did appreciate the presence of Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, a reunited Led Zeppelin, and Neil Young. Also, Mick Jagger and Tina Turner performed a duet in what was undoubtedly the most electric performance of the show. But it couldn't compensate for having to endure Judas Priest or Kenny Loggins.

Often, technical glitches spoiled the fun. Some of the London sets were beamed in on a huge monitor so I could enjoy acts such as the Who. But as the Who sang "My Generation," the signal went out as Roger Daltrey sang, "Why don't you all fade?" At the end of the Philadelphia show, bad microphones allowed me to play a challenging guessing game called "What Song Is Bob Dylan Doing Now?" as Dylan played with Keith Richards and Ron Wood of the Rolling Stones. But the biggest technical misfortune involved Madonna's set. Her microphone worked without a hitch.

I sort of wish I'd been at Wembley, because even though that program offered fewer performers, most of them (Elton John, Dire Straits, Paul McCartney) were among my favorites. They also had British acts Americans had never heard of, acts I find interesting for that reason alone, such as Status Quo. Besides, the smaller bill and the shorter duration meant that the London show offered quality over quantity. Well, not entirely - Queen was there.

Joan Baez opened the Live Aid show in Philadelphia, greeting members of my generation with the following salutation: "Good morning, children of the eighties, this is your Woodstock, and it's long overdue." A quarter of a century later, I'm still waiting for the punchline. It was not my Woodstock, by any stretch of the imagination. The Woodstock analogy fails for several reasons. First, the Live Aid concerts were held in decrepit stadiums, not on fields in the countryside. Second, the Live Aid shows were very establishmentarian, being broadcast on both American and British television and chopped up into context-free segments to make up for the time differences. Telephone numbers were provided for viewers to donate money, turning the shows into telethons. Third, Live Aid had no drugs, making it impossible for me to appreciate Black Sabbath. Fourth, I went to Live Aid with my mother and younger sister. Nothing is more square than going to a concert with your family. In the one moment I genuinely appreciated at Live Aid - standing up and singing along to "Teach Your Children" during Crosby, Stills and Nash's set, the most Woodstock-like moment at this ur-Woodstock - my mother and sister looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

Was there at least a distinctive, memorable performance at Live Aid I could never hear elsewhere - that is, when the audio equipment worked? Well, I did enjoy the set performed by Carlos Santana and Pat Metheny. I regrettably missed the most emotional moment of the Philadelphia show - a paralyzed Teddy Pendergrass, a Philadelphia native, singing from his wheelchair - because I was in the rest room at the time. But the most memorable moments were trivial, not musical, such as Phil Collins performing a set in London, hopping on a Concorde flight to the States, and performing the same set in Philadelphia. Big deal. It would have been more impressive if he'd piloted the plane himself. As for other acts, I forgot many of the performers who played at the show; I had to look up the billing list on the Internet to refresh my memory. (Wait a minute - I saw the Pretenders?) Strictly speaking, there was little worthy enough to hear live that I would have missed or underappreciated on TV.

Ah, but what about all the money raised - £150 million (about $247 million, though I'm guessing at the conversion), by some estimates, through ticket sales and pledges from television viewers? My mother insists that Live Aid meant more than Woodstock, because it raised money for a good cause. Well, some of it did reach the people, but it was recently discovered that some of that cash went to the rebels who ultimately overthrew the Marxist government in Ethiopia in 1991, which they used to purchase weapons. Geldof doesn't believe it.

I'll say this for Geldof - he's committed to the cause of ending hunger. He continued to fight the good fight after Live Aid, but did so largely unnoticed. Everybody who contributed money in one way or another, having felt they did their bit, forgot about the famine as soon as July 14, 1985. Because more often than not, the more noncontroversial a cause is, the less likely someone will be devoted to it. How many people are actually in favor of hunger? Other than the lieutenant governor of South Carolina?

You don't hear people reminisce about Live Aid as a major cultural event. You don't even find anyone who recalls it. Those who do remember it - like poet Amiri Baraka - blast it as a paternalistic exercise toward the Third World. Indeed, Africa needed (and needs) more than an Advil, a Band Aid, a Live Aid, or united support of artists. It needs major surgery.

Cultural events that change the world are organic and spontaneous. Those that are planned from the ground up become meaningless trivia.

Just like Live Aid.