Live Aid - Wembley Stadium, London, Britain, 7-13-1985, Part 5: The Who, Elton John with Kiki Dee and George Michael, Freddie Mercury & Brian May, and Paul McCartney

This is the last of five albums of the London portion of Live Aid. With this, I'm finishing my Live Aid posts. It's true there were smaller Live Aid related concerts in some other countries on that same day, but the vast majority of the musical acts were only well known to the people from those countries.

First up for this part of the concert was the Who. The band broke up in 1982, and made it official in 1983, so this was a reunion. (They would reunite for good in 1989.) Apparently, there was a red light in front of the stage to indicate when the musical act was going over their allotted time. Lead guitarist Pete Townshend broke the light while jumping around. I don't know if that was accidental or not, but the band ended up going five minutes over their time slot.

Townshend wrote a song specifically for Live Aid called "After the Fire." The Who was supposed to perform it in this concert. However, they didn't commit to joining the concert until the last minute, so they didn't have enough time to practice it. Townshend gave it to the band's lead singer, Roger Daltrey, who had a minor hit with it later in the year.

The Who were also beset with some serious technical difficulties. Part way through their first song, "My Generation," a blown fuse caused their stage TV feed to cut out. Ironically, this happened during the line "Why don't you all fade away," right on the word "away." As a result, they couldn't be seen for the rest of the song, and most of the next song, "Pinball Wizard." Some of the vocals could still be heard for these two songs, though they were very low in the mix. I used the audio editing program UVR5 to boost the vocals relative to the instruments. They sound decent now, but the sound quality is still not as good as the other songs on this album. That's why those two songs have "[Edit]" in their titles.

Elton John was next. At 32 minutes, it ended up being the longest set in either Live Aid concert. This was actually too long. Maybe because of the broken warning light, he went over his assigned time slot. George Michael was still part of Wham! at the time (he would go solo a year after this). The plan was to have Wham! play a set after John finished, but this was cancelled due to all the delays, not just from John, but other delays accumulated earlier in the concert. But John somewhat compensated for this by having George Michael join him in a duet of the song "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me." This was the first time they performed the song as a duet. In 1991, they would release a studio version of the duet and it would hit Number One in both the U.S. and Britain.

John also did a duet with Kiki Dee on "Don't Go Breaking My Heart," since those two performed it together when it hit Number One in 1976.

After that, two members of Queen, lead singer Freddie Mercury and lead guitarist Brian May, returned to the stage to play an encore of sorts. They wrote the song "Is This the World We Created?" together in 1984 in direct response to news reports about the famine in Africa. So that's presumably why it was performed towards the very end of the concert instead of part of Queen's set earlier.

Note that this song has "[Edit]" in the title. That's because some strange noise got onto the recording. For a section towards the end of the song, one could clearly hear some thumping as well as the sound of a person talking. I used the UVR5 program to break the song into different tracks and then wipe out most of the talking and thumping. Only a little bit remains, from where some of the talking was simultaneous with some of the singing.

The last proper act was Paul McCartney. According to the Wikipedia article about Live Aid, the concert organizers considered it a high priority to get at least one surviving member of the Beatles, especially McCartney, to help give the concert credibility with the politicians they were hoping to influence. Apparently, former Beatles Ringo Starr and George Harrison also seriously considered taking part in the concert. However, they declined doing their own sets for fear that they would be dragged into performing with McCartney and turning it into a quasi-Beatles reunion. (A full reunion obviously could never have occurred, since John Lennon died in 1980.)

Given the fame of McCartney, and especially the importance the organizers put on having him involved, it's surprising that he only played one song, "Let It Be." My guess is that the TV coverage was due to end at a certain time, and the concert was still running late, so he had to cut his set short. That was bad enough, but his microphone also failed for the first two minutes of the song, making his vocals for that section almost totally inaudible. He wasn't aware of this problem. However, off stage, Bob Geldof, Pete Townshend, Alison Moyet, and David Bowie noticed the problem and rushed onto the stage to help sing backing vocals. They did so, although right at that time his microphone finally started working again.

Live Aid was supposed to be a truly live event, with no album or film of it released later. However, McCartney must have had a good feeling something would eventually be released anyway, because he rerecorded his missing vocals the next day so they could be used for any future versions. That turned out to be a very good idea, since a DVD of some Live Aid performances were released in 2004. And it's lucky for me, because I was able to use those rerecorded vocals. So there's no problem with his performance here.

After McCartney came the usual finale, where all the stars returned to the stage to sing "Do They Know It's Christmas?," the song that started the music industry's response to the Ethiopia famine. Near the end of the song, concert organizer Bob Geldof was raised up onto the shoulders of McCartney and Townshend to celebrate all he accomplished in putting the concert together.

So ends Live Aid. Phew! It was a lot of work putting this whole thing together. I think I'll go back to posting normal albums for a little while before tackling another one of these big rock festivals.

This album is an hour and three minutes long.

088 talk (Tommy Vance)
089 My Generation [Edit] (Who)
090 Pinball Wizard [Edit] (Who)
091 talk (Who)
092 Love Reign O'er Me (Who)
093 talk (Who)
094 Won't Get Fooled Again (Who)
095 talk (Billy Connolly)
096 I'm Still Standing (Elton John)
097 Bennie and the Jets (Elton John)
098 Rocket Man (Elton John)
099 talk (Elton John)
100 Don't Go Breaking My Heart (Elton John & Kiki Dee)
101 talk (Elton John & George Michael)
102 Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me (Elton John & George Michael)
103 Can I Get a Witness (Elton John)
104 talk (John Hurt)
105 Is This the World We Created [Edit] (Freddie Mercury & Brian May)
106 Let It Be (Paul McCartney)
107 Do They Know It's Christmas (Band Aid)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QaLCHjDN

There were three main acts in this portion of the concert, so I included photos of those three: Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend (jumping) of the Who are in the top left, Elton John is in the top right, and Paul McCartney is in the bottom left. That left one more spot. I considered a photo of Freddie Mercury and Brian May, since they performed a song too. However, I saw a photo from the finale of "Do They Know It's Christmas" that showed Bono, Paul McCartney, and Freddie Mercury all singing into the same microphone. I thought that was so cool that I had to include it.

Live Aid - Wembley Stadium, London, Britain, 7-13-1985, Part 4: Dire Straits, Queen, and David Bowie

This is the fourth of five albums of the London portion of the 1985 Live Aid concert.

Generally, I had at least four musical acts for each part. But this time, it's only three. That's because they are three very big acts at the time, so they were given longer time spots.

First up was Dire Straits. They only played two songs, but together those totaled nearly twenty minutes. For "Money for Nothing," the band was joined by Sting on backing vocals, just as it was on the original studio recording.

Queen was up next. Many say that this was the best set of all the Live Aid acts. Amazingly, in 2004, a poll of music industry insiders called the "World's Greatest Gigs" voted this as the best concert of all time! I think that's a bit much. It was only 21 minutes long, so it's hard to compare with great full-length concerts. Much of what was great about it was the visual performance of lead singer Freddie Mercury, which obviously can't be captured in an audio recording. But it was so impressive that Queen's albums jumped back up the charts after Live Aid, just like U2's did. And the 2018 movie about Queen, "Bohemian Rhapsody," made their Live Aid performance the emotional peak of the film, and recreated it with great attention to detail.

It must have been tough to follow an act like that, but David Bowie did a commendable job. He would have a rough late 1980s, but in 1985, he was still riding high from his smash 1983 album "Let's Dance." Rolling Stone Magazine later noted that his performance was "arguably Bowie's last triumph of the 1980s," and that "as approximately two billion people sang along to 'Heroes' ... he still seemed like one of the biggest and most vital rock stars in the world."

This album is an hour long.

070 talk (Tommy Vance)
071 Money for Nothing (Dire Straits with Sting)
072 talk (Dire Straits)
073 Sultans of Swing (Dire Straits)
074 talk (Griff Rhys Jones & Mel Smith)
075 Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen)
076 Radio Gaga (Queen)
077 Audience Participation (Queen)
078 Hammer to Fall (Queen)
079 talk (Queen)
080 Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Queen)
081 We Will Rock You (Queen)
082 We Are the Champions (Queen)
083 talk (Andy Peebles)
084 TVC-15 (David Bowie)
085 Rebel Rebel (David Bowie)
086 Modern Love (David Bowie)
087 Heroes (David Bowie)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/XGkagcCg

As usual for this series, I split the cover into four parts so I could include photos from more of the acts. This is pretty much the only album in the series where there were only three acts: Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits in the top left, Freddie Mercury and Brian May of Queen in the top right, and David Bowie in the bottom left. That left me one more spot to fill. So I chose a crowd scene, since I had one of those for the Philadelphia concert but none for the London one.

Live Aid - Wembley Stadium, London, Britain, 7-13-1985, Part 3: Howard Jones, Bryan Ferry, Paul Young with Alison Moyet, and U2

This is the third out of five parts of the London portion of Live Aid. I've previously posted all of the Philadelphia portion.

The first act in this set is Howard Jones. Unfortunately for him, he was only allowed one song. The song he chose, "Hide and Seek," was a hit in Britain, but he had five bigger hits at the time that he didn't get to perform.

Bryan Ferry was next. He'd alternated between being lead singer for the band Roxy Music and doing his own projects since the early 1970s. But Roxy Music broke up in 1983. Ferry's solo album "Boys and Girls" hit Number One in the British charts the month before this concert. Note that the lead guitarist in his band for his entire set was David Gilmour, formerly of Pink Floyd. Pink Floyd also broke up in 1983, and the band members were too upset with each other to reunite for Live Aid. So presumably this was how Gilmour found a way to take part. Pink Floyd lead singer Roger Waters attended the concert back stage, but wasn't considered popular enough as a solo act to get a performance slot.

Singer Paul Young was next. Like some other acts, such as Howard Jones and Nik Kershaw, his popularity seemed to peak right around the time of Live Aid. He'd had two massive albums in Britain in 1983 and 1985, but his popularity would go into decline after that. Apparently, Alison Moyet wasn't famous enough to get her own time slot, but she did perform a duet with Young.

The final act in this part of the concert was U2. Their set was widely considered one of the highlights of Live Aid, along with Queen's set. Proof of this could be seen in the fact that all of their albums available at the time went back into the charts following the concert. They only played two songs. That's because they were given a fifteen minute time slot, and their second song, "Bad," went on for 13 minutes. They were supposed to finish with the song "Pride (In the Name of Love)," but they got the hook before they could play it. 

However, they made the most of their time, especially with the song "Bad." Although it was just one song, it contained snippets of the classic songs "Satellite of Love," "Ruby Tuesday," "Sympathy for the Devil," and "Walk on the Wild Side." In addition, during the song, apparently lead singer Bono saw a girl in the crowd who was getting crushed by the people around her. He tried to motion for the security staff to help her, but nobody did. So he left the stage, grabbed the girl, and pulled her to the stage. He then danced with her a little while. She later credited him with saving her life. That may be an exaggeration, but it was a dramatic gesture just the same, and made a big impression on the audience.

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

051 talk (Andy Peebles)
052 talk (Howard Jones)
053 Hide and Seek (Howard Jones)
054 talk (Andy Peebles)
055 Sensation (Bryan Ferry)
056 Boys and Girls (Bryan Ferry)
057 Slave to Love (Bryan Ferry)
058 Jealous Guy (Bryan Ferry)
059 talk (Andy Peebles)
060 talk (Paul Young)
061 Do They Know It's Christmas (Paul Young)
062 Come Back and Stay (Paul Young)
063 talk (Paul Young)
064 That's the Way Love Is (Paul Young & Alison Moyet)
065 talk (Paul Young)
066 Everytime You Go Away (Paul Young)
067 talk (Tommy Vance)
068 Sunday Bloody Sunday (U2)
069 Bad (U2)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/kdkFYyoD

As usual with this series, I divided the cover into four sections so I could feature four of the musical acts. That's Howard Jones on the top left, Bryan Ferry on the top right, Alison Moyet and Paul Young on the bottom left, and Bono of U2 on the bottom right.

Live Aid - Wembley Stadium, London, Britain, 7-13-1985, Part 2: Spandau Ballet, Elvis Costello, Nik Kershaw, Sade, Sting, and Phil Collins

This is the second part of the London portion of Live Aid. The British concert was shorter than the American one, only about five and half hours of actual music compared to about eight hours in the U.S. So I've made only five albums for the British portion compared to seven albums for the American one.

Spandau Ballet was the first act for this part of the concert. They were always much bigger in Britain than the U.S. For instance, at this point in their career, they'd had fourteen Top Forty hits in Britain compared to only two Top Twenty hits in the U.S.

Next up was Elvis Costello. I must say I'm disappointed that he was only allowed to play one song. Consider for instance that he had eleven Top Forty hits in Britain at this point in his career, compared to the fourteen Spandau Ballet had. But Spandau Ballet got to play four songs and he only got one. It seems a lot of this was just how much organizer Bob Geldof and his friends liked you. Anyway, Costello surprised by not playing any of his hits. Instead, he did a cover of "All You Need Is Love" by the Beatles, which he introduced as an "old Northern English folk song."

Nik Kershaw was next. He isn't that well known today, but he was hot in 1985. At the time, he'd put out two albums and had seven Top Forty hits in Britain. But after Live Aid, he would only get only one more Top Forty hit, later in 1985. (Again, it seems odd he was able to play four songs, and Costello with more British hits, only played one.)

The band Sade was up next. Lead singer Sade Adu was born in Nigeria, making her the only Live Aid star actually from Africa. However, the rest of her band was British, and she'd lived in Britain since she was a toddler. Sade was especially big in Britain at the time. They had only released two albums at the time, but both of them went multi-platinum in Britain. Surprisingly, she didn't perform her biggest hit and signature song, "Smooth Operator."

As with the Philadelphia concert, the fame of the musical acts grew bigger as the concert went on. But there may have been an exception in this part, due to Phil Collins flying on a plane across the Atlantic Ocean to perform in Philadelphia later in the day. He was so famous at the time he probably would have been one of the last acts. 

This part of the concert ended with Sting and Phil Collins. Both of them were big stars at the time, and they were introduced together. But in fact Sting performed two songs by himself, then Collins performed two songs by himself. Only then did they perform two songs together. Apparently, this collaboration was spurred by the fact that Sting sang on the song "Long Long Way to Go" on Collins' most recent studio album. It was particularly fitting to the purpose of the concert, so they performed it together.

024 talk (Andy Peebles)
025 Only When You Leave (Spandau Ballet)
026 talk (Spandau Ballet)
027 Virgin (Spandau Ballet)
028 talk (Spandau Ballet)
029 True (Spandau Ballet)
030 talk (Andy Peebles)
031 All You Need Is Love (Elvis Costello)
032 talk (Tommy Vance)
033 Wide Boy (Nik Kershaw)
034 Don Quixote (Nik Kershaw)
035 The Riddle (Nik Kershaw)
036 Wouldn't It Be Good (Nik Kershaw)
037 Why Can't We Live Together (Sade)
038 Your Love Is King (Sade)
039 Is It a Crime (Sade)
040 talk (Noel Edmonds)
041 talk (Sting)
042 Roxanne (Sting)
043 Driven to Tears (Sting)
044 talk (Phil Collins)
045 Against All Odds (Phil Collins)
046 Message in a Bottle (Sting)
047 In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins)
048 talk (Phil Collins)
049 Long Long Way to Go (Phil Collins & Sting)
050 Every Breath You Take (Phil Collins & Sting)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zDimbJ4B

Like the other albums in this series, I split the cover into four so I could have pictures from the concert of more of the musical acts. That's members of Spandau Ballet on the top left, Nik Kershaw on the top right, Sade Adu, lead singer of Sade, on the bottom left, and Phil Collins and Sting together on the bottom right. There were five albums in this part, so I had to leave one out. I excluded Elvis Costello, since he only performed one song.

Live Aid - Wembley Stadium, London, Britain, 7-13-1985, Part 1: Status Quo, the Style Council, the Boomtown Rats, Adam Ant, and Ultravox

A couple of days ago, I finished posted the Philadelphia portion of Live Aid. Now it's time for the British portion (with all British or Irish musical acts), which took place in Wembley Stadium, London.

The basic idea was to have the concerts in Philadelphia and London happen simultaneously, with the acts in one city filling in the music-free gaps while the stage was getting prepared for the next act in the other city, and then vice versa. However, there was a five hour time zone difference. So the London concert began at noon, London time, while it was still seven A.M. in Philadelphia. The London concert ran ten hours, ending around 10 P.M., London time. However, only about five and a half hours of that contained music from London, since there was down time between sets and speeches and so on. The Philadelphia concert began at 9 A.M., Philadelphia time, and kept going until 11 P.M., Philadelphia time. However, that meant it ended at about 7 P.M., London time. So the last two hours were in London only.

Anyway, I explained the basics about Live Aid in my write-up for the first album of the Philadelphia show. Please refer to that if you want to know more about the concert in general. There's a Wikipedia link there as well. For this write-up, I'm only going to discuss the acts that played this part of the concert.

The London concert began with Status Quo. They seem to be one of the acts that wasn't liked by organizer Bob Geldof and the other insiders who decided who got to play. But they were so very popular in Britain that they were allowed to play anyway. Geldof even told the band's lead singer Frank Rossi, "It doesn't matter what the f-ck you sound like, just so long as you're there." Rossi says he replied, "Thanks for the f-ucking honesty, Bob."

The next band was the Style Council. They weren't hugely popular on their own, but it was lead singer Paul Weller's successor band to the Jam, which were more popular, and probably explains why they got a time slot.

The Irish band the Boomtown Rats came next. Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof was the lead singer, so it's no surprise they were included. Their popularity was waning at the time, and they broke up a year later.

Adam Ant was next. Ant shared the same manager as the Police, which was led by Sting, and broke up in 1983. Geldof later wrote in a book, "I thought [Ant] was a bit passe. But then so were the Boomtown Rats, and each represented a certain piece of pop history, so I agreed. I also thought that might entice him to encourage Sting, or perhaps all three of the Police." Ant was only allowed to perform one song. Ant was understandably upset when he later found out what Geldof said about him, and criticized the concert. (Geldof was successful in getting Sting to play, but the hoped for Police reunion didn't happen.)

In my opinion, this is a case in point why it was a bad idea that the decision on who to include was left to Geldof and maybe some other insiders. It was too important of an event to be left to the whims of which acts Geldof personally liked. But oh well, obviously what's done is done.

Ultravox was the final act for this part of the London concert. It's not surprising they played, since the band's lead singer was Midge Ure, and he was involved in organizing the concert along with Geldof.

I ran into many of the same problems with the London concert that I had with the Philadelphia concert. For instance, although all the music is here, sometimes the introductions were lost. Luckily, for this part of the show, I do have all of the introductions, but that's sometimes not the case for the other parts. Another problem was that the cheering at the ends of songs was sometimes cut off. So, like I did with the Philadelphia show, I patched in more cheering at times. 

This album is an hour and eight minutes long.

001 talk (Tommy Vance)
002 talk (Richard Skinner)
003 Rockin' All Over the World (Status Quo)
004 talk (Status Quo)
005 Caroline (Status Quo)
006 talk (Status Quo)
007 Don't Waste My Time (Status Quo)
008 talk (Tommy Vance)
009 You're the Best Thing (Style Council)
010 Big Boss Groove (Style Council)
011 talk (Style Council)
012 Internationalists (Style Council)
013 Walls Come Tumbling Down (Style Council)
014 talk (Tommy Vance)
015 I Don't Like Mondays (Boomtown Rats)
016 Drag Me Down (Boomtown Rats)
017 Rat Trap (Boomtown Rats)
018 talk (Harvey Goldsmith)
019 Vive le Rock (Adam Ant)
020 Reap the Wild Wind (Ultravox)
021 Dancing with Tears in My Eyes (Ultravox)
022 One Small Day (Ultravox)
023 Vienna (Ultravox) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/wHvomw3i

I kept the same cover art format as for the Philadelphia show, except I replaced "Philadelphia" at the top with "London." I also kept the same format of using four small photos of the acts instead of one big one. In this case, that's Frank Rossi, lead singer of Status Quo, at the top left, Paul Weller, lead singer of the Style Council, at the top right, Bob Geldof, lead singer of the Boomtown Rats, at the bottom left, and Midge Ure, lead singer of Ultravox, at the bottom right. I didn't have room for a fifth act, so Adam Ant got the cut, since he only performed one song.

Live Aid - JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, PA, 7-13-1985, Part 7: Hall & Oates with Eddie Kendricks & David Ruffin, Mick Jagger & Tina Turner, and Bob Dylan with Keith Richards & Ronnie Wood

I was hoping to post this at the same time as the others, but I got too busy. Anyway, this is the final part of the Philadelphia portion of Live Aid. The London portion will soon follow.

The biggest acts were saved for the end of the concert. First up was Hall and Oates, who were probably at the peak of their popularity in 1985. But more than half of their set was dominated by their guests, David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks, both former lead singers for the Temptations. (The actual Temptations were still in existence and even had a big comeback hit in 1985 with "Treat Her like a Lady," so I wonder if they were passed over in favor of Ruffin and Kendricks.) Either Ruffin or Kendricks sang lead vocals on the last four songs, which were all Temptations classics from the 1960s. Note that Hall and Oates had started touring with Ruffin and Kendricks earlier in the year, and put out a live album with them later in the year.

Next up was Mick Jagger, lead vocalist for the Rolling Stones. In my opinion, he was clearly a substitute for having all of the Rolling Stones play. But around this time the Rolling Stones were having a rough patch, and almost broke up. Apparently, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, the guitarists for the Stones, didn't want to miss out on Live Aid entirely. So they backed Bob Dylan instead. It's telling how badly the Rolling Stones must have been getting on with each other that they didn't even make a guest appearance for Jagger's set, but played on the one immediately after instead.

Jagger had just put out his first proper solo album earlier in the year, "She's the Boss." It's unfortunate in my opinion that he performed a couple of songs from that during his set, "Lonely at the Top" and "Just Another Night." They're decent songs, but they don't seem worthy of the second to last act for the US version of Live Aid. At least he did play one Rolling Stone classic, "Miss You." Then he was joined by soul singer Tina Turner. They did "State of Shock," which is a song Jagger had done the year before with Michael Jackson and the rest of the Jacksons. Then they did another Stones classic, "It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)." Jagger rarely dueted with Turner, and I think these two songs by them may have been unique to this concert.

The last act was Bob Dylan. I'm glad they gave him the respect he deserved by giving him the most prestigious time slot, even though I'm sure his 1980s record sales were smaller than many of the acts that went on before him. It's interesting that the first two of the three songs he played were lesser known ones from his deep discography. But both obviously were selected with the Live Aid theme of helping the Ethiopian famine in mind. The first song, "The Ballad of Hollis Brown," was especially apt, as it told of a 1930s Midwest farmer that face crop failure and disaster. He finished with a crowd pleaser and all time classic, "Blowin' in the Wind." Unfortunately, while Dylan performed well, Richards and Wood didn't add much, mostly just strumming their guitars, probably with little to no practice beforehand.

Dylan caused some controversy, due to a comment he made between songs. He said: "I hope that some of the money... maybe they can just take a little bit of it, maybe... one or two million, maybe ... and use it, say, to pay the mortgages on some of the farms and, the farmers here, owe to the banks." 

This pissed off organizer Bob Geldof, who later said: "He displayed a complete lack of understanding of the issues raised by Live Aid. ... Live Aid was about people losing their lives. There is a radical difference between losing your livelihood and losing your life. It did instigate Farm Aid, which was a good thing in itself, but it was a crass, stupid, and nationalistic thing to say." 

However, as Geldof points out, Dylan's comment did inspire the Farm Aid concert, which took place later that year and directly benefited US farmers. Furthermore, Farm Aid has become a yearly concert that continues to this day (as I write this in 2023). Over time, all those Farm Aid concerts have raised way more money for charity than Live Aid ever did. So if Dylan's comment helped cause all that, then I say kudos to Dylan. 

After that, there was a big finale with all the stars on stage, like these kinds of shows usually end. And naturally, the song they sang was "We Are the World," the charity single from earlier in the year that helped inspire the concert in the first place. There were some problems with the microphones, so some of the lead vocals weren't heard early in the song. On the DVD release, this was fixed by patching in some vocals from the "We Are the World" single. But I've kept to the untampered version. I don't think it sounds bad, and the patched in vocals prominently featured some people (Kenny Rogers and James Ingram) who weren't actually at the concert.

This album is an hour and six minutes long.

149 talk (Bill Graham)
150 talk (Dionne Warwick)
151 Out of Touch (Hall & Oates)
152 talk (Hall & Oates)
153 Maneater (Hall & Oates)
154 talk (Hall & Oates)
155 Get Ready (Hall & Oates & Eddie Kendricks)
156 Ain't Too Proud to Beg (Hall & Oates, Eddie Kendricks & David Ruffin)
157 The Way You Do the Things You Do (Hall & Oates, Eddie Kendricks & David Ruffin)
158 My Girl (Hall & Oates, Eddie Kendricks & David Ruffin)
159 talk (Bette Midler)
160 Lonely at the Top (Mick Jagger)
161 talk (Mick Jagger)
162 Just Another Night (Mick Jagger)
163 talk (Mick Jagger)
164 Miss You (Mick Jagger)
165 talk (Mick Jagger)
166 State of Shock (Mick Jagger & Tina Turner)
167 It's Only Rock 'n Roll [But I Like It] (Mick Jagger & Tina Turner)
168 talk (Bill Graham)
169 talk (Jack Nicholson)
170 talk (Bob Dylan)
171 The Ballad of Hollis Brown (Bob Dylan with Keith Richards & Ronnie Wood)
172 talk (Bob Dylan)
173 When the Ships Comes In (Bob Dylan with Keith Richards & Ronnie Wood)
174 talk (Bob Dylan)
175 Blowin' in the Wind (Bob Dylan with Keith Richards & Ronnie Wood)
176 We Are the World (USA for Africa)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/XgieHSqr

As with most of the albums in this series, I have four pictures from the concert making up the cover. On the top left is Hall and Oates with David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks, on the top right is Tina Turner and Mick Jagger, on the bottom left is Ronnie Wood, Bob Dylan, and Keith Richard, and on the bottom right is a portion of the large group of people on stage for the finale. If you look closely, you can see Lionel Richie and Dionne Warwick, both of whom were not given their own sets earlier in the concert.

Live Aid - JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, PA, 7-13-1985, Part 6: Led Zeppelin, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Duran Duran, and Patti LaBelle

This is Part 6 of the Philadelphia portion of the 1985 Live Aid benefit concert. This one is notable for including a couple of big reunions. There's just one part to go after this. But then the London portion of Live Aid will follow.

Led Zeppelin broke up in 1980 when their drummer John Bonham died. They reunited for the first time for Live Aid. To fill Bonham's spot on drums, they used two drummers: Phil Collins and Tony Thompson (who was drummer for Chic, and then the Power Station). The set was considered something of a fiasco. Here's what the Wikipedia entry on Live Aid has to say about it:

"The performance was criticized for Plant's hoarse vocals, Jimmy Page's intoxication and out-of-tune guitar, a lack of rehearsal, and poorly functioning monitors. Plant described the performance as 'a f-cking atrocity for us ... It made us look like loonies.' Page later criticized Collins' performance, saying: "Robert told me Phil Collins wanted to play with us. I told him that was all right if he knows the numbers. But at the end of the day, he didn't know anything. We played "Whole Lotta Love," and he was just there bashing away cluelessly and grinning. I thought that was really a joke.' Collins responded: 'It wasn't my fault it was crap... If I could have walked off, I would have. But then we'd all be talking about why Phil Collins walked off Live Aid – so I just stuck it out... I turned up and I was a square peg in a round hole. Robert was happy to see me, but Jimmy wasn't.'"

Although there never has been any official album of Live Aid, a four DVD collection of video footage from the concert was released in 2004. Led Zeppelin was so upset at their performance that they didn't allow any of it to be used for the DVD. And they've avoided putting any of it on their own releases.

Personally, I don't think it's THAT bad. Yeah, it was a subpar performance, and the drumming didn't help, but I watched it live as a kid and I was very excited that Led Zeppelin reunited at all. They would reunite for another short set in 1988, which they also were disappointed with. Then they did a full show in 2007, which went well and eventually was released as an official live album.

The Led Zeppelin reunion was followed by a reunion of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY). Crosby, Stills and Nash did a set earlier in the show, then Neil Young had done a set. Their reunion set only lasted two songs, but it was better than nothing. The last time CSNY appeared on stage together was back in 1974. Young drifted away from the others mainly due to the serious drug addiction of David Crosby, which got really bad in the early 1980s when he became addicted to crack. At the time of Live Aid, Crosby was still in a bad way. I remember watching the reunion and being disturbed by how awful he looked. However, I suppose Young allowed the reunion because Live Aid was such a big deal.

It turned out 1985 was the lowest point for Crosby. He was arrested twice that year for drug and gun charges. He ended up serving nine months in prison later in 1985 going into 1986. During that prison time, he was able to quit drugs, and turned his life around. That led to another CSNY reunion in 1986, two shows in 1987, and then a new CSNY studio album in 1988, with lots more collaboration after that.

Duran Duran was super popular in 1985, explaining why they were billed even after big reunions by Led Zeppelin and CSNY. It would turn out to be the final time the five original band members would publicly perform together until 2003. Musically, the most notable thing about their set was a really bad note sung by lead singer Simon Le Bon during the song "A View to a Kill." This was dubbed "The Bum Note Heard Round the World" by various media outlets. Le Bon later said it was the most embarrassing moment of his career.

Personally, I don't think it was so terrible. It was only one note that lasted a second or two. But to spare you from having to hear it, I've done an edit to remove it. Since it took place during a chorus, I patched in a bit from a different chorus in the song, so it sounds fine now. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in the title.

The last act in this part of the song was soul singer Patti LaBelle. I must say I'm mystified why LaBelle got such a long set time - one of the longest of the whole concert - and why her set time was so prominent, late in the show. She sang lead vocals on "Lady Marmalade," which was a Number One hit in the US by the band LaBelle back in 1974. But she didn't even sing that song for Live Aid. Her solo career had only moderate success up until this point, with one gold album. (She would have a big hit record in 1986, but that was still a year into the future.) It's doubly strange when you consider all the musicians who weren't even allowed to perform at Live Aid because they weren't popular enough. For instance, soul singer Dionne Warwick, who sold way more records that LaBelle ever did, and had big hits in the early 1980s, was only allowed to introduce an act later in the show (Hall and Oates), and not sing at all.

But it is what it is. If I could wave a magic wand and change Live Aid, I think I could have made a lot of changes to make it an even better concert, especially including more famous musical acts who were willing and even eager to play, but this is what we have. LaBelle certainly did a fine performance. It's just strange that she got to play six songs when other acts much more famous than her only were allowed two or three.

This album is an hour and 12 minutes long.

120 talk (Phil Collins)
121 talk (Led Zeppelin)
122 Rock and Roll (Led Zeppelin)
123 talk (Led Zeppelin)
124 Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin)
125 talk (Led Zeppelin)
126 Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
127 talk (Bill Graham)
128 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
129 Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
130 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
131 Daylight Again - Find the Cost of Freedom (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
132 talk (Chevy Chase)
133 A View to a Kill [Edit] (Duran Duran)
134 talk (Duran Duran)
135 Union of the Snake (Duran Duran)
136 talk (Duran Duran)
137 Save a Prayer (Duran Duran)
138 talk (Duran Duran)
139 The Reflex (Duran Duran)
140 talk (Duran Duran)
141 talk (Bette Midler)
142 New Attitude (Patti LaBelle)
143 Imagine (Patti LaBelle)
144 Forever Young (Patti LaBelle)
145 Stir It Up (Patti LaBelle)
146 Over the Rainbow (Patti LaBelle)
147 Why Can't I Get It Over (Patti LaBelle)
148 talk (Bill Graham)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/FBMzMBSH

As with most album covers in this series, I've made room for four pictures, all of them taken at this concert. Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin are on the top left, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young are on the top right, three members of Duran Duran can be seen on the bottom left, and Patti LaBelle is on the bottom right.

Live Aid - JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, PA, 7-13-1985, Part 5: Neil Young, the Power Station, the Thompson Twins, Eric Clapton, and Phil Collins

This is the fifth part of the Philadelphia portion of the 1985 Live Aid concert. Two more Philadelphia parts will follow.

First up in this part was Neil Young. As I mentioned previously, he would later play a set as part of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, but first he did this solo set. He did the first couple of songs truly solo, with just his acoustic guitar, but he was in full electric band mode by the last song.

The Power Station was a side band by some members of Duran Duran, with Robert Palmer as the singer. In addition to this set, Duran Duran had their own set later in the concert.

There's not much to say about the Thompson Twins set, except that it's worth noting Madonna joined them on backing vocals on one song, while they also helped with backing vocals on one of the songs in Madonna's set.

Eric Clapton was up next. I watched Live Aid as a kid, and I remember being excited that he played "White Room," which he originally did as part of Cream in the 1960s. He almost never played the song as a solo artist until earlier in 1985.

The final artist on this album was Phil Collins. He played a set early in the Live Aid concert in London, then rushed to a helicopter, flew a Concorde to the U.S., then took another helicopter to the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia, where he played this set. That made him the only person to play both Live Aid shows. He was a busy guy, because he also played drums for Eric Clapton in the set before this one, then later played drums as part of the Led Zeppelin reunion. Unfortunately though, the two songs he played in his solo set in Philadelphia were the same ones he played in London. Apparently this was because he played alone on piano, and those were the only two songs he knew in that format.

Once again, I was able to find some introductions, and only missed the intro for Neil Young this time. Actor Don Johnson introduced the Power Station. Actress and singer Bette Midler introduced the Thoimpson Twins. Music promoter Bill Graham introduced Eric Clapton. Actor Jack Nicholson assisted Midler in introducing Phil Collins.

This album is an hour and eleven minutes long.

097 Sugar Mountain (Neil Young)
098 The Needle and the Damage Done (Neil Young)
099 Helpless (Neil Young)
100 Nothing Is Perfect (Neil Young)
101 Powderfinger (Neil Young)
102 talk (Bill Graham)
103 talk (Don Johnson)
104 Murderess (Power Station)
105 talk (Power Station)
106 Get It On [Bang a Gong] (Power Station)
107 talk (Bill Graham)
108 talk (Bette Midler)
109 Hold Me Now (Thompson Twins)
110 talk (Thompson Twins)
111 Revolution (Thompson Twins with Madonna, Steve Stevens & Nile Rodgers)
112 talk (Bill Graham)
113 White Room (Eric Clapton)
114 She's Waiting (Eric Clapton)
115 Layla (Eric Clapton)
116 talk (Jack Nicholson & Bette Midler)
117 Against All Odds [Take a Look at Me Now] (Phil Collins)
118 talk (Phil Collins)
119 In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/JypabJCG

As with most of the other parts in this series, I divided the cover art into four photos taken at the concert. Neil Young is on the top left, the Thompson Twins are on the top right, Eric Clapton is on the bottom left, and Phil Collins is on the bottom right.

Live Aid - JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, PA, 7-13-1985, Part 4: Ashford & Simpson with Teddy Pendergrass, Madonna, Tom P*tty & the Heartbreakers, Kenny Loggins, and the Cars

This is Part 3 of the Philadelphia portion of the 1985 Live Aid benefit concert. There are seven parts in total for Philadelphia, so I'm not more than halfway finished. The London portion will follow.

The first act up in this part was the soul duo Ashford and Simpson. For their second and final song, they were joined on stage by soul singer Teddy Pendergrass. This was a very emotionally moving moment for the concert. Pendergrass was injured in a car accident in 1982, and permanently paralyzed from the waist down. His musical career was put on hold for a while. He was still able to sing though, and he put out an album of new material in 1984. But this appearance in Live Aid was his first time on a public stage since the accident.

 Madonna was the next act. She was a very big deal, and a cultural phenomenon, at this time, after becoming a superstar in 1984. The same month of this concert, Playboy and Penthouse magazines published nude photos of Madonna, taken when she moonlighted as an art model in 1978. As a result, she made a jokey comment between songs about how she was going to keep all her clothes on.

Tom P. and the Heartbreakers came next. (Note I'm not using his full name due to copyright issues.) They were followed by Kenny Loggins. But he only got to play one song. The last act on this album were the Cars.

As with the other albums in this series, sometimes I was able to include introductions to the acts, and sometimes I couldn't. Madonna was introduced by actress and singer Bette Midler, and Tom P. was introduced by Don Johnson.

This album is an hour and 11 minutes long.

075 Solid [Edit] (Ashford & Simpson)
076 Reach Out and Touch [Somebody's Hand] (Ashford & Simpson with Teddy Pendergrass)
077 talk (Bette Midler)
078 Holiday (Madonna)
079 Into the Groove (Madonna)
080 talk (Madonna)
081 Love Makes the World Go Round (Madonna)
082 talk (Don Johnson)
083 American Girl (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
084 talk (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
085 The Waiting (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
086 Rebels (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
087 talk (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
088 Refugee (Tom P & the Heartbreakers)
089 Footloose (Kenny Loggins)
090 talk (Bill Graham)
091 You Might Think (Cars)
092 Drive (Cars)
093 talk (Cars)
094 Just What I Needed (Cars)
095 Heartbeat City (Cars)
096 talk (Cars)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/drUP7G7v

There actually were five musical acts in this part, but I only had room for photos taken from the concert of four. The one that got left out is Kenny Loggins, since he only performed one song. Ashford and Simpson, with guest Teddy Pendergrass, is in the top left, Madonna is in the top right, Tom P. is in the bottom left, and Ric Ocasek of the Cars is in the bottom right.

Live Aid - JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, PA, 7-13-1985, Part 3: George Thorogood & the Destroyers, Simple Minds, the Pretenders, & Santana with Pat Metheny

This is Part 3 of the Philadelphia portion of the 1985 Live Aid benefit concert. As I've explained elsewhere, I'm posting the London portion separately after I finish with Philadelphia.

In retrospect, I'm disappointed about all the musical acts that didn't get to play Live Aid, given how many were very eager to do so. But at least some more got represented by guesting for some of the acts. For instance, George Thorogood had Bo Diddley guest for one song in his set, and Albert Collins guested for another song. I'm sure neither of those acts would have been considered popular enough to appear otherwise.

There was a big problem with the Simple Minds set. Everything was fine until the last song, "Promised You a Miracle." Halfway through the song, the video cut out completely. Apparently, it couldn't be recovered, since none of the concert was professionally recorded (because some acts worried they would be pushed into taking part in an official album eventually). So when the video feed was cut (along with an audio feed for radio stations), all the music was lost, apparently permanently. However, I did my best to fix this problem. I found a live version of the song from 1986 with similar sound quality, and used that to finish it off. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in the title.

Actually, I could have put "[Edit]" in the titles of many other songs, for this part and the others. In addition to fixing the mixes for all the songs using UVR5, I patched in missing chunks of applause for many of the songs. But I only saved mentioning "[Edit]" in more drastic cases.

Anyway, there's not much to say about the Pretenders set. Although I am surprised that there was no collaboration between Jim Kerr, lead singer of Simple Minds, and Chrissie Hynde, lead singer of the Pretenders, considering the sets of their bands played back to back and the two lead singers got married in 1984. (They would divorce in 1990.)

The last act on this album was Santana. I find it rather odd that they generally played recent album cuts instead of classic hits, but oh well. Jazz guitarist Pat Metheny guested on the last two songs.

This album is an hour and ten minutes long.

054 Who Do You Love (George Thorogood & the Destroyers with Bo Diddley)
055 talk (George Thorogood & the Destroyers)
056 The Sky Is Crying (George Thorogood & the Destroyers)
057 Madison Blues (George Thorogood & the Destroyers with Albert Collins)
058 talk (Joe Piscopo)
059 Ghost Dancing (Simple Minds)
060 talk (Simple Minds)
061 Don't You [Forget about Me] (Simple Minds)
062 Promised You a Miracle [Edit] (Simple Minds)
063 Time, the Avenger (Pretenders)
064 Message of Love (Pretenders)
065 Stop Your Sobbing (Pretenders)
066 Back on the Chain Gang (Pretenders)
067 Middle of the Road (Pretenders)
068 talk (Bill Graham)
069 Brotherhood (Santana)
070 Primera Invasion [Instrumental] (Santana)
071 Open Invitation (Santana)
072 talk (Santana)
073 By the Pool [Instrumental] (Santana with Pat Metheny)
074 Right Now (Santana with Pat Metheny)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KMMfafsA

As with Part 2, I've divided the cover art so I could post four photos, all from Live Aid. That's George Thorogood on the top left, Jim Kerr of Simple Minds on the top right, Chrisse Hynde of the Pretenders on the bottom left, and Carlos Santana of Santana on the bottom right.

Live Aid - JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, PA, 7-13-1985, Part 2: Crosby, Stills and Nash, Judas Priest, Bryan Adams & The Beach Boys

Here's Part 2 of the Philadelphia portion of the 1985 Live Aid benefit concert. With this part, we generally get to bigger name acts than those in Part 1.

Later on in Live Aid, Crosby, Stills and Nash would reunite with Neil Young for a short Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young set. But first, they did a set just as Crosby, Stills and Nash. 

Next up was the heavy metal band Judas Priest. (I'll bet that was the only time CSN was followed on stage by a heavy metal band!) They were followed by Bryan Adams, then by the Beach Boys. Note that Brian Wilson, the genius who wrote most of the Beach Boys' hits, only occasionally played live with the band. But he did play Live Aid, since it was such a big occasion.

As with all the parts, I had to do a lot of work to get the recording to sound its best, including remixing the balance between vocals and the instruments for all the songs using UVR5. Also, sometimes I was able to find introductions to the musical acts, and sometimes I wasn't. As I explained previously, Live Aid wasn't professionally recorded, so sometimes when DJs talked over the introductions, they were lost. Sometimes, celebrities made the introductions. For this part, actor Jack Nicholson introduced Bryan Adams and Marilyn McCoo of the band the Fifth Dimension introduced the Beach Boys.

This album is an hour and seven minutes long.

027 Southern Cross (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
028 talk (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
029 Teach Your Children (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
030 Suite- Judy Blue Eyes (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
031 Livin' After Midnight (Judas Priest)
032 talk (Judas Priest)
033 The Green Manalishi [With the Two-Pronged Crown] (Judas Priest)
034 talk (Judas Priest)
035 You've Got Another Thing Comin' (Judas Priest)
036 talk (Jack Nicholson)
037 Kids Wanna Rock (Bryan Adams)
038 talk (Bryan Adams)
039 Summer of 69 (Bryan Adams)
040 talk (Bryan Adams)
041 Tears Are Not Enough (Bryan Adams)
042 talk (Bryan Adams)
043 Cuts like a Knife (Bryan Adams)
044 talk (Bryan Adams)
045 talk (Marilyn McCoo)
046 California Girls (Beach Boys)
047 Help Me, Rhonda (Beach Boys)
048 Wouldn't It Be Nice (Beach Boys)
049 talk (Beach Boys)
050 Good Vibrations (Beach Boys)
051 talk (Beach Boys)
052 Surfin' U.S.A. (Beach Boys)
053 talk (Bill Graham)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/nvU5TEmX

For the cover, I generally noticed there are four big acts per album, so from here on in I'm dividing each cover into four parts so I can show all of them. All the photos are from Live Aid. Crosby, Stills and Nash are in the top left, Rob Halford of Judas Priest in the top right, Bryan Adams in the lower left, and Al Jardine, Mike Love, and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys in the lower right.

Live Aid - JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, PA, 7-13-1985, Part 1: Joan Baez, The Hooters, The Four Tops, Black Sabbath, Run DMC, Rick Springfield, REO Speedwagon

Sorry I haven't posted in over a week. It's not because I haven't been working on musical stuff. As part of my recent effort to post some big rock festivals, I decided to tackle one of the biggest and most famous of them all: Live Aid, from 1985. 

Live Aid actually was two concerts: one in London, England, and the other in Philadelphia, U.S.A. Generally speaking, one act would play on stage in, say, London and their performance would be broadcast live to the audience in Philadelphia. When that act finished their set, the next act in Philadelphia would play, and their performance would be broadcast live to the audience in London. In this way, both audiences were entertained by music nearly continuously, without the usual long waits between acts. And for the worldwide audience watching through TV, they also got a nearly continuous stream of music.

Even though that was the case, it basically was two different concerts (on different continents, even), and it works out better for me to present the Philadelphia concert all together, and then present the London concert all together. So here's the first of seven albums that makes up the Philadelphia portion of Live Aid.

I don't want to go into a big, long explanation about Live Aid. I hope most of you know the basics. If not, here's the Wikipedia article about it:

Live Aid - Wikipedia

In short, a massive famine in Ethiopia was big news in 1984 and 1985. Bob Geldof, lead singer for the Irish band the Boomtown Rats, helped bring together a bunch of mostly British music stars for a charity single in late 1984 called "Do They Know It's Christmas." It was a huge hit in late 1984, and all the profits went to charity aimed at bringing food to the famine victims. Then mostly US music stars got together for a similar charity single, "We Are the World." Released in early 1985, it became one of the best selling singles of all time. This then led to the suggestion to put on a benefit concert for the same cause. Geldof again was the main one to put it together, along with Midge Ure of the British band Ultravox. The concert was a huge success in terms of the musical acts involved and the audience. Nearly two billion people watched, in 150 countries, representing about 40 percent of the world's population.

The concert's actual impact on the famine is more debated. About $40 to $50 million was immediately raised, and about $150 by the time the final counting was done. That seems like an impressive amount to me. However, there are questions about how the money was spent. At the time, Ethiopia was ruled by a dictator, Mengitsu Haile Mariam, and it is alleged that he used the food and supplies raised by Live Aid to help regions that supported him, while denying the regions that were against him. The evidence suggests this happened. Huey Lewis and the News didn't perform for fear that the money was misspent, and it seems they had a point.

However, in a bigger sense, I think the concert was a success in accomplishing its goal. Although the actual money raised was misused, the concert also raised awareness worldwide. As a result, many governments that had been ignoring the problem were pushed into taking action. The actions and money spent by these government was far larger than what was directly raised by Live Aid. And while some of this support was also misused by the Ethiopian government, there was so much of it that it was enough to stop the famine later that year. Furthermore, I would argue the concert had a cultural impact worldwide that went beyond that single crisis. It raised hope that people could make a difference through activism, even when governments weren't doing much. Also, there had been some benefit concerts prior to Live Aid, but it gave a renewed push to those sorts of efforts, arguably for decades thereafter.

Anyway, that's my relatively short summary. (I'm a verbose guy!) Now, let's get to the music on this album. The Philadelphia concert began at 9 A.M. local time. It would go on until 11 P.M. That's 14 hours. However, there were only about eight hours of actual music, due to time between sets (usually filled by video footage from London) and speeches and such. 

Generally speaking, the less famous acts went early, and the acts got more famous as the day went on. The acts here definitely are a disparate bunch. For instance, I think it's safe to say this was the one and only time folk singer Joan Baez was on the same bill as the heavy metal band Black Sabbath! 

Actually, that brings up the tricky issue of just who got to play Live Aid and who didn't. This is a very interesting article, listing many big acts that didn't play Live Aid, and why:

Live Aid: 30 huge artists who didn't perform and why - Gold (goldradiouk.com)

In short, there was a lot of favoritism and music politics that went into it. Generally, one either had to be super famous, or deemed cool by Bob Geldof, Midge Uge, Bill Graham, and other key decision makers behind the scenes. An interesting case in point is the Hooters. They were a Philadelphia band, but they weren't very well known at the time. Geldof didn't want to include them, asking "Who the f-ck are the Hooters?" But promoter Bill Graham wanted them, and there was additional pressure from a record company and a local promoter, so they were included. They had just released an album that was starting to break them, but the exposure they got at Live Aid was a huge boost. 

Another controversy was the relative lack of Black performers. For instance, Stevie Wonder didn't take part because he felt there weren't enough other Black acts on the bill. Given all that, it seems curious to me that the Four Tops did play, when many other Black acts that were more popular at the time did not. 

The performance of Black Sabbath was particularly notable because it was a reunion of the original band. Most crucially, Ozzy Osborne was the lead singer. This was his first show with the band since he'd left in 1985. After the concert, Osborne left again. He wouldn't fully rejoin the band until 1997.

Personally, as great as Live Aid was, I get pissed when I think about all the great acts that wanted to play but weren't deemed popular or cool enough, yet the likes of Rick Springfield and REO Speedwagon were allowed to play. For instance, Springfield is basically known for one really big hit, "Jessie's Girl," which he didn't even play at Live Aid. The Kinks, Foreigner, and Yes were just some of the acts that were rejected - all of them had hits in the early 1980s.

Anyway, it is what it is. On a different note, it took me a long time to put these albums together because every single song from the Philadelphia show needed work. (Luckily, the London show was better.) In my opinion, the lead vocals were low across the board, so I had to fix every song using the audio editing program UVR5. On top of that, there was a lot of trouble with the starts and ends of songs. Sometimes, DJs were talking over whatever was happening on stage, so introductions were missed, and sometimes even the starts of songs were missed. Similarly, the applause after the songs were often cut short for more DJ talking. The concert deliberately was not professionally recorded other than what was broadcast, because some artists wanted to be sure their music wouldn't make it onto any live album. As a result, the lost bits generally stayed lost. That means I have the introductions for some acts, but not for others. When it comes to the applause though, I usually was able to patch in some generic applause from elsewhere in the concert to make the missing bits less obvious.

This album is an hour and 14 minutes long.

001 talk (Jack Nicholson)
002 talk (Joan Baez)
003 Amazing Grace (Joan Baez)
004 We Are the World (Joan Baez)
005 talk (Chevy Chase & Joe Piscopo)
006 And We Danced (Hooters)
007 All You Zombies (Hooters)
008 talk (Hooters)
009 Shake Me, Wake Me [When It's Over] (Four Tops)
010 Bernadette (Four Tops)
011 It's the Same Old Song (Four Tops)
012 Reach Out, I'll Be There (Four Tops)
013 I Can't Help Myself [Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch] (Four Tops)
014 talk (Chevy Chase)
015 Children of the Grave (Black Sabbath)
016 Iron Man (Black Sabbath)
017 talk (Black Sabbath)
018 Paranoid (Black Sabbath)
019 King of Rock (Run-DMC)
020 talk (Joe Piscopo)
021 Love Somebody (Rick Springfield)
022 State of the Heart (Rick Springfield)
023 Human Touch (Rick Springfield)
024 talk (Chevy Chase)
025 Can't Fight This Feeling (REO Speedwagon)
026 Roll with the Changes (REO Speedwagon)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/san5uXA6

The cover photo is of the crowd in the Philadelphia concert. For the other Live Aid albums, I'm going with photos of famous acts. But I wanted one of the crowd, and this album doesn't have any super famous acts.

Oh, and as for the lettering at the top, I used the same font as on all the Live Aid promotional material. But I rotated the logo of Africa turning into a guitar neck 90 degrees so it would better fit the limited space.