“It was a bit ragged”: how Live Aid flirted with disaster
The first thing to bear in mind about Queen’s set at Live Aid is that basically everything about it in the execrable Freddie Mercury biopic Bohemian Rhapsody was made up. He hadn’t told his bandmates about his diagnosis because he didn’t get that diagnosis until two years after the gig. They didn’t “save the whole show” because Bob Geldof had done that earlier with the whole “fuck the address” gaffe that’s passed into memory as him pleading, “Give us your fucking money”. His voice was shot, but it was nothing more severe than the standard trouble any long-in-the-tooth singer gets.
The irony of all this is that there was enough drama surrounding Live Aid itself to get a hugely compelling story about that momentous day alone. In fact, we did, in the form of the BBC TV film When Harvey Met Bob. Backstage alone could have been a veritable swamp of egos. Preening rock stars were trying to appear for the cameras like they were all there for the common good, all the while secretly bitching and sniping at each other the way that rock stars often do when left to their own devices.
Especially when dealing with all these egos in the lead-up to the event, it had given the organisers the kind of headaches normally reserved for those with a bullet in their cranium. The sheer star power of everyone at the event led to everyone trying to hog the best slots for themselves, and if they weren’t getting them, then they would walk. In his memoir, Live Aid’s talent co-ordinator Pete Smith talked about how juggling all these demands was a particular problem for the show at Philadelphia’s John F Kennedy Stadium.
He said that the show’s promoter, Bill Graham, “had made a commitment to ABC television to put the biggest rock talent in the last three hours of the live show in Philadelphia for their special”.
Adding: “The network and their advertisers only wanted the big rock names. Dylan, Clapton, Jagger, Led Zeppelin and the like. Madonna’s manager, Freddy DeMann, got wind of this, and he was now demanding that she too be included in the ABC special.”
How did Live Aid come together despite that?
Conversations like this were happening at any given moment, with only a select few artists like Paul Weller and Elvis Costello taking any adjustments to their sets with any grace at all. Smith described Costello in particular as “my hero of the day” as his appearance was cut from a full, four-song set to a single line in the climactic group version of ‘All You Need Is Love’, which Costello flew from Australia to London to complete and was reportedly delighted to do so.
Then there was the fact that, on a technical level, the show was flying by the seat of its pants. In an interview with Guitar World, Brian May talked about the show as kind of the Wild West because no one had ever done it before: “Bob Geldof insisted that it was going to be possible, but a lot of people told him it couldn’t be done – that you couldn’t get bands on and off quickly enough. There really wasn’t a precedent for Live Aid. So yes, we were stressed, but there was so much joy and excitement that overrode everything.”
It was one of the genuine miracles of Live Aid that the day went off without a hitch, at least broadly speaking. Part of the reason that Wembley’s backstage had such a good atmosphere was down to Elton John, of all people. ‘The Rocketman’ set up an entire green room space backstage at Wembley, which he catered for himself with the help of his team. This broke the ice between the acts in a major way, giving them a space to take a break from the rigours of the day.
To give an idea of the kind of atmosphere Live Aid ended up having, John talked about a chat he had with Freddie Mercury after their mammoth set finished. In the interview, he said, “Freddie came over after Queen had stolen the show. I said, ‘Freddie, nobody should go on after you – you were magnificent’. He said: ‘You’re absolutely right, darling, we were – we killed them’. He was so excited. Then he said, ‘You, on the other hand, dear – you looked like the fucking Queen Mother when you were on stage. Where did you get that absolutely awful hat?’”
While the show could have been ten gallons of disaster in a pint glass, that sums up the whole atmosphere perfectly: playful, memorable, and an utter one-off. Hopefully, we will see it again someday.
