May 7, 2019 • 51 mins
Live Aid was a revolutionary concert event in two countries in 1985 that spanned the world via satellite. The brainchild of musician Bob Geldof, it really did help change the world in many ways, but its direct impact on Ethiopian famine relief remains in question. Listen and learn today!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of five
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and
there's Jerry over there, and this is Stuff you Know
and nice, I think we should say what just happened
(00:23):
off Mike because as Jerry does once every three hundred episodes,
she realizes what we're recording on and has an actual
comment about it, right, and this is about Live Aid,
And she went, I was in London when Live Aid happened,
And Josh said, did you go? Jerry said, no, I
(00:44):
didn't know what was happening because we forget in there
wasn't an internet blast like Live Aid was a big deal.
But little Jerry, a little twelve year old Jerry in London,
doesn't know what's going on. To get any info, you
have to go down to the corner and look at
the telephone poll and see what somebody's staple there, yeah,
or go to hear the town crier on his uh
soapbox in the park Hyde Park. So it was a
(01:09):
very anticlimactic story because it led to nothing. But like anyway,
I was there, I was twelve yeah, I had no
controller agency over my life. Probably true. But Jerry, had
you been just three years older, you might have been
pulled up on stage with Bono to dance to dance
to dancing um in the dark. No, that was Bruce Springsteen.
(01:32):
He did not play Live Aid. Did you know? It
was Courtney Cox? All right? Sure it was not real.
It was set up. She was an actor. Stills. I
thought it was just coincidence. But yeah. One of the
most famous moments of Live Aid was when Bono and
We'll get there. But I watched it again today, Man,
I got a little teary, did you It was such
a great moment. Oh, I just wanted to be like Bonno, stop, No,
(01:55):
that's what everyone in the band was doing. I'm sure
it was like edge. You could ed still had hair before.
He just started wearing beanies all the time. And they
were playing the great song Bad and they did like
a seventeen minute version of their like twenty two minutes set.
Because Bono wanted to dance with a girl, and he
finally jumped down onto the floor of Wimbley Stadium got
(02:18):
this young fifteen year old girl dance with her for
like fifteen seconds, took another five minutes to get back
to the stage, because that's how long it takes to
get back up on stage. Starts crossing his face as
he realized what's going on and edges up there, and
Adam Clayton has his big white afro, and uh, Larry
Mullin still looked identical as he always has. And yeah,
(02:42):
and they just played that same riff from Bad over
and over and over, and they were a little mad
because he only got to do two songs. They were
gonna close with Pride in the Name of Love, which
everybody like wanted to hear. Sure, it was a big hit,
you know, they were a young band at the time,
but it was on and the band was a little miffed.
But in as it turns out, that became one of
the iconic moments of live aid and it really launched
(03:06):
YouTube into the stratosphere, which I mean, Bonno looked out
on that one because I imagine backstage right after that
set was not a pleasant place. Dude, what it's not
about you? Yeah, what are you doing? But it was
a nice moment, he said, I really wanted to dance
with that fifteen year old girl. I know. It was
very sweet. Her name is cal Collique, and she says
(03:29):
that she was getting kind of smushed and that that
kind of helped her out with security, like pulling her
by her hair over the barrier. Yeah, it doesn't look
very comfortable. It was rough. I should probably say at
this point, or we should a lot of the stuff
we're talking about you can go see. Yeah. I was
actually when I was researching this, I was like, what
a time to be allowed? Man? I was just pouring
through these videos. Yeah, you can just go watch. Most
(03:51):
of the stuff we're talking about is out there on YouTube.
So if if you ever just go what pause to YouTube?
Why o you two ub dot com type in L
I V E dash A I D. Yeah, you don't
even need the dash. Their their algorithm is that smart.
They don't know what you're talking about, and um start
watching videos. Yeah, I watched a bunch. We should just
(04:15):
talk about some of the ones through the episode that
we watched. The last thing I watched before we got
up to record was Sabbath. I didn't watch that one,
the Sabbath reunion. Uh. And we'll also say this was
so when you think man Zeppelin reunion, Sabbath Reunion, what
that really means is like chubby, big haired AUSI and
(04:36):
like Robert Plant wearing like electric blue pants. He was
just like Slater from Saved by the Bell. Yeah, it's
a big fat eighties reminder, Like, oh right, that's what
people look like. Even John Deacon from Queen had like
a big puffy, pleaded outfit. Was like they had the
(04:59):
eighties flag. But I was fourteen, and I think I've
told this story before, but I was babysitting. I had
an every day summer babysitting gig as a fourteen year
old babysitting these two kids that were like seventeen and nineteen. Yeah,
they were pretty close to my age looking back, they
were probably like eight and nine or something close. So
(05:22):
I was sort of like paid to go there and
kind of hang out with them and make sure they
didn't get in trouble. It wasn't like babysitting babysitting, But
I remember I watched virtually all of the Live Aid
telecast on MTV and was just stuck to it all
day long. I was I was nine. Yeah, uh, and
we were in London, but I didn't count. But you
(05:43):
and Jerry were in Hyde Park hanging out She's like,
there's this annoying nine year old just following me around
talking about podcasts. Says he's from the future, something about
a way back machine. Um. So yeah, thanks to Julia Layton,
who we have uh doing some writing for us now.
Dr Late's from back in the old day. She's great
(06:05):
and writes great stuff. And I threw Live Aid out
there because I thought it'd be good to learn a
little bit more about it. It was a good idea. Thanks.
So let's talk about the origins of this, Yes, because
Live Aid happened on July and um, the whole thing started.
The seed was planted about six months before, well a
(06:28):
little more than six months before, but not much more
than that, when either the BBC or the CBC, depending
on who you asked, ran a series of documentaries about
a drought and famine that was going on in Ethiopia
at the time. And apparently no one knew about this,
No one was reporting on it, It wasn't talked about.
(06:49):
And today it's hard to imagine that with our news cycle,
but it was different back then, right, but even still,
like you know, we we we became so indoctrinated from
that point on, and the idea of famine in Ethiopia.
UM that that it's hard to think of, you know,
not connecting the two. But no one knew about it,
and no one knew about it until I should say
(07:10):
that the CBC or BBC documentary series UM was aired
and it was powerful. There was a very famously a
young girl, UM, let me see if I can find
her name? Who was She looked like she was on
the verge of death. Her head just kind of lulling around.
(07:31):
She's skeletal, um and she she looks like at the
camera at one point and became kind of the face
of starving children in Ethiopia. Like really drove home, um,
what what was going on there. Her name was beer
Hahn will Do and she's grown now and is an
ambassador kind of like I don't think she's an official Inbastador,
(07:54):
she's kind of an unofficial ambassador for poverty, combating poverty
and hunger. Well she I bet she knows. I'm guaranteed
she does. But but she really kind of drove home
what was going on to viewers, including a guy from
Ireland named Bob Geldof Yeah, who Julia refers to as
a b list Irish rocker. It's probably pretty accurate. The
(08:18):
Boomtown Rats were a medium big band at best. Uh.
He Also, if you're a Pink Floyd fan, uh, he
played Pink in the movie The Wall. Yeah. I think
you told me this every time, Bob Gelk we talked
about this before. Obviously there was no Pink in real life,
but in the movie that was a character named Pink
by the way, which one's pink right exactly. Um So, Geldof,
(08:43):
they had that great song. Uh, I don't know why
I don't like one day's Pink Floyd did. That was
the Motown Rats, my friend. Yeah, that we got that
one plenty wrong. That was their big hit though. That
was Geldof's big hit, which again I thought was an
Elvis Costello song until I explained it to me. That's
we definitely we've talked about that, right, So, um man,
I wonder if twenty years so we're going to be
(09:04):
like remember when we Yeah, yeah, it's already happened to Chuck,
but we don't sound like Abe Simpson quite yet. So
Geldof saw this, really spoke to him, and he said,
here's what we're gonna do. I want to put together
a fundraiser. And this is not Live Aid yet. No,
this is band Aid right, previous to Live Aid. Uh.
(09:26):
They did the song that we some of us all
still love it around Christmas times. A good song, some
of us hate it? Who does? Do they know? It's Christmas?
Who hates that song? I think some people hate all
Christmas music? Yeah, you know, or or the very least
gets sick of certain songs. I can see that. Yeah,
but that one is okay. Let me put it this way.
(09:46):
I have never gotten sick of that one yet to
this day. No, I agree, um bono of course. Boy
George Bowie Banana Rama, Duran Duran, Wham you two Sting,
Phil Collins, you name it. Uh. They were sign on
that song and it benefited Ethiopian famine relief. That's what
got the ball rolling. Yeah, and again this was Bob
Geldof saw this documentary and started calling up everybody he knew,
(10:10):
pulling all these strings and put this together. And everyone
was going, how did Geldoff get my number? Exac list
Cyrus Rocker? Right? He he got this single produced and
released by December. He saw the documentary in October, So
that kind of gives you a hint. Of the kind
of dude Bob Geldolf was. He gets things done. He lied,
(10:31):
he bluffed, he didn't take no for an answer. He
got things done, sure, but to him, it was always
for the greatest, greater good. The there was a the
ends definitely justified the means, especially if it manipulating spoiled rockers. Yeah,
and we'll get to someone more some more of that later,
he for sure did. Uh. That song itself though, by
(10:53):
itself raise more than ten million bucks, and they have
over the years done a few different versions. It seems
like they updated every now and then with with new
whoever's the hot British rockers are at the time? Ed Sheeran, right,
he he was in the two thousand and fourteen version.
So was one direction. Okay, Um, they're the group, right, yeah, Okay,
(11:15):
they're a supergroup. Oh uh and then uh, well, I
don't know if that's actually accurate or not, but then seal,
you know, supergroup doesn't just mean they're super that means
right now, that's why I correct. Uh, And then uh
shenand O'Connor, she was on it two on the New
York Ones. The two fourteen version of Do They Know?
It was Christmas. Um So a month after that, Harry
(11:39):
Belafonte got together with a producer named Ken Kragan or Craigan,
and they said, well, we need to do our own
version over here in the US because we're looking pretty
bad geld Off as a B list Irish rocker and
he's getting all the limelight. I'm Harry Belafonte, right, So
he gets together and they um, this is where and
(12:00):
this is something I never knew The song We Are
the World, of course, is what we're talking about. I
always heard USA for Africa. I always thought it was
United States of America. That's what they wanted you to think.
I never knew that it stood for United Support of
Artists for Africa until today or yesterday. Well there you
how about that. I think it's a great thing that
(12:21):
they surreptitiously slipped that in. And that song was um
you know. Quincy Jones famously worked on it. It was written.
It was supposed to be written by Lionel Richie, Michael
Jackson and Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder was too wanted to
work on it, but it was a little too busy
to get involved in the writing at the time, so
it fell the line on Richie and Michael Jackson, and apparently,
(12:42):
if you believe LaToya Jackson, it was mostly Michael who
put that song together. I don't know about that, man,
because Lionel Richie's a pretty stand up dude from everything
I've ever heard. Well, I don't think he's made some
claim like I wrote half fifty of that song. Uh.
He was apparently pretty blown away because Michael Jackson, like
after he'd left, went ahead and like cut a demo
(13:03):
and brought it back and he was like, oh, well
that's impressive and exclusionary, right yeah, yeah, yeah, good ideas. Okay,
go go home. It's like he literally waited till I
walked out the door to hit record. Uh. I'd like
to see Linel Richie. I just looked up his he
played somewhere and I was like, what's he playing these days?
(13:23):
I looked up his set list. Is he coming to
chest thing anytimes? I don't know, man, but the set
list is amazing. I'm like every single song because he's
doing Commodore stuff, he's doing his own stuff. It's really
it seems like a fun show. A little bit of
deep purple. Oh sure, um, do we take a break already. No,
we haven't, Chuck, and I think it's high time that
(13:44):
we did. All right, let's do it. So where we
(14:09):
left off Charles was, I guess probably by this time
about January in USA for Africa, which does not stand
for USA like you think released We Are the World
because they were inspired by because you know, it's Christmas
at all. And apparently boy George had an idea of
(14:30):
going bigger and said to Geldof, look, mate, you did
pretty good. You raised ten million dollars. You inspired USA
for Africa, which raised like forty four million dollars within
a year. But you can do more. What if you
put on like the biggest concert ever? Maybe you should
do that. Boy George out vanishing a puff of smoke
like he does. I'd like to see boy George too.
(14:53):
I bet that's a fun show. You and I saw
Culture Club. They were good, how long like the last
few years? I guess, yeah, like the last two years.
It was at the original dudes, yes, as far as
you know, as far as I know. Yeah, And I
actually learned at that show that we are never to
let on that we're tired, because this is the penultimate
(15:15):
show of the tour and boy George kept talking about
it to the guitars about one more show after this,
and it's not a good looks I still have boy George,
but yes, it does not come off very well to
the audience. Well, I'm not tired. I feel great. That's
because we do two shows back to back once a quarter.
Oh you mean live live, Sure, we can talk about
(15:36):
anything here. It's the live stuff. Uh. I want to
go see Adam and the Ants too. I've been checking
out their touring again around. I don't know. I mean
it's Adam Ant for sure. I don't know if it's
any of the original ants. Would you know the difference? No,
but he's doing great too. Sure. So I got like
seeing these people coming back around healthy and like the
(15:58):
eighties did not kill them. Oh, they're really taking a
lot of dietary souff, a lot of botanicals. So, like
you said, uh, from the point where uh do they
know it's Christmas? In the in the Famine documentary started
rolling out. It was not very long after that they
managed to pull off a concert in London and Philadelphia,
(16:20):
transmitted by thirteen satellites to a hundred and sixty countries,
to an audience that was twenty five of the world's population.
I saw at one point that they announced that of
the world's televisions were tuned in at some point that broadcast.
That's amazing, It is amazing, and that's amazing today. It
(16:41):
was spectacular in Yeah, and by comparison, the Summer Olympics
the year before was only broadcast to sixty seven countries. Yeah,
ninety ninety, sorry, sixty seven countries, and live aid was
a hundred and sixty. So just we cannot overestimate how
huge of a deal this was, right, and it just
(17:04):
really kind of show off but also to kind of
buying the Western world together. It was held, like you said,
at two places at once, in London and in Philadelphia,
and there were there were concerts going on constantly in
both places. In the show, what you would see on TV,
what you watched in your babysitting would just kind of
switched back and forth depending on who had the bigger
(17:26):
act at the time. These days you could probably do
a split screen or they would just show both in
on two channels. Yeah, But the fact that they were
doing it at a time when, as Julia Layton puts it,
you know, during a time of cassette tapes and cathode
ray tube TVs. It's just really impressive that they that
Bob Geldoff managed to put it together and help pull
(17:49):
it off with very little problem. Yeah, it was in
just a few months to sixteen hours total for both
of the shows. Uh, they overlapped by about ten hours. Um.
And then there are also various satellite concerts going on
all over the world. Um with now you know, they
didn't have like sixty performers, but you know, smaller shows
(18:12):
kind of stage in conjunction. Yeah. Like I got the
impression that people who had already booked their tours and
were locked into a tour date but still wanted to
take part showing. Yeah, like Selene Dion, like doing a
number from Las Vegas on on New Year's Eve or something.
So it all kicked off at twelve noon London time,
(18:33):
seven am in the US. Um, the Coldstream Guards played
God Save the Queen. Charles and Diana came out on stage.
I know that that makes it pretty cool. It is
pretty cool. Did Diana park? Yeah, of course, what no
love for Charles? I mean sure, but he's still around.
He's not a live aid type, you know what. I mean,
(18:54):
I think he irons his jeans. I don't think he
wears jeans right, Um, you know why because he doesn't iron. Yeah,
he could probably find somebody to iron for him if
he wanted to. So they take the stage of Whimley.
They inaugurate Live Aid and then wait, hold on, was
that a joker? A reference that just went over my head?
What thing? Yeah? Okay, because I'm getting like intel and
(19:17):
feedback from listeners once awhile who right in was like
that was a hilarious reference. Chuck me, that went right
over Josh's head. I hate that really. Yes, you can't
get all the references. I want to get all the references.
So do this from no one. Okay, Josh is blinking
at me. Everyone, So to kick it off in anti dramatic,
(19:38):
climactic fashion. That's that's not very cool to say. The
bands status Quo was the first band. They were big
in England. I guess they were, but they were legendary.
I think their first hit single was in and this
is They've been around the place, and dude, they got
it off. Like if you watch Status Quo covering John
(19:58):
Fogerty's Rocking all over the World Old, which I did,
like the stadium is bouncing with energy. So they were
clearly popular over there. They were just never big in
the States. But they still did a fine job. No,
it was fine, an adequate work. Been like way to
kick off live, that's right? Uh? And who kicked it
off in the US? Josh Uh? It was Joan Bayes,
(20:20):
why not right? Who came out and was like, this
is your wood stocks long overdue? And they went who
are you? And she sang an acapella version of Amazing Grace,
kind of clumsily, leading the audience by singing very quickly
the next line and then singing that same line in
the American Amazing Grace melody. That really is clunky. It
(20:43):
was slightly clunky. Yeah, but you know it's a good
way to start the show. Sure it was amazing Grace
status quo and Joan Bayez clunkily singing amazing Grace. It
got better from there, basically, well it did. There were
seventy as. Every act had twenty minutes with was more
or less how long they played. A few bands went
over by a few minutes. But it's not if you've
(21:05):
ever done a festival or something, it's like it's not
cool too to just be like, we'll do one more tune.
That's just not something you do. I've never played a festival,
but I can imagine now we've done festival stuff when
we do sketch Fest every year. Oh yeah, that's right.
You did Outside Lands by yourself. Sure, but I didn't
(21:26):
have the impression. Oh yeah, they did kind of hustle
me out of there. I was like, what else you
got in the green room and they're like, just go
you're right, okay, all right, I got you. I thought
you were like at the end of your end of
the World thing, you were like, hey, anyone want to
hear something about like get them off um Phil Collins.
And this was a very big deal and a total
(21:46):
publicity stunt, but it worked. He and I think we
mentioned this in the Concord episode. He played both continents
and they had a film crew following me around. They
would cut to every once in a while, like Phil
Collins on the plane or hustling through an airport. There
is no better singer than or now to have done this.
Maybe probably right, maybe James Cordon would have would be
(22:08):
the go to person, but this is Phil Collins. Yeah yeah,
I mean, like, no cynicism, no rock star, and he
was kind of goofy and fun that guy. I think
you're totally right. He's playing again too, which is great news.
I didn't know that, yeah, because he he wasn't able
to play drums for a while and he's he's back
at it. What happened he I can't remember exactly what
(22:29):
it is, but he had some illness. Uh, I can't
remember exactly what, but where he like wasn't performing and
didn't think he would again. Oh boy, Yeah, So it's
kind of cool he's back out there again. He's great.
SU studio ended up. That's awesome because of the twenty
minutes sets. Some bands got you know, like you two
only got into songs um generally it was about three.
(22:52):
Some bands like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with their
tight don't borus get to the chorus? They got in four?
Uh oh did they? Yeah? They're set was epic. It's great.
Who somebody had like five? I counted, well, Queen did
sort of some Medley's and so they ended up getting
more songs in there that way. There's somebody else though
(23:13):
I can't quite put my finger out, sorry everybody, but
I saw it. I was like, Wow, it's a lot
more songs, and it seems like everybody else had they're
probably hurry up, hurry up, no banter. Um. So a
hundred and seventy thousand people total were live at the
two shows, but like we said, in the world one
point five billion people watched it as it was happening.
(23:33):
Pretty amazing. So on the actual day of the show, uh,
you you already kicked it off right. It started in
London and then started in Philadelphia two hours later Status
Quo and Joan Bias, and then there was overlap for
like ten hours I think, yeah, ten of the sixteen hours,
and then it went afterward it went to went back
(23:54):
to Philadelphia. But chuck, um, you saw Bohemian Rhapsody right
three times? Did you really see it three times? That's adorable? Um.
So that part at the end when they recreate live
AISI have you did you see the YouTube video of
the Live Aid version and the Bohemian Rhpsody version. I
(24:14):
did not watch the side by side comparison because it
is pretty close. Yeah, I mean I've watched that live
Aid performance dozens and dozens of times. Yeah, and they
nailed it. Um. The thing that bothered me about that
movie was how much they rewrote the timeline in the band,
so it was not Queen's first performance back, and like
(24:37):
they had just reunited and forgiven each other and he
had just told them about HIV, like none of that
the timeline so out of whack. Supposedly he didn't know
he had HIV yet at the Live AIG show. I
can't remember exactly. Was that pretty sure? But I mean
a lot of like they took a lot of license
and you know, it's fine, you're trying to make a
more dramatic film. I get it, but I don't if
(25:00):
it needed it because that performance itself. Still if you
look up any what were the best performances of Live Aid,
it's almost roundly, Um Queen is in the number one spot. Yeah,
not just Live Aid. Like a lot of people point
to that as like one of the greatest mini sets ever. Know,
the BBC did a poll in two thousand five and
that was named as the number one greatest rock performance
(25:22):
of all time. That is really great. Just gave me chills,
pretty amazing. I got chills right now, not even watching it,
just hearing you talk about a BBC poll or if
you're a medium writer. The article said it was like
Adam touching God on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Ben Franklin
(25:43):
wielding a lightning rod, or ET phoning home. Man, they
had me right up until the last one right there.
That's just so like, come on, just say it's great.
I didn't get the last It's like e T phoning home. Yeah,
Like I really tried to go on the writer's head too,
and I was like, no, if that was personal, Yeah,
(26:04):
that person really was moved by ET phone at home
or something. What else do we get? We got a
lot of anytime you have a big thing like this,
you have a lot of people collaborating on stage. Sting
and dire straits of course. Well yeah, Mick Jaggerantina Turner,
that was pretty unforgettable. But not just Mick Jaggarantina Turner,
(26:24):
because it turns out that Tommy Matola, who's the head
of Sony Records, said hey, if you don't get Hall
and Oates on with Mick Jagger, Mick Jagger's not going on,
And Hall and Oates backed up Tina Turner and Mick Jagger.
Oh yeah, see I thought that they were saying, if
you don't give Holland Oates a primetime slot. Then they're not.
(26:45):
Then Mick Jagger won't come because he represented both. I
think that that was there. They they equivocated by saying
we'll have him back up Mick Jagger and Tina Turner.
And even still if you look up Hall and Oates,
it just comes up Mick Jaggerantina to Earner. They're not
even listed in the video anymore. But at least John
Oates was back in then them up. Yeah, I'm pretty
(27:06):
sure Darryl Hall was too. Man. They were good. Yeah,
still are Yeah. Emily One saw them a couple of
years ago, just killing it. Still. Yeah, it's good stuff.
I like that. Live at Darrell's house too, that show. Uh,
I haven't seen that. I don't know if he's still
doing it, but he did it for a few years
at least, and it's basically his awesome home studio. He
(27:27):
just test people over and a camera crew and they
just jam and do songs. They'll do like a hollow
note song and then mainly the songs of the artist.
I feel like I've seen them. It's fun since they've
been back around. Definitely saw Tears for Fears, well, they
played with them that might have been. Yeah, we didn't
stick around for Holling Notes, and I think the reason
(27:48):
why is because we had seen Holly Notes already. Yeah,
like what happened in my brain? Uh, Phil Collins. They
got a lot out of Phil Collins because not only
did he sing in both he played drums with Eric Clapton,
he played drums with Led Zeppelin. Yeah. So let's talk
about that Zeppelin performance. You can't dance around this any longer, Chuck.
(28:10):
It was not very good. It was terrible. Yeah. Like
if you if you saw Led Zeppelin in like a
fifty person club and they've been drinking at the club
the whole day, this is what you would expect to
hear from it, you'd probably be like, that was awesome. Yeah,
but for the first time back on stage together in
five years since the death of their drummer, they went
(28:34):
out at like their peak. There wasn't a decline of
led Zeppelin. They were at their peak when Bonham died.
According to me, Um, you don't think so. I think
their last album was kind of a disappointment. What was
that physical graffiti? No coda? Oh well, that's like I
haven't heard of that one okay, all right, fair enough.
(28:56):
They were still huge and they're still they still had
playing your music left to put out. So there were
expectations on Zeppelin, okay, okay, and they come out and
play just a terrible set. So much of that. Phil
Collins later on in his um autobiography said, I was
really thinking about walking off stage in the middle. And
the reason I did because I knew that people would
(29:18):
be talking about to this day how Phil Collins ruined
led Zeppelin set, not about how bad led Zeppelin set was.
So he said he was air drumming, trying to keep
out of the way because there were two drummers. Drum yeah,
but she didn't realize that there was going to be
two drummers. And he basically said, it was just it
was just terrible, and if you watch it, it was
pretty bad. I'm looking at led Zeppelin now because I
(29:39):
don't want to mess up. I thought you were texting.
No Presence was their final album, not Coda? What was
on Present? Oh no, wait in through the Outdoor. See
this is what I'm saying. Man. They were still like
very much at their peak. Good lord, I can't believe
I'm getting all this Zeppelin stuff wrong. El Cooda was
released in nineteen eight two. Yeah, but that but this
(30:00):
was it was a compilation out right, Okay, that's what
I was saying. So their last studio album would have
been What Presents or into the I think Presence, which
didn't have much presence. Sorry that should we cut that joke? No? No,
I like it. You're coming like full boy? Did I
have a micro expression? Go over quite a few? Um
(30:24):
so yeah. I mean, if you watch Zeppelin's performance, they
wanted it scrubbed from the world. You can still find
like credit versions on YouTube, not the official live aid
just like the guy that had the camera on his
shoulder in his living room. Basically, apparently Santana requested the
same thing. You can't find Santana said anymore because they said,
don't include that on that h It worked strives in
(30:48):
effect on them. Zeppelin's isn't the worst thing I've ever seen,
But Robert Plant was not in great form vocally, and
he admit such like they all look back and we're like,
it wasn't great. No, Jimmy Page was, Um didn't do
that great of a job either. It wasn't It wasn't
so horrendous that you're just like holding your nose. Yeah,
(31:08):
but it just wasn't anything like what everybody was hoping for.
Zabbees was pretty good, I really despite it was chunky,
big hair at Aussie, but what else do you want
from it? Was? They did Children of the Grave, Iron
Man and Paranoid and it was it was pretty you know,
I want to say words here we don't say on
the show B word in. Yeah, it was um we
(31:30):
say that, We've said that before. Really sure, all right,
it was awesome, okay, Uh. Live Aid at Wimbley ended
it around ten pm with do you do they know
It's Christmas? They brought everyone that they could out on stage.
Of course, Paul McCartney there was there, the who was there.
And then right after that ended, they switched the live
heat over to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with their
(31:52):
great great set. They did American Girl, Refugee, the Waiting
and Rebels and Uh eighty five to spite the clothes
that was still like kind of peaked. Tom Petty too, Sure,
I think the clothes really got to you. Huh. It's
just kind of you think of these classic rockers and
then you see him in Cavericies and like take. I
(32:13):
think it's dope. Like Bob Dylan was there. Man. He
actually Bob Dylan very famously like we'll not pick up
an acoustic guitar and like play his old folks standards anymore?
Did he on this one? Yeah? He played Blown in
the Wind and he was dressed almost identically to the
Fresh Prince. That would have been really really disappointing. Oh
(32:35):
my lord. Um. And then they closed the Philly show
UH with We Are the World and whoever was there
who could chip in, like Kenny Loggins and China Easton
and Melissa Manchester. Man, this is so eighties. Do you
remember her? Do you? Oh? Yeah, okay, I had to
look her up, like I know the name, but what
she's saying, don't cry out loud? Good song theme from
(32:58):
Ice Castles. Yeah, that's and Uh. Our mutual friend Allison
that we used to work with, UH calls us car
Sick songs because it just reminds her like being in
the back of the station wagon listening to a M
radio and being like car sick. I think it's a
good good thing. So they raised about a d million bucks,
which is about three hundred million today. UM. Donations did
(33:22):
pick up when Queen played, they over kind of they
really played that up in the movie, but they did
have an uptick when Queen went on because it was
such a great performance. Yeah. I think Geldof was kind
of anticipating, like the phone is to be ringing off
the hook the whole time, and um, he got very
frustrated visibly several times during the broadcast. Yeah he said
(33:44):
the F word. Yeah, that got people pumped up. It did. Um,
there was he was. They went to like an interview
where they were kind of talking up the reason why
Live Aid was going on, and um, the interviewer was like, well,
here's the let's get the address up on the on
the screen, and he said, f the address, just give
him the phone, right, Yeah, that's what they were thinking.
(34:06):
So so uh and like his bandmates or other I
don't know who else was was there. Who the other
rats I guess maybe or else Maybe one was um
uh was his name Midge Ray? He's Yeah, he's kind
of an unsung, overlooked coordinator. He really helped gold Off
(34:27):
put this together. He might have been up there, but
they all kind of looked at each other like, oh
my god. He just said the effort on the BBC,
and that got the MTV generation going. The phone started
ringing around then because somebody just said the effort on TV,
which if you remember back before South Park came along,
that did not happen. It did not happen. Like damn
(34:49):
was I don't want to say controversial, but it was
like it perked your ears up when you heard that
on TV because it was just so out of the ordinary.
This guy said that on TV on live TV being
broadcast around the world. It got people's attention for Yeah,
that's still a big deal to hear in a life
teeth Like if you hear that at an award show
or something, it's not shocking, but everyone goes, oh, you're
(35:11):
supposed to do that. A little eight year old and
he's like, you're gonna get in trouble. All right, let's
take another break and we'll talk about what went on
behind the scenes and where all this money went. Right
after this, chuck, Yes, let's talk about what went on
(35:49):
behind the scenes and where all this money went. So
to put together a show this big, especially in six months, Um,
they're gonna be a lot of problems and there were, Uh,
if you talk to the artists, they all across the
board had monitor issues, yeah, and just couldn't led Zeppelin.
I mean they didn't blame it on that, but you
(36:11):
even hear Robert Plant in the thing say like, let's
see if we can get these monitors going. Uh, And
they couldn't hear themselves. And I always had heard that
until I started playing shows with my my dumb old
man band, like you can't hear ourselves. And I was
always like, what do you mean, Like you got these
ams blasting, But it's true. You can't hear yourself on
a stage, and especially in outdoor stage unless you've got
(36:35):
really really great systems and monitors, you can't hear yourself.
And it's very, very disconcerting to play music. Well it's
just weird, like you know that they're hearing something that
you're not hearing, and you're just like, I hope it's okay.
So no one could hear themselves, which is a problem. Um.
I believe that they had power issues at Wimbley where
(36:56):
they thought it might completely go out, like they were
having little brown outs. Um, there were you know, even
though this is for charity, there were you still are
dealing with huge diva popping rock stars and their management,
who at all by this time found out that Jerry
wasn't there, So what's the point of going on stage? Well,
(37:17):
I mean they were, you know, they were still behind
the scenes, like ego battles and like, you can't go
on after this act, but my guy won't go on
after this person, or you know, trying to get more
time than twenty minutes. Was so so much so that
Billy Joel actually did not go on because he um.
(37:38):
His manager was like, they want you to do piano.
And believe me, these other guys ain't playing piano. You're
gonna look puny compared to these other sets. And he went,
do you mean piano? Man the song? And they went no,
they want you to play the piano, which, man, oh
that was so great, dumb um. And he was like,
(38:01):
you mean the instrument that made me famous, that I
wrote a song about that I play on of my songs.
They want me to do that and he went yeah,
and he went I'm not doing it no way, Billy
jo for nobody. He's like, I'll just get my telecaster
do matter of trust three times. That's a good song.
That's a deep Billy Joel joke, is it? Not the deepest,
(38:23):
but that's the one where he plays guitar on stage.
It's kind of like the only song that he plays
guitar on. What do you know? He went and played
like a couple of dates in the Soviet Union and
like ended up helping to thaw relations between the US
and the uss are almost single handedly. He also threw
a tantrum on stage the first night because it was
(38:45):
a bunch of like government muckety MUCKs is standing in
the front row st the military. It wasn't and government
muckety MUCKs. And he was like, get the real fans
out right. So he like pushed his piano over and
mid and it doesn't miss a beat, like keeps singing
in the band, keeps playing, even though they're probably terrified
that they're going to be putting a Soviet goolog forever.
I will still go see him every single time I
(39:06):
have a chance. But anyway, Billy Joel didn't play live
aid is the point? No, he didn't, and he wasn't
the only one. Yeah, van Halen turned it down. Diana
Ross lives him, and Elly Boy I know why they
asked her, Well, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, that's
not I'm not knocking her, but I don't know. It
just doesn't seem like a fit. It doesn't. You're right,
(39:27):
it's like between Sabbath and led Zeppelin. They're gonna try
Lisam and Ellie out there for goods. Troubles come on,
get happy? Uh, Yoko on no Uh. Cindy Lauper, talking heads,
Stevie Wonder a C d C. And Springsteen, who still
really really regrets not doing Live Aid. Not just him,
a lot of them do. Frankie goes to Hollywood turned
(39:49):
it down, and apparently that was their manager who who
was like, you don't want to do this is gonna
be like a disaster, and the band was like afterward,
they said it was the the worst management decision in
the history of Frankie said, the lead singer. Really yeah, Um,
they were really upset that they didn't do it. Springsteen said,
I really wish I was just throwing the guitar in
(40:10):
the back seat and driven on down. That's what he said.
He'd wish he'd driven on down the thunder road. Yeah,
I mean he yeah, Springsteen should have done it, And
I think he knows that there was a lot of
regret among people who didn't. Some people were like, I'm
just absolutely not doing it. Michael Jackson was It says
here that he was in the studio, but I read
(40:30):
that he uh didn't sign on in protest because there
weren't any African acts on the bill or enough act
freaking acts on the bill for his taste. Um. And
then Huey Lewis was another one. Yeah, that was a
big one that turned out to uh. And that'll be
a good segue too to what happened to the money,
because Huey Lewis is one of the few artists who
came out just a few weeks before and publicly said like,
(40:55):
where's this money going? And is this really really helping
to fight famine? Because that's what's important to the news.
My friend, I was really surprised. I didn't realize that
Huey Lewis was a woke Yeah. And and that's a
very good point, like, um, can I say woke? Okay,
Jerry Um. That was the big question to Huey Lewis,
(41:17):
and He's like, I'm not going out there and signing
up for this because I don't really know the He
was slightly cynical, but rightfully so. I think Yeah. He
had been in USA for Africa, and it was like,
I'm not convinced that that money by this time, you know,
tens of millions of dollars actually making it to the
(41:38):
famine victims. And everybody was like, what famine victims. He's like,
don't you remember that's the whole reason we're doing this,
and Geldof, I I don't want to make it sound
like Geldof ever lost focus like that and why he
did this, and he proved it during the show and
he stomped on stages like give me your money. These
people are dying now. And he's still very adamant and
defensive about the funds, right, geld this, but Huey Lewis
(42:01):
was the first one to publicly say, I'm not certain
that these famine victims are actually getting this money. And
UM we talked about this. We did an episode on
famine and droughts, and I believe it was the famine
one that we talked about it in. But six months
after Live Aid was finished and complete and just made
like a hundred and fifty million dollars. I believe that
(42:24):
UM worth more than three hundred million a day this
concert one day concert raised nearly three hundred billion dollars
for victims of famine in Africa, in a little country
called Ethiopia that most people hadn't heard of. Um, And
Spin Magazine sent a reporter there and said, go find
out what happened to that money. And Spin Magazine's reporter
(42:47):
came back and I was like, yeah, I don't know
if you guys want to hear what happened to that money,
because it turns out that Ethiopia was in the midst
of a civil war that was being reported reported on
even less than the famine. And it turns out that
the government in Ethiopia was actually largely causing the famine,
or at least exacerbating the worst of it. Yeah, weren't they.
(43:08):
So there was a the Dirt so what it was called,
which means counsel or committee. They were the military junta, Yeah,
the Dirt regime, and they after Holly Selassie died in
ninety five, they took control as this military group. Well
they they may have actually strangled them to death. Well
it says in the article suspicious Death, So I think
(43:28):
that's fair to say. Um, But there was they were
basically they're they're various stories depending on who you want
to believe. Bob Geldolf's still says that most of this
money went there, but there are other reports that it
was being intercepted, aid was being intercepted, and they were
funding their civil war, and that they were making the
famine worse by dropping napalm on croplands this whole time,
(43:52):
cutting off supply lines to the north, and the north
there was this there was a civil war going on
because the north used to be a country called air Tree.
You and then in World War two, Ethiopia said you
you're coming with us. You're part of Ethiopia now, and um,
there was an insurgency that eventually was successful. I think
in Eritrea became independent from Ethiopia again. But this is
(44:14):
how that happened through the civil war and all of
a sudden, the West injects five million dollars into this
country that's racked by famine and civil war and civil war.
That's helping cause the famine. And apparently either a lot
of people didn't know about this, or a lot of
people didn't think we may actually be helping the civil
war by injecting this money in the country and turning
(44:37):
it over to the Ethiopian government. And still to this day,
it's not entirely clear how much the Ethio Ethiopian government
spent on like arms and supplies to fund this this
this war against the insurgency in the north. Yeah, I
think that's that's one of my biggest fears of any
kind of thing like this, of like handing over this
(44:59):
kind of some of money to countries that, uh, you
don't know where it ends up. It's just like it's
maddening to think because you want to do the right
thing and donate and support these causes, but if it's
actually making things worse, you know, that's the thing. It's
one thing if if you know it's it's not helping
as much as you would like it to write, it's
(45:19):
an entirely different thing if you're actually giving money to
make it easier for somebody to kill some other person,
like making it worse. And that's the big question that
surrounds you know, the funds from Live AIGs and Yeah,
and you think it's frustrating because the BBC in two
thousand and ten published a report uh kind of claiming
a lot of this the money being diverted to build
(45:42):
you know, reputed places and people. Yeah, they said the opposite.
They said that the rebel insurgency in Eritrea and recepted
most of the money and they used it to fund
their their um civil war. But then they retracted a
lot of the stuff because Geldoff, you know, got mad.
This is only you know, eight or nine years ago,
and he was no, that's not true. So there's still
(46:02):
just a lot of debate over where that money went. Right,
the BBC attracted the story and published an apology too,
so they may have gotten that really wrong. I don't
think they do that kind of thing just because Bob
Geldof gets mad, you know, sosh right. I think they
got the reporting very wrong. But I also have the
(46:22):
impression that guild Off, whether he believes, and and a
lot of the funds went to NGOs on the ground,
aid groups on the ground, and it didn't all just
go to the Ethiopian government. And apparently in the aid
industry UM they still look at this like, Okay, even
if some of the money didn't get to where you
wanted it, and it went to places you wouldn't want
(46:44):
it to go, this still helped raise awareness of the
kind of stuff that goes on in Africa that the
West was not aware of. It was. It had a huge,
huge impact on how you should do these events in
the future. Um, this kicked off farm Maide and hands
across America. That America for sure. Have you seen us yet? No?
(47:06):
But I ran across an article that reference that and
I was like, I can't wait to see that movie
even more now. It's good. Um but yeah, I mean
it kicked off farm Aide. It kicked off like every
benefit concert, global benefit concert you've ever seen since then
can trace its roots back to Live Aid, including Live eight,
which was another gelof one. That's a lot of people said,
(47:27):
call it Live aid too, and you'll get a lot
more traction. Yeah, but that wasn't to raise money. That
was just to raise awareness for the Live eight conference.
The eight Yeah yeah, what I say, the Live eight conference.
But think about it. Geldof wasn't trying to raise money anymore.
He was trying to raise awareness. And I wonder if
that was because he either became convinced that that money
(47:49):
did go to sources that he didn't want it to,
or if he was just like, I'm tired of arguing
about it. I'm not gonna go to this again. But
as a result of that um, the eight team pours
nations in the world had their debts canceled by the
eighth eight richest nations in the world. And I think
the Aid to Africa is like doubled um over the
(48:10):
previous G eight summit. Yeah, and you know, previous to
nineteen five, you didn't. I mean you had like George
Harrison doing the concert for Bangladesh, which is kind of
one of the first high profile things like that, but
you didn't see a ton of big rock stars out,
you know, championing causes. And I think it really inspired
(48:32):
a generation of young people and uh of the popping
rocks celebrities of that age too, to like maybe do
something beneficial with their riches and their Yeah, for sure,
everyftter co caine for a couple of days and go
do something with your life, you rocker. Yeah, you can
get back on the cocaine in a week. Just put
(48:52):
it off to the side. Yeah, So just put an
upside down magazine over it and come back to it later.
It was a monumental event and one that I have
a lot of funness for. Still, big, big deal. That's great.
I don't remember any of it. I remember watching it
on MTV and my big sisters were there, but I
don't remember. I have no real memories. I was pretty stupid.
I guess you were nine. I was almost nine, two
(49:15):
days shy of being nine. Yeah, I mean, what is
that third grade? I was probably out playing with like
hey man stuff most of the timexactly, trying to find
cigarette butts on the ground. Not yet just a few
years later, though, That's right. Uh. If you want to
know more about Live AID I think Chuck and I
and probably Jerry would strongly advise you to just go
onto YouTube and spend a little time looking at concert
(49:36):
footage from it. Yeah, or send in your special live
aid memories. I like being in London and not knowing
what was going on. I love that one. Um. And
since we said that, since we made funded Jerry's terrible
Live aid story, it's time for listening to mate. Hey guys,
listening to your episode on rape kits. My heart sank
(49:57):
when you apologize for being two dudes educating people about
the options one might have after being raped or sexually assaulted.
It sounded as if you thought that men in general
are not fit to do this, which I don't think
is true. I'm a doctor, guys, who works with men
and women that experienced sexual violence, and I imagine that
male victims would find an apology of this kind unnecessary
at best, as with the male therapists who are doing
(50:20):
great work, and you can serve as much needed therapeutically
invaluable counter examples after someone has had bad experiences with men. Also,
don't think your initial disclaimer that this would be a
serious episode without any jokes was warranted, and I'm glad
the episode didn't turn out that way. If anything, you're
good natured humor brought so much needed warmth to the discussion.
(50:40):
We are all still trying to figure out how to
talk about these topics, and I would like to encourage
you to stand by your efforts shining a light on
a difficult topic for the benefit of your listeners. Thank you, guys,
keep it up. That is from Hanno. Hanno, h no, no,
thanks a lot, Hanno. It's a great name. Yeah, and
if I'm not mistaken, it said Hanno was in Hanover, Germany. No, yeah, really,
(51:07):
I wonder if they like the town so much. They
just said call me Hanno from now on everybody, I
love this town. It's like me, I'm from chuckdown your
addle what a t l Oh gotcha? Yeah, Chucktown, I
guess makes more sense if either one does well. Thanks
a lot, Hannoh. We appreciate that. We will try to
take your advice to heart because it is pretty good advice. Uh.
(51:29):
And if you want to get in touch of this,
like Hanno did, you can go on to stuff you
Should Know dot com and find our social links. You
can also send us an email to stuff podcast at
iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
production of iHeart Radios. How stuff works for more podcasts
for my heart Radio because at the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or where ever you listen to your favorite
(51:51):
shows
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of five
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, and
there's Jerry over there, and this is Stuff you Know
and nice, I think we should say what just happened
(00:23):
off Mike because as Jerry does once every three hundred episodes,
she realizes what we're recording on and has an actual
comment about it, right, and this is about Live Aid,
And she went, I was in London when Live Aid happened,
And Josh said, did you go? Jerry said, no, I
(00:44):
didn't know what was happening because we forget in there
wasn't an internet blast like Live Aid was a big deal.
But little Jerry, a little twelve year old Jerry in London,
doesn't know what's going on. To get any info, you
have to go down to the corner and look at
the telephone poll and see what somebody's staple there, yeah,
or go to hear the town crier on his uh
soapbox in the park Hyde Park. So it was a
(01:09):
very anticlimactic story because it led to nothing. But like anyway,
I was there, I was twelve yeah, I had no
controller agency over my life. Probably true. But Jerry, had
you been just three years older, you might have been
pulled up on stage with Bono to dance to dance
to dancing um in the dark. No, that was Bruce Springsteen.
(01:32):
He did not play Live Aid. Did you know? It
was Courtney Cox? All right? Sure it was not real.
It was set up. She was an actor. Stills. I
thought it was just coincidence. But yeah. One of the
most famous moments of Live Aid was when Bono and
We'll get there. But I watched it again today, Man,
I got a little teary, did you It was such
a great moment. Oh, I just wanted to be like Bonno, stop, No,
(01:55):
that's what everyone in the band was doing. I'm sure
it was like edge. You could ed still had hair before.
He just started wearing beanies all the time. And they
were playing the great song Bad and they did like
a seventeen minute version of their like twenty two minutes set.
Because Bono wanted to dance with a girl, and he
finally jumped down onto the floor of Wimbley Stadium got
(02:18):
this young fifteen year old girl dance with her for
like fifteen seconds, took another five minutes to get back
to the stage, because that's how long it takes to
get back up on stage. Starts crossing his face as
he realized what's going on and edges up there, and
Adam Clayton has his big white afro, and uh, Larry
Mullin still looked identical as he always has. And yeah,
(02:42):
and they just played that same riff from Bad over
and over and over, and they were a little mad
because he only got to do two songs. They were
gonna close with Pride in the Name of Love, which
everybody like wanted to hear. Sure, it was a big hit,
you know, they were a young band at the time,
but it was on and the band was a little miffed.
But in as it turns out, that became one of
the iconic moments of live aid and it really launched
(03:06):
YouTube into the stratosphere, which I mean, Bonno looked out
on that one because I imagine backstage right after that
set was not a pleasant place. Dude, what it's not
about you? Yeah, what are you doing? But it was
a nice moment, he said, I really wanted to dance
with that fifteen year old girl. I know. It was
very sweet. Her name is cal Collique, and she says
(03:29):
that she was getting kind of smushed and that that
kind of helped her out with security, like pulling her
by her hair over the barrier. Yeah, it doesn't look
very comfortable. It was rough. I should probably say at
this point, or we should a lot of the stuff
we're talking about you can go see. Yeah. I was
actually when I was researching this, I was like, what
a time to be allowed? Man? I was just pouring
through these videos. Yeah, you can just go watch. Most
(03:51):
of the stuff we're talking about is out there on YouTube.
So if if you ever just go what pause to YouTube?
Why o you two ub dot com type in L
I V E dash A I D. Yeah, you don't
even need the dash. Their their algorithm is that smart.
They don't know what you're talking about, and um start
watching videos. Yeah, I watched a bunch. We should just
(04:15):
talk about some of the ones through the episode that
we watched. The last thing I watched before we got
up to record was Sabbath. I didn't watch that one,
the Sabbath reunion. Uh. And we'll also say this was
so when you think man Zeppelin reunion, Sabbath Reunion, what
that really means is like chubby, big haired AUSI and
(04:36):
like Robert Plant wearing like electric blue pants. He was
just like Slater from Saved by the Bell. Yeah, it's
a big fat eighties reminder, Like, oh right, that's what
people look like. Even John Deacon from Queen had like
a big puffy, pleaded outfit. Was like they had the
(04:59):
eighties flag. But I was fourteen, and I think I've
told this story before, but I was babysitting. I had
an every day summer babysitting gig as a fourteen year
old babysitting these two kids that were like seventeen and nineteen. Yeah,
they were pretty close to my age looking back, they
were probably like eight and nine or something close. So
(05:22):
I was sort of like paid to go there and
kind of hang out with them and make sure they
didn't get in trouble. It wasn't like babysitting babysitting, But
I remember I watched virtually all of the Live Aid
telecast on MTV and was just stuck to it all
day long. I was I was nine. Yeah, uh, and
we were in London, but I didn't count. But you
(05:43):
and Jerry were in Hyde Park hanging out She's like,
there's this annoying nine year old just following me around
talking about podcasts. Says he's from the future, something about
a way back machine. Um. So yeah, thanks to Julia Layton,
who we have uh doing some writing for us now.
Dr Late's from back in the old day. She's great
(06:05):
and writes great stuff. And I threw Live Aid out
there because I thought it'd be good to learn a
little bit more about it. It was a good idea. Thanks.
So let's talk about the origins of this, Yes, because
Live Aid happened on July and um, the whole thing started.
The seed was planted about six months before, well a
(06:28):
little more than six months before, but not much more
than that, when either the BBC or the CBC, depending
on who you asked, ran a series of documentaries about
a drought and famine that was going on in Ethiopia
at the time. And apparently no one knew about this,
No one was reporting on it, It wasn't talked about.
(06:49):
And today it's hard to imagine that with our news cycle,
but it was different back then, right, but even still,
like you know, we we we became so indoctrinated from
that point on, and the idea of famine in Ethiopia.
UM that that it's hard to think of, you know,
not connecting the two. But no one knew about it,
and no one knew about it until I should say
(07:10):
that the CBC or BBC documentary series UM was aired
and it was powerful. There was a very famously a
young girl, UM, let me see if I can find
her name? Who was She looked like she was on
the verge of death. Her head just kind of lulling around.
(07:31):
She's skeletal, um and she she looks like at the
camera at one point and became kind of the face
of starving children in Ethiopia. Like really drove home, um,
what what was going on there. Her name was beer
Hahn will Do and she's grown now and is an
ambassador kind of like I don't think she's an official Inbastador,
(07:54):
she's kind of an unofficial ambassador for poverty, combating poverty
and hunger. Well she I bet she knows. I'm guaranteed
she does. But but she really kind of drove home
what was going on to viewers, including a guy from
Ireland named Bob Geldof Yeah, who Julia refers to as
a b list Irish rocker. It's probably pretty accurate. The
(08:18):
Boomtown Rats were a medium big band at best. Uh.
He Also, if you're a Pink Floyd fan, uh, he
played Pink in the movie The Wall. Yeah. I think
you told me this every time, Bob Gelk we talked
about this before. Obviously there was no Pink in real life,
but in the movie that was a character named Pink
by the way, which one's pink right exactly. Um So, Geldof,
(08:43):
they had that great song. Uh, I don't know why
I don't like one day's Pink Floyd did. That was
the Motown Rats, my friend. Yeah, that we got that
one plenty wrong. That was their big hit though. That
was Geldof's big hit, which again I thought was an
Elvis Costello song until I explained it to me. That's
we definitely we've talked about that, right, So, um man,
I wonder if twenty years so we're going to be
(09:04):
like remember when we Yeah, yeah, it's already happened to Chuck,
but we don't sound like Abe Simpson quite yet. So
Geldof saw this, really spoke to him, and he said,
here's what we're gonna do. I want to put together
a fundraiser. And this is not Live Aid yet. No,
this is band Aid right, previous to Live Aid. Uh.
(09:26):
They did the song that we some of us all
still love it around Christmas times. A good song, some
of us hate it? Who does? Do they know? It's Christmas?
Who hates that song? I think some people hate all
Christmas music? Yeah, you know, or or the very least
gets sick of certain songs. I can see that. Yeah,
but that one is okay. Let me put it this way.
(09:46):
I have never gotten sick of that one yet to
this day. No, I agree, um bono of course. Boy
George Bowie Banana Rama, Duran Duran, Wham you two Sting,
Phil Collins, you name it. Uh. They were sign on
that song and it benefited Ethiopian famine relief. That's what
got the ball rolling. Yeah, and again this was Bob
Geldof saw this documentary and started calling up everybody he knew,
(10:10):
pulling all these strings and put this together. And everyone
was going, how did Geldoff get my number? Exac list
Cyrus Rocker? Right? He he got this single produced and
released by December. He saw the documentary in October, So
that kind of gives you a hint. Of the kind
of dude Bob Geldolf was. He gets things done. He lied,
(10:31):
he bluffed, he didn't take no for an answer. He
got things done, sure, but to him, it was always
for the greatest, greater good. The there was a the
ends definitely justified the means, especially if it manipulating spoiled rockers. Yeah,
and we'll get to someone more some more of that later,
he for sure did. Uh. That song itself though, by
(10:53):
itself raise more than ten million bucks, and they have
over the years done a few different versions. It seems
like they updated every now and then with with new
whoever's the hot British rockers are at the time? Ed Sheeran, right,
he he was in the two thousand and fourteen version.
So was one direction. Okay, Um, they're the group, right, yeah, Okay,
(11:15):
they're a supergroup. Oh uh and then uh, well, I
don't know if that's actually accurate or not, but then seal,
you know, supergroup doesn't just mean they're super that means
right now, that's why I correct. Uh, And then uh
shenand O'Connor, she was on it two on the New
York Ones. The two fourteen version of Do They Know?
It was Christmas. Um So a month after that, Harry
(11:39):
Belafonte got together with a producer named Ken Kragan or Craigan,
and they said, well, we need to do our own
version over here in the US because we're looking pretty
bad geld Off as a B list Irish rocker and
he's getting all the limelight. I'm Harry Belafonte, right, So
he gets together and they um, this is where and
(12:00):
this is something I never knew The song We Are
the World, of course, is what we're talking about. I
always heard USA for Africa. I always thought it was
United States of America. That's what they wanted you to think.
I never knew that it stood for United Support of
Artists for Africa until today or yesterday. Well there you
how about that. I think it's a great thing that
(12:21):
they surreptitiously slipped that in. And that song was um
you know. Quincy Jones famously worked on it. It was written.
It was supposed to be written by Lionel Richie, Michael
Jackson and Stevie Wonder. Stevie Wonder was too wanted to
work on it, but it was a little too busy
to get involved in the writing at the time, so
it fell the line on Richie and Michael Jackson, and apparently,
(12:42):
if you believe LaToya Jackson, it was mostly Michael who
put that song together. I don't know about that, man,
because Lionel Richie's a pretty stand up dude from everything
I've ever heard. Well, I don't think he's made some
claim like I wrote half fifty of that song. Uh.
He was apparently pretty blown away because Michael Jackson, like
after he'd left, went ahead and like cut a demo
(13:03):
and brought it back and he was like, oh, well
that's impressive and exclusionary, right yeah, yeah, yeah, good ideas. Okay,
go go home. It's like he literally waited till I
walked out the door to hit record. Uh. I'd like
to see Linel Richie. I just looked up his he
played somewhere and I was like, what's he playing these days?
(13:23):
I looked up his set list. Is he coming to
chest thing anytimes? I don't know, man, but the set
list is amazing. I'm like every single song because he's
doing Commodore stuff, he's doing his own stuff. It's really
it seems like a fun show. A little bit of
deep purple. Oh sure, um, do we take a break already. No,
we haven't, Chuck, and I think it's high time that
(13:44):
we did. All right, let's do it. So where we
(14:09):
left off Charles was, I guess probably by this time
about January in USA for Africa, which does not stand
for USA like you think released We Are the World
because they were inspired by because you know, it's Christmas
at all. And apparently boy George had an idea of
(14:30):
going bigger and said to Geldof, look, mate, you did
pretty good. You raised ten million dollars. You inspired USA
for Africa, which raised like forty four million dollars within
a year. But you can do more. What if you
put on like the biggest concert ever? Maybe you should
do that. Boy George out vanishing a puff of smoke
like he does. I'd like to see boy George too.
(14:53):
I bet that's a fun show. You and I saw
Culture Club. They were good, how long like the last
few years? I guess, yeah, like the last two years.
It was at the original dudes, yes, as far as
you know, as far as I know. Yeah, And I
actually learned at that show that we are never to
let on that we're tired, because this is the penultimate
(15:15):
show of the tour and boy George kept talking about
it to the guitars about one more show after this,
and it's not a good looks I still have boy George,
but yes, it does not come off very well to
the audience. Well, I'm not tired. I feel great. That's
because we do two shows back to back once a quarter.
Oh you mean live live, Sure, we can talk about
(15:36):
anything here. It's the live stuff. Uh. I want to
go see Adam and the Ants too. I've been checking
out their touring again around. I don't know. I mean
it's Adam Ant for sure. I don't know if it's
any of the original ants. Would you know the difference? No,
but he's doing great too. Sure. So I got like
seeing these people coming back around healthy and like the
(15:58):
eighties did not kill them. Oh, they're really taking a
lot of dietary souff, a lot of botanicals. So, like
you said, uh, from the point where uh do they
know it's Christmas? In the in the Famine documentary started
rolling out. It was not very long after that they
managed to pull off a concert in London and Philadelphia,
(16:20):
transmitted by thirteen satellites to a hundred and sixty countries,
to an audience that was twenty five of the world's population.
I saw at one point that they announced that of
the world's televisions were tuned in at some point that broadcast.
That's amazing, It is amazing, and that's amazing today. It
(16:41):
was spectacular in Yeah, and by comparison, the Summer Olympics
the year before was only broadcast to sixty seven countries. Yeah,
ninety ninety, sorry, sixty seven countries, and live aid was
a hundred and sixty. So just we cannot overestimate how
huge of a deal this was, right, and it just
(17:04):
really kind of show off but also to kind of
buying the Western world together. It was held, like you said,
at two places at once, in London and in Philadelphia,
and there were there were concerts going on constantly in
both places. In the show, what you would see on TV,
what you watched in your babysitting would just kind of
switched back and forth depending on who had the bigger
(17:26):
act at the time. These days you could probably do
a split screen or they would just show both in
on two channels. Yeah, But the fact that they were
doing it at a time when, as Julia Layton puts it,
you know, during a time of cassette tapes and cathode
ray tube TVs. It's just really impressive that they that
Bob Geldoff managed to put it together and help pull
(17:49):
it off with very little problem. Yeah, it was in
just a few months to sixteen hours total for both
of the shows. Uh, they overlapped by about ten hours. Um.
And then there are also various satellite concerts going on
all over the world. Um with now you know, they
didn't have like sixty performers, but you know, smaller shows
(18:12):
kind of stage in conjunction. Yeah. Like I got the
impression that people who had already booked their tours and
were locked into a tour date but still wanted to
take part showing. Yeah, like Selene Dion, like doing a
number from Las Vegas on on New Year's Eve or something.
So it all kicked off at twelve noon London time,
(18:33):
seven am in the US. Um, the Coldstream Guards played
God Save the Queen. Charles and Diana came out on stage.
I know that that makes it pretty cool. It is
pretty cool. Did Diana park? Yeah, of course, what no
love for Charles? I mean sure, but he's still around.
He's not a live aid type, you know what. I mean,
(18:54):
I think he irons his jeans. I don't think he
wears jeans right, Um, you know why because he doesn't iron. Yeah,
he could probably find somebody to iron for him if
he wanted to. So they take the stage of Whimley.
They inaugurate Live Aid and then wait, hold on, was
that a joker? A reference that just went over my head?
What thing? Yeah? Okay, because I'm getting like intel and
(19:17):
feedback from listeners once awhile who right in was like
that was a hilarious reference. Chuck me, that went right
over Josh's head. I hate that really. Yes, you can't
get all the references. I want to get all the references.
So do this from no one. Okay, Josh is blinking
at me. Everyone, So to kick it off in anti dramatic,
(19:38):
climactic fashion. That's that's not very cool to say. The
bands status Quo was the first band. They were big
in England. I guess they were, but they were legendary.
I think their first hit single was in and this
is They've been around the place, and dude, they got
it off. Like if you watch Status Quo covering John
(19:58):
Fogerty's Rocking all over the World Old, which I did,
like the stadium is bouncing with energy. So they were
clearly popular over there. They were just never big in
the States. But they still did a fine job. No,
it was fine, an adequate work. Been like way to
kick off live, that's right? Uh? And who kicked it
off in the US? Josh Uh? It was Joan Bayes,
(20:20):
why not right? Who came out and was like, this
is your wood stocks long overdue? And they went who
are you? And she sang an acapella version of Amazing Grace,
kind of clumsily, leading the audience by singing very quickly
the next line and then singing that same line in
the American Amazing Grace melody. That really is clunky. It
(20:43):
was slightly clunky. Yeah, but you know it's a good
way to start the show. Sure it was amazing Grace
status quo and Joan Bayez clunkily singing amazing Grace. It
got better from there, basically, well it did. There were
seventy as. Every act had twenty minutes with was more
or less how long they played. A few bands went
over by a few minutes. But it's not if you've
(21:05):
ever done a festival or something, it's like it's not
cool too to just be like, we'll do one more tune.
That's just not something you do. I've never played a festival,
but I can imagine now we've done festival stuff when
we do sketch Fest every year. Oh yeah, that's right.
You did Outside Lands by yourself. Sure, but I didn't
(21:26):
have the impression. Oh yeah, they did kind of hustle
me out of there. I was like, what else you
got in the green room and they're like, just go
you're right, okay, all right, I got you. I thought
you were like at the end of your end of
the World thing, you were like, hey, anyone want to
hear something about like get them off um Phil Collins.
And this was a very big deal and a total
(21:46):
publicity stunt, but it worked. He and I think we
mentioned this in the Concord episode. He played both continents
and they had a film crew following me around. They
would cut to every once in a while, like Phil
Collins on the plane or hustling through an airport. There
is no better singer than or now to have done this.
Maybe probably right, maybe James Cordon would have would be
(22:08):
the go to person, but this is Phil Collins. Yeah yeah,
I mean, like, no cynicism, no rock star, and he
was kind of goofy and fun that guy. I think
you're totally right. He's playing again too, which is great news.
I didn't know that, yeah, because he he wasn't able
to play drums for a while and he's he's back
at it. What happened he I can't remember exactly what
(22:29):
it is, but he had some illness. Uh, I can't
remember exactly what, but where he like wasn't performing and
didn't think he would again. Oh boy, Yeah, So it's
kind of cool he's back out there again. He's great.
SU studio ended up. That's awesome because of the twenty
minutes sets. Some bands got you know, like you two
only got into songs um generally it was about three.
(22:52):
Some bands like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with their
tight don't borus get to the chorus? They got in four?
Uh oh did they? Yeah? They're set was epic. It's great.
Who somebody had like five? I counted, well, Queen did
sort of some Medley's and so they ended up getting
more songs in there that way. There's somebody else though
(23:13):
I can't quite put my finger out, sorry everybody, but
I saw it. I was like, Wow, it's a lot
more songs, and it seems like everybody else had they're
probably hurry up, hurry up, no banter. Um. So a
hundred and seventy thousand people total were live at the
two shows, but like we said, in the world one
point five billion people watched it as it was happening.
(23:33):
Pretty amazing. So on the actual day of the show, uh,
you you already kicked it off right. It started in
London and then started in Philadelphia two hours later Status
Quo and Joan Bias, and then there was overlap for
like ten hours I think, yeah, ten of the sixteen hours,
and then it went afterward it went to went back
(23:54):
to Philadelphia. But chuck, um, you saw Bohemian Rhapsody right
three times? Did you really see it three times? That's adorable? Um.
So that part at the end when they recreate live
AISI have you did you see the YouTube video of
the Live Aid version and the Bohemian Rhpsody version. I
(24:14):
did not watch the side by side comparison because it
is pretty close. Yeah, I mean I've watched that live
Aid performance dozens and dozens of times. Yeah, and they
nailed it. Um. The thing that bothered me about that
movie was how much they rewrote the timeline in the band,
so it was not Queen's first performance back, and like
(24:37):
they had just reunited and forgiven each other and he
had just told them about HIV, like none of that
the timeline so out of whack. Supposedly he didn't know
he had HIV yet at the Live AIG show. I
can't remember exactly. Was that pretty sure? But I mean
a lot of like they took a lot of license
and you know, it's fine, you're trying to make a
more dramatic film. I get it, but I don't if
(25:00):
it needed it because that performance itself. Still if you
look up any what were the best performances of Live Aid,
it's almost roundly, Um Queen is in the number one spot. Yeah,
not just Live Aid. Like a lot of people point
to that as like one of the greatest mini sets ever. Know,
the BBC did a poll in two thousand five and
that was named as the number one greatest rock performance
(25:22):
of all time. That is really great. Just gave me chills,
pretty amazing. I got chills right now, not even watching it,
just hearing you talk about a BBC poll or if
you're a medium writer. The article said it was like
Adam touching God on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Ben Franklin
(25:43):
wielding a lightning rod, or ET phoning home. Man, they
had me right up until the last one right there.
That's just so like, come on, just say it's great.
I didn't get the last It's like e T phoning home. Yeah,
Like I really tried to go on the writer's head too,
and I was like, no, if that was personal, Yeah,
(26:04):
that person really was moved by ET phone at home
or something. What else do we get? We got a
lot of anytime you have a big thing like this,
you have a lot of people collaborating on stage. Sting
and dire straits of course. Well yeah, Mick Jaggerantina Turner,
that was pretty unforgettable. But not just Mick Jaggarantina Turner,
(26:24):
because it turns out that Tommy Matola, who's the head
of Sony Records, said hey, if you don't get Hall
and Oates on with Mick Jagger, Mick Jagger's not going on,
And Hall and Oates backed up Tina Turner and Mick Jagger.
Oh yeah, see I thought that they were saying, if
you don't give Holland Oates a primetime slot. Then they're not.
(26:45):
Then Mick Jagger won't come because he represented both. I
think that that was there. They they equivocated by saying
we'll have him back up Mick Jagger and Tina Turner.
And even still if you look up Hall and Oates,
it just comes up Mick Jaggerantina to Earner. They're not
even listed in the video anymore. But at least John
Oates was back in then them up. Yeah, I'm pretty
(27:06):
sure Darryl Hall was too. Man. They were good. Yeah,
still are Yeah. Emily One saw them a couple of
years ago, just killing it. Still. Yeah, it's good stuff.
I like that. Live at Darrell's house too, that show. Uh,
I haven't seen that. I don't know if he's still
doing it, but he did it for a few years
at least, and it's basically his awesome home studio. He
(27:27):
just test people over and a camera crew and they
just jam and do songs. They'll do like a hollow
note song and then mainly the songs of the artist.
I feel like I've seen them. It's fun since they've
been back around. Definitely saw Tears for Fears, well, they
played with them that might have been. Yeah, we didn't
stick around for Holling Notes, and I think the reason
(27:48):
why is because we had seen Holly Notes already. Yeah,
like what happened in my brain? Uh, Phil Collins. They
got a lot out of Phil Collins because not only
did he sing in both he played drums with Eric Clapton,
he played drums with Led Zeppelin. Yeah. So let's talk
about that Zeppelin performance. You can't dance around this any longer, Chuck.
(28:10):
It was not very good. It was terrible. Yeah. Like
if you if you saw Led Zeppelin in like a
fifty person club and they've been drinking at the club
the whole day, this is what you would expect to
hear from it, you'd probably be like, that was awesome. Yeah,
but for the first time back on stage together in
five years since the death of their drummer, they went
(28:34):
out at like their peak. There wasn't a decline of
led Zeppelin. They were at their peak when Bonham died.
According to me, Um, you don't think so. I think
their last album was kind of a disappointment. What was
that physical graffiti? No coda? Oh well, that's like I
haven't heard of that one okay, all right, fair enough.
(28:56):
They were still huge and they're still they still had
playing your music left to put out. So there were
expectations on Zeppelin, okay, okay, and they come out and
play just a terrible set. So much of that. Phil
Collins later on in his um autobiography said, I was
really thinking about walking off stage in the middle. And
the reason I did because I knew that people would
(29:18):
be talking about to this day how Phil Collins ruined
led Zeppelin set, not about how bad led Zeppelin set was.
So he said he was air drumming, trying to keep
out of the way because there were two drummers. Drum yeah,
but she didn't realize that there was going to be
two drummers. And he basically said, it was just it
was just terrible, and if you watch it, it was
pretty bad. I'm looking at led Zeppelin now because I
(29:39):
don't want to mess up. I thought you were texting.
No Presence was their final album, not Coda? What was
on Present? Oh no, wait in through the Outdoor. See
this is what I'm saying. Man. They were still like
very much at their peak. Good lord, I can't believe
I'm getting all this Zeppelin stuff wrong. El Cooda was
released in nineteen eight two. Yeah, but that but this
(30:00):
was it was a compilation out right, Okay, that's what
I was saying. So their last studio album would have
been What Presents or into the I think Presence, which
didn't have much presence. Sorry that should we cut that joke? No? No,
I like it. You're coming like full boy? Did I
have a micro expression? Go over quite a few? Um
(30:24):
so yeah. I mean, if you watch Zeppelin's performance, they
wanted it scrubbed from the world. You can still find
like credit versions on YouTube, not the official live aid
just like the guy that had the camera on his
shoulder in his living room. Basically, apparently Santana requested the
same thing. You can't find Santana said anymore because they said,
don't include that on that h It worked strives in
(30:48):
effect on them. Zeppelin's isn't the worst thing I've ever seen,
But Robert Plant was not in great form vocally, and
he admit such like they all look back and we're like,
it wasn't great. No, Jimmy Page was, Um didn't do
that great of a job either. It wasn't It wasn't
so horrendous that you're just like holding your nose. Yeah,
(31:08):
but it just wasn't anything like what everybody was hoping for.
Zabbees was pretty good, I really despite it was chunky,
big hair at Aussie, but what else do you want
from it? Was? They did Children of the Grave, Iron
Man and Paranoid and it was it was pretty you know,
I want to say words here we don't say on
the show B word in. Yeah, it was um we
(31:30):
say that, We've said that before. Really sure, all right,
it was awesome, okay, Uh. Live Aid at Wimbley ended
it around ten pm with do you do they know
It's Christmas? They brought everyone that they could out on stage.
Of course, Paul McCartney there was there, the who was there.
And then right after that ended, they switched the live
heat over to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with their
(31:52):
great great set. They did American Girl, Refugee, the Waiting
and Rebels and Uh eighty five to spite the clothes
that was still like kind of peaked. Tom Petty too, Sure,
I think the clothes really got to you. Huh. It's
just kind of you think of these classic rockers and
then you see him in Cavericies and like take. I
(32:13):
think it's dope. Like Bob Dylan was there. Man. He
actually Bob Dylan very famously like we'll not pick up
an acoustic guitar and like play his old folks standards anymore?
Did he on this one? Yeah? He played Blown in
the Wind and he was dressed almost identically to the
Fresh Prince. That would have been really really disappointing. Oh
(32:35):
my lord. Um. And then they closed the Philly show
UH with We Are the World and whoever was there
who could chip in, like Kenny Loggins and China Easton
and Melissa Manchester. Man, this is so eighties. Do you
remember her? Do you? Oh? Yeah, okay, I had to
look her up, like I know the name, but what
she's saying, don't cry out loud? Good song theme from
(32:58):
Ice Castles. Yeah, that's and Uh. Our mutual friend Allison
that we used to work with, UH calls us car
Sick songs because it just reminds her like being in
the back of the station wagon listening to a M
radio and being like car sick. I think it's a
good good thing. So they raised about a d million bucks,
which is about three hundred million today. UM. Donations did
(33:22):
pick up when Queen played, they over kind of they
really played that up in the movie, but they did
have an uptick when Queen went on because it was
such a great performance. Yeah. I think Geldof was kind
of anticipating, like the phone is to be ringing off
the hook the whole time, and um, he got very
frustrated visibly several times during the broadcast. Yeah he said
(33:44):
the F word. Yeah, that got people pumped up. It did. Um,
there was he was. They went to like an interview
where they were kind of talking up the reason why
Live Aid was going on, and um, the interviewer was like, well,
here's the let's get the address up on the on
the screen, and he said, f the address, just give
him the phone, right, Yeah, that's what they were thinking.
(34:06):
So so uh and like his bandmates or other I
don't know who else was was there. Who the other
rats I guess maybe or else Maybe one was um
uh was his name Midge Ray? He's Yeah, he's kind
of an unsung, overlooked coordinator. He really helped gold Off
(34:27):
put this together. He might have been up there, but
they all kind of looked at each other like, oh
my god. He just said the effort on the BBC,
and that got the MTV generation going. The phone started
ringing around then because somebody just said the effort on TV,
which if you remember back before South Park came along,
that did not happen. It did not happen. Like damn
(34:49):
was I don't want to say controversial, but it was
like it perked your ears up when you heard that
on TV because it was just so out of the ordinary.
This guy said that on TV on live TV being
broadcast around the world. It got people's attention for Yeah,
that's still a big deal to hear in a life
teeth Like if you hear that at an award show
or something, it's not shocking, but everyone goes, oh, you're
(35:11):
supposed to do that. A little eight year old and
he's like, you're gonna get in trouble. All right, let's
take another break and we'll talk about what went on
behind the scenes and where all this money went. Right
after this, chuck, Yes, let's talk about what went on
(35:49):
behind the scenes and where all this money went. So
to put together a show this big, especially in six months, Um,
they're gonna be a lot of problems and there were, Uh,
if you talk to the artists, they all across the
board had monitor issues, yeah, and just couldn't led Zeppelin.
I mean they didn't blame it on that, but you
(36:11):
even hear Robert Plant in the thing say like, let's
see if we can get these monitors going. Uh, And
they couldn't hear themselves. And I always had heard that
until I started playing shows with my my dumb old
man band, like you can't hear ourselves. And I was
always like, what do you mean, Like you got these
ams blasting, But it's true. You can't hear yourself on
a stage, and especially in outdoor stage unless you've got
(36:35):
really really great systems and monitors, you can't hear yourself.
And it's very, very disconcerting to play music. Well it's
just weird, like you know that they're hearing something that
you're not hearing, and you're just like, I hope it's okay.
So no one could hear themselves, which is a problem. Um.
I believe that they had power issues at Wimbley where
(36:56):
they thought it might completely go out, like they were
having little brown outs. Um, there were you know, even
though this is for charity, there were you still are
dealing with huge diva popping rock stars and their management,
who at all by this time found out that Jerry
wasn't there, So what's the point of going on stage? Well,
(37:17):
I mean they were, you know, they were still behind
the scenes, like ego battles and like, you can't go
on after this act, but my guy won't go on
after this person, or you know, trying to get more
time than twenty minutes. Was so so much so that
Billy Joel actually did not go on because he um.
(37:38):
His manager was like, they want you to do piano.
And believe me, these other guys ain't playing piano. You're
gonna look puny compared to these other sets. And he went,
do you mean piano? Man the song? And they went no,
they want you to play the piano, which, man, oh
that was so great, dumb um. And he was like,
(38:01):
you mean the instrument that made me famous, that I
wrote a song about that I play on of my songs.
They want me to do that and he went yeah,
and he went I'm not doing it no way, Billy
jo for nobody. He's like, I'll just get my telecaster
do matter of trust three times. That's a good song.
That's a deep Billy Joel joke, is it? Not the deepest,
(38:23):
but that's the one where he plays guitar on stage.
It's kind of like the only song that he plays
guitar on. What do you know? He went and played
like a couple of dates in the Soviet Union and
like ended up helping to thaw relations between the US
and the uss are almost single handedly. He also threw
a tantrum on stage the first night because it was
(38:45):
a bunch of like government muckety MUCKs is standing in
the front row st the military. It wasn't and government
muckety MUCKs. And he was like, get the real fans
out right. So he like pushed his piano over and
mid and it doesn't miss a beat, like keeps singing
in the band, keeps playing, even though they're probably terrified
that they're going to be putting a Soviet goolog forever.
I will still go see him every single time I
(39:06):
have a chance. But anyway, Billy Joel didn't play live
aid is the point? No, he didn't, and he wasn't
the only one. Yeah, van Halen turned it down. Diana
Ross lives him, and Elly Boy I know why they
asked her, Well, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, that's
not I'm not knocking her, but I don't know. It
just doesn't seem like a fit. It doesn't. You're right,
(39:27):
it's like between Sabbath and led Zeppelin. They're gonna try
Lisam and Ellie out there for goods. Troubles come on,
get happy? Uh, Yoko on no Uh. Cindy Lauper, talking heads,
Stevie Wonder a C d C. And Springsteen, who still
really really regrets not doing Live Aid. Not just him,
a lot of them do. Frankie goes to Hollywood turned
(39:49):
it down, and apparently that was their manager who who
was like, you don't want to do this is gonna
be like a disaster, and the band was like afterward,
they said it was the the worst management decision in
the history of Frankie said, the lead singer. Really yeah, Um,
they were really upset that they didn't do it. Springsteen said,
I really wish I was just throwing the guitar in
(40:10):
the back seat and driven on down. That's what he said.
He'd wish he'd driven on down the thunder road. Yeah,
I mean he yeah, Springsteen should have done it, And
I think he knows that there was a lot of
regret among people who didn't. Some people were like, I'm
just absolutely not doing it. Michael Jackson was It says
here that he was in the studio, but I read
(40:30):
that he uh didn't sign on in protest because there
weren't any African acts on the bill or enough act
freaking acts on the bill for his taste. Um. And
then Huey Lewis was another one. Yeah, that was a
big one that turned out to uh. And that'll be
a good segue too to what happened to the money,
because Huey Lewis is one of the few artists who
came out just a few weeks before and publicly said like,
(40:55):
where's this money going? And is this really really helping
to fight famine? Because that's what's important to the news.
My friend, I was really surprised. I didn't realize that
Huey Lewis was a woke Yeah. And and that's a
very good point, like, um, can I say woke? Okay,
Jerry Um. That was the big question to Huey Lewis,
(41:17):
and He's like, I'm not going out there and signing
up for this because I don't really know the He
was slightly cynical, but rightfully so. I think Yeah. He
had been in USA for Africa, and it was like,
I'm not convinced that that money by this time, you know,
tens of millions of dollars actually making it to the
(41:38):
famine victims. And everybody was like, what famine victims. He's like,
don't you remember that's the whole reason we're doing this,
and Geldof, I I don't want to make it sound
like Geldof ever lost focus like that and why he
did this, and he proved it during the show and
he stomped on stages like give me your money. These
people are dying now. And he's still very adamant and
defensive about the funds, right, geld this, but Huey Lewis
(42:01):
was the first one to publicly say, I'm not certain
that these famine victims are actually getting this money. And
UM we talked about this. We did an episode on
famine and droughts, and I believe it was the famine
one that we talked about it in. But six months
after Live Aid was finished and complete and just made
like a hundred and fifty million dollars. I believe that
(42:24):
UM worth more than three hundred million a day this
concert one day concert raised nearly three hundred billion dollars
for victims of famine in Africa, in a little country
called Ethiopia that most people hadn't heard of. Um, And
Spin Magazine sent a reporter there and said, go find
out what happened to that money. And Spin Magazine's reporter
(42:47):
came back and I was like, yeah, I don't know
if you guys want to hear what happened to that money,
because it turns out that Ethiopia was in the midst
of a civil war that was being reported reported on
even less than the famine. And it turns out that
the government in Ethiopia was actually largely causing the famine,
or at least exacerbating the worst of it. Yeah, weren't they.
(43:08):
So there was a the Dirt so what it was called,
which means counsel or committee. They were the military junta, Yeah,
the Dirt regime, and they after Holly Selassie died in
ninety five, they took control as this military group. Well
they they may have actually strangled them to death. Well
it says in the article suspicious Death, So I think
(43:28):
that's fair to say. Um, But there was they were
basically they're they're various stories depending on who you want
to believe. Bob Geldolf's still says that most of this
money went there, but there are other reports that it
was being intercepted, aid was being intercepted, and they were
funding their civil war, and that they were making the
famine worse by dropping napalm on croplands this whole time,
(43:52):
cutting off supply lines to the north, and the north
there was this there was a civil war going on
because the north used to be a country called air Tree.
You and then in World War two, Ethiopia said you
you're coming with us. You're part of Ethiopia now, and um,
there was an insurgency that eventually was successful. I think
in Eritrea became independent from Ethiopia again. But this is
(44:14):
how that happened through the civil war and all of
a sudden, the West injects five million dollars into this
country that's racked by famine and civil war and civil war.
That's helping cause the famine. And apparently either a lot
of people didn't know about this, or a lot of
people didn't think we may actually be helping the civil
war by injecting this money in the country and turning
(44:37):
it over to the Ethiopian government. And still to this day,
it's not entirely clear how much the Ethio Ethiopian government
spent on like arms and supplies to fund this this
this war against the insurgency in the north. Yeah, I
think that's that's one of my biggest fears of any
kind of thing like this, of like handing over this
(44:59):
kind of some of money to countries that, uh, you
don't know where it ends up. It's just like it's
maddening to think because you want to do the right
thing and donate and support these causes, but if it's
actually making things worse, you know, that's the thing. It's
one thing if if you know it's it's not helping
as much as you would like it to write, it's
(45:19):
an entirely different thing if you're actually giving money to
make it easier for somebody to kill some other person,
like making it worse. And that's the big question that
surrounds you know, the funds from Live AIGs and Yeah,
and you think it's frustrating because the BBC in two
thousand and ten published a report uh kind of claiming
a lot of this the money being diverted to build
(45:42):
you know, reputed places and people. Yeah, they said the opposite.
They said that the rebel insurgency in Eritrea and recepted
most of the money and they used it to fund
their their um civil war. But then they retracted a
lot of the stuff because Geldoff, you know, got mad.
This is only you know, eight or nine years ago,
and he was no, that's not true. So there's still
(46:02):
just a lot of debate over where that money went. Right,
the BBC attracted the story and published an apology too,
so they may have gotten that really wrong. I don't
think they do that kind of thing just because Bob
Geldof gets mad, you know, sosh right. I think they
got the reporting very wrong. But I also have the
(46:22):
impression that guild Off, whether he believes, and and a
lot of the funds went to NGOs on the ground,
aid groups on the ground, and it didn't all just
go to the Ethiopian government. And apparently in the aid
industry UM they still look at this like, Okay, even
if some of the money didn't get to where you
wanted it, and it went to places you wouldn't want
(46:44):
it to go, this still helped raise awareness of the
kind of stuff that goes on in Africa that the
West was not aware of. It was. It had a huge,
huge impact on how you should do these events in
the future. Um, this kicked off farm Maide and hands
across America. That America for sure. Have you seen us yet? No?
(47:06):
But I ran across an article that reference that and
I was like, I can't wait to see that movie
even more now. It's good. Um but yeah, I mean
it kicked off farm Aide. It kicked off like every
benefit concert, global benefit concert you've ever seen since then
can trace its roots back to Live Aid, including Live eight,
which was another gelof one. That's a lot of people said,
(47:27):
call it Live aid too, and you'll get a lot
more traction. Yeah, but that wasn't to raise money. That
was just to raise awareness for the Live eight conference.
The eight Yeah yeah, what I say, the Live eight conference.
But think about it. Geldof wasn't trying to raise money anymore.
He was trying to raise awareness. And I wonder if
that was because he either became convinced that that money
(47:49):
did go to sources that he didn't want it to,
or if he was just like, I'm tired of arguing
about it. I'm not gonna go to this again. But
as a result of that um, the eight team pours
nations in the world had their debts canceled by the
eighth eight richest nations in the world. And I think
the Aid to Africa is like doubled um over the
(48:10):
previous G eight summit. Yeah, and you know, previous to
nineteen five, you didn't. I mean you had like George
Harrison doing the concert for Bangladesh, which is kind of
one of the first high profile things like that, but
you didn't see a ton of big rock stars out,
you know, championing causes. And I think it really inspired
(48:32):
a generation of young people and uh of the popping
rocks celebrities of that age too, to like maybe do
something beneficial with their riches and their Yeah, for sure,
everyftter co caine for a couple of days and go
do something with your life, you rocker. Yeah, you can
get back on the cocaine in a week. Just put
(48:52):
it off to the side. Yeah, So just put an
upside down magazine over it and come back to it later.
It was a monumental event and one that I have
a lot of funness for. Still, big, big deal. That's great.
I don't remember any of it. I remember watching it
on MTV and my big sisters were there, but I
don't remember. I have no real memories. I was pretty stupid.
I guess you were nine. I was almost nine, two
(49:15):
days shy of being nine. Yeah, I mean, what is
that third grade? I was probably out playing with like
hey man stuff most of the timexactly, trying to find
cigarette butts on the ground. Not yet just a few
years later, though, That's right. Uh. If you want to
know more about Live AID I think Chuck and I
and probably Jerry would strongly advise you to just go
onto YouTube and spend a little time looking at concert
(49:36):
footage from it. Yeah, or send in your special live
aid memories. I like being in London and not knowing
what was going on. I love that one. Um. And
since we said that, since we made funded Jerry's terrible
Live aid story, it's time for listening to mate. Hey guys,
listening to your episode on rape kits. My heart sank
(49:57):
when you apologize for being two dudes educating people about
the options one might have after being raped or sexually assaulted.
It sounded as if you thought that men in general
are not fit to do this, which I don't think
is true. I'm a doctor, guys, who works with men
and women that experienced sexual violence, and I imagine that
male victims would find an apology of this kind unnecessary
at best, as with the male therapists who are doing
(50:20):
great work, and you can serve as much needed therapeutically
invaluable counter examples after someone has had bad experiences with men. Also,
don't think your initial disclaimer that this would be a
serious episode without any jokes was warranted, and I'm glad
the episode didn't turn out that way. If anything, you're
good natured humor brought so much needed warmth to the discussion.
(50:40):
We are all still trying to figure out how to
talk about these topics, and I would like to encourage
you to stand by your efforts shining a light on
a difficult topic for the benefit of your listeners. Thank you, guys,
keep it up. That is from Hanno. Hanno, h no, no,
thanks a lot, Hanno. It's a great name. Yeah, and
if I'm not mistaken, it said Hanno was in Hanover, Germany. No, yeah, really,
(51:07):
I wonder if they like the town so much. They
just said call me Hanno from now on everybody, I
love this town. It's like me, I'm from chuckdown your
addle what a t l Oh gotcha? Yeah, Chucktown, I
guess makes more sense if either one does well. Thanks
a lot, Hannoh. We appreciate that. We will try to
take your advice to heart because it is pretty good advice. Uh.
(51:29):
And if you want to get in touch of this,
like Hanno did, you can go on to stuff you
Should Know dot com and find our social links. You
can also send us an email to stuff podcast at
iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
production of iHeart Radios. How stuff works for more podcasts
for my heart Radio because at the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or where ever you listen to your favorite
(51:51):
shows
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