Bairdstravel would like to thank Willie and Eileen Monaghan for being our hosts at their Liveaid party at their home in Clydebank
Well there was only four of us but it was a great night
Eileen`s sister Pauline was lucky enough to make the concert down in London .She must have great memories from the gig. Kids Andrew and Mark were only weeks old and slept all the way through the most famous concert of all time.
Live Aid was a multi-venue rock music concert held on July 13, 1985 (1985-07-13). The event was organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia. Billed as the 'global jukebox', the event was held simultaneously in Wembley Stadium, London (attended by 82,000 people) and JFK Stadium, Philadelphia (attended by about 99,000 people). On the same day, concerts inspired by the initiative happened in other countries, such as Australia and Germany. It was one of the largest-scale satellite link-ups and television broadcasts of all time: an estimated 400 million viewers, across 60 countries, watched the live broadcast.
The Coldstream Guards band opened with the "Royal Salute", "God Save the Queen". Status Quo started their set with "Rockin' All Over the World", also playing "Caroline" and fan favourite "Don't Waste My Time". This was to be the last appearance by the band to feature bassist and founder member Alan Lancaster, and drummer Pete Kircher who had joined the band three years earlier.
Queen opening to massive cheers with "Bohemian Rhapsody", and the antics of lead singer Freddie Mercury who got the entire Wembley crowd clapping in unison to "Radio Ga Ga" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" before singing along, word-for-word, to "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions". The band's performance, also including "Hammer to Fall", led to Queen's slot being voted in a recent poll (by fans and musicians alike) as the 'Greatest Live Gig Ever'.
Elvis Costello singing a simple but touching version of the Beatles "All You Need is Love" which he introduced by asking the audience to "help (him) sing this old northern English folk song".
Another moment that garnered a huge crowd response was when David Bowie performed "Heroes" and dedicated it to his young son, as well as "all our children, and the children of the world".
U2's performance established them as a pre-eminent live group for the first time — something for which they would eventually become superstars. Bono jumped off the stage to join the crowd and danced with a girl. Because of this, the band only played two songs; the third, "Pride (In the Name of Love)", had to be ditched. In July 2005, the girl with whom he danced revealed that he actually saved her life at the time. She was being crushed by the throngs of people pushing forwards; Bono saw this, and gestured frantically at the ushers to help her. They didn't understand what he was saying, and so he jumped down to help her himself. This can be seen on the Live Aid DVD during "Bad".
The transatlantic broadcast from Wembley Stadium suffered technical problems and failed during The Who's performance of their song "My Generation", immediately after Roger Daltrey sang "Why don't you all fade..." (the last word was cut off when a blown fuse caused the Wembley stage TV feed to temporarily fail).
The Who were playing with Kenney Jones on drums, who was still an official member of The Who at this time, although this was their first performance since they'd officially disbanded after their 1982 'farewell' tour. The Who's performance included an at times shambolic, but still blistering version of "Won't Get Fooled Again", which was extremely popular with the audience in Wembley Stadium. The band's performance was described as "rough but right" by Rolling Stone magazine, but they would not perform together again until the 1988 BPI Awards.
At the conclusion of the Wembley performances, Bob Geldof was raised heroically onto the shoulders of The Who's guitarist Pete Townshend and McCartney — symbolising his great achievement in unifying the world for one day, in the spirit of music and charity.
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Paul McCartney performing "Let It Be" at Live Aid, 13 July 1985, Wembley Stadium, London. Original version where the microphone doesn't work for the first two minutes. Thank God everybody in the audience knows the words.
McCartney rerecorded his vocals 20 years later for the DVD release of the Live Aid concert.
Followed by "Do They Know It's Christmas?" by Band Aid, the Wembley finale.
Memorable moments at JFK
When Madonna got on stage, despite the 95°F ambient temperature, she proclaimed "I'm not taking shit off today!" referring to the recent release of early nude photos of her in Playboy and Penthouse magazines.
During his opening number, American Girl, Tom Petty flipped the middle finger to somebody off stage about one minute into song. Petty stated the song was a last minute addition when the band realised that they would be the first act to play the American side of the concert after the London finale and "since this is, after all, JFK Stadium"
When Bob Dylan broke a guitar string, Ronnie Wood took off his own guitar and gave it to Dylan. Wood was left standing on stage guitarless. After shrugging to the audience, he played air guitar, even mimicking The Who's Pete Townshend by swinging his arm in wide circles, until a stagehand brought him a replacement. Although this moment was left off the DVD, the performance itself was included, featuring footage focusing solely on Keith Richards.
During their duet on "It's Only Rock 'n' Roll", Mick Jagger ripped away part of Tina Turner's dress, leaving her to finish the song in what was, effectively, a leotard.
The JFK portion included reunions of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, the original Black Sabbath with Ozzy Osbourne, and surviving members of Led Zeppelin, with Phil Collins and Chic member Tony Thompson sharing duties on drums (although they were not officially announced by their group name from the stage, but were announced as Led Zeppelin on the VH1 10th Anniversary re-broadcast in 1995).
Teddy Pendergrass made his first public appearance since his near-fatal car accident in 1982 which paralysed him. Pendergrass, along with Ashford & Simpson, performed "Reach Out and Touch".
Also, Duran Duran performed a four-song set. The five original band members would not perform together publicly again until 2003. Their set is also memorable for an inadvertent falsetto note hit by frontman Simon Le Bon during "A View to a Kill", an error trumpeted by some media outlets as "The Bum Note Heard Round The World". Simon later recalled that it was the most embarrassing moment of his career.