It was July 13, 1985: from the triumph of Queen to the disaster of Led Zeppelin, to Phil Collins’s double show
It was difficult to imagine a show like the Live Aid in 1985. For technical and organizational reasons at the same time. But Bob Geldof, the leader of the English band Boomtown Rats, armed with goodwill and determined to raise funds for the terrible famine that afflicted Ethiopia (in the end 150 million dollars were raised), managed to make his dream come true: to put together all the main stars of world music in the Wembley stadium in London and at the JFK in Philadelphia.
The result from the musical point of view was schizophrenic: The Queen did something unforgettable in Wembley, thirty minutes who literally obscured all the other participants in the event. An unrepeatable state of grace, effectively replicated in the Biopic-Best Seller, Bohemian Rhapsody. Six songs to bewitched the world on live TV: Bohemian Rhapsody, Radio Ga Ga, Hammer to Fall, Crazy Little Thin Called Love, We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions League.
The U2 performance is also powerful and incisive With only two songs, Sunday Bloody Sunday and a dilated version of Bad that also includes quotes from Lou Reed and Rolling Stones. Pure adrenaline the meeting on the stage between Tina Turner and Mick Jagger (State of Shock and It’s Only Rock and Roll). And then, again, the Whoho Dark on TV for most of My Generation due to a technical problem.
The splendid version of Heroes by David Bowie remains in history. Instead, the performance of Madonna is colorlessperhaps still too inexperienced for a live event of that size. Among the well -known pains the Duran Duran show With a couple of excellent out of tunes from Simon Le Bon.
But the most disastrous moment and at the same time expected of the event is the live of Led Zeppelintogether for the first time from death in 1980 of the drummer John Bonham. Phil Collins, after singing in London, goes up a Concorde and in five hours arrives in Philadelphia, just in time to join the Zeppelin. On stage there are two drummers, he and Tony Thompson. The climate in the backstage, before the performance, is bad: Jimmy Page is Collins as an intruder. On stage it goes even worse: Plant has a tired voice, Jimmy Page seems the ghost of himself and the amalgam with the two drummers is nothing short of approximate. Result: a failure. So much so that Plant and Page will not grant authorization. to insert the performance in the official DVD.
It doesn’t go much better to Bob Dylan on stage with two rolling stones: Keith Richards and Ron Wood. The performance is approximate and improvised, and a certain point in Dylan also breaks a guitar rope. Ron Wood passes his and from that moment a stroke an imaginary guitar in the void.
Technical problems for the last song of the London portion of the show with McCartney inton let it be without anyone being able to listen to it For a microphone problem. In his place, Wembley’s crowd intervenes first and then a quartet that breaks on stage to help him, formed by David Bowie, Bob Geldof, Pete Townshend and Alison Moyet.
