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Bob Geldof Looks Back on Live Aid at 40: Pressuring Bands to Perform, Getting a Massage From Bowie & Being ‘Out of My Depth’
Bob Geldof talks Live Aid at 40: Pressuring bands to perform, getting a massage from Bowie and more.
“Harvey was there kicking me under the table and literally squeezing my leg and screaming at me afterwards,” Geldof remembers, “and I said, ‘They can’t really refuse now,’ ’cause it was everywhere.” Several acts on the first edition of the event poster wound up not playing, however, including Stevie Wonder, Billy Joel, Huey Lewis and the News, Paul Simon and Tears For Fears. Live Aid’s highlights went on to become legend: Queen’s galvanizing set; Mick Jagger’s solo set that included Tina Turner and Hall & Oates, plus his “Dancing in the Street” video collaboration with Bowie; Phil Collins crossing the Atlantic Ocean on Concorde to play both shows; Sting’s stripped-down collaboration with Collins and Branford Marsalis in London (and guesting with Dire Straits on “Money For Nothing”); U2’s epic, unintentionally extended rendition of “Bad”; Patti LaBelle’s soaring vocals; Teddy Pendergrass’ first performance since being paralyzed in a car crash three years prior; and Paul McCartney closing London with “Let It Be” in his first live performance in six years, with Geldof, Bowie, Pete Townshend and Alison Moyet stepping in to help out when his microphone failed. Kerr, whose band was riding high on the Billboard Hot 100-topping success of its The Breakfast Club hit “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” adds that while he and his mates “knew it was a big deal” to be part of Live Aid, “it didn’t feel mind-blowing, as you think of it now.
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