Prince declined to play because he had "retired" from playing live. He did however give them a video to air. Only MTV showed it on the day and it isn't on the Live Aid DVD set (probably because of his strict Christian beliefs don't allow him to be involved in political causes)
Bruce Springsteen was asked to play London Live Aid because he was "in town" having only played Wembley 2 days previous. He declined because, like a lot of American artists, he didn't realize how big it was going to be. He has since expressed regret at his decision and says watching on the day he wished he'd had the guts just to turn up for an impromtue acoustic appearance.
In the 2005 BBC Live Aid documentary Lionel Ritchie talks of a "black bar" whereby a number of famous black American artists, including Michael Jackson, made the decision not to appear as Live Aid was "a British thing". Jackoe should have appeared, he would have "owned" Live Aid USA.
That said black artists were still a hell of a lot better represented in America than Wembley where, except the odd backing singer and musician, the only black faces were Sade and Freddie Mercury...
"I think you're a load of old crap too, Mr Mulligan."
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bwall001
16 years ago
Jackson's excuse is lame. The whole show was about feeding "BLACK" people in Africa. He should have put his ego aside and performed. Tina Turner was also huge with the MTV crowd at the time and should have performed her own set.
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hallogallo
15 years ago
Just bought the DVD boxset off eBay and I'm astonished how differant the bill on the poster reproduced in the packaging is from the one that eventualy played Philly.
Sure everyone billed to appear at Wembley appeared but just look at the USA bill and compare it to who actualy played and what's on the DVD:
On poster:
Boy George (no show)
Billy Joel (pulled out)
Waylon Jennings (pulled out)
Kris Kristofferson (no show)
Huey Lewis and the News (pulled out)
Paul Simon (pulled out)
Tears For Fears (no show - due to road accident)
Stevie Wonder (pulled out)
Not Billed But Did Play and Are On DVD:
the Beach Boys
Run DMC
Ashford and Simpson
Teddy Pendergrass
Black Sabbath
Kenny Loggins
John Thorogood
REO Speedwagon
Joan Baez
Not Billed, Did Play But Are Not On DVD:
Pat Metheny (with Santana)
Bo Diddley (with John Thorogood)
the Four Tops
Billy Ocean
Bernard Watson
the Hooters
Rick Springfield
Albert Collins (with John Thorogood)
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
Billed, Played But Are Not On DVD:
Led Zeppelin (billed as "Robert Plant")
Santana
Power Station
Overall I get the impression that the USA show could have been a lot better and a lot of "second choice" bands got to play Philly.
The only "second choice" band for Wembley I know of was Marillion who probably realized they weren't gonna get on the bill long before the concert happeneds.
Wow, that was an intersesting (for me anyway LOL) way to spend 15 minutes.
"I think you're a load of old crap too, Mr Mulligan."
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alcockell
15 years ago
Well... if ABC had said "sod you" to Geldof's instruction that none of it was to be recorded, same as the beeb did..
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hallogallo
15 years ago
I know, but I guess an American corporation is a lot more likely to worry about legal niceties such as copyright ownership than a publicly owned British public service broadcaster.
I have a feeling the BBC just thought "What's Geldof/Harvey Goldsmith/various record labels gonna do? Issue a writ, hire a few goons and come take the tapes themselves?" That would have been something of a PR disaster for whoever tried it LOL.
"I think you're a load of old crap too, Mr Mulligan."
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alcockell
15 years ago
Actually, what apparently happened was that the head of Radio 1 Concerts challenged Geldof as they were making history... Geldof then said "Oh - do what you like"...
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15 years ago
[deleted]
hallogallo
15 years ago
Had a feeling it would be something as boring as that.
Also, just noticed a mistake on my above post:
Albert Collins is on the DVD, it's just that it took me about 3 months to bother watching John Thorogood's performance and spot him.
"I think you're a load of old crap too, Mr Mulligan."
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TMC-4
8 years ago
http://liveaid.free.fr/rewind/mtv/index.html
This is a minute by minute review of the MTV "Live Aid" live broadcast on July 13th, 1985 :
MTV being a private channel, they inserted advertisements, and as the money raised from these advertisement was reversed to Live Aid, they inserted a lot of advertisements. Some acts where just incomplete (like Queen) some other where axed in a middle of a song (like Judas Priest and Eric Clapton ...) which is not very clever as there was plenty of time in-between performances to insert the commercials ... But as most breaks included messages from various personalities about the cause and details on "how to give" this was a pain for a good.
One other good point for MTV, was that they had lots of journalists hanging around and doing interviews with the artists, which is great.
It is not our favorite source of watching, but at least they didn't messed it all like ABC ...
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