Looking Back 25 Years to 'Live Aid'

One of the world's most important rock festivals all came about because a fading Irish rocker was sickened by a television report by the British Broadcasting Corp. on the drought conditions in Ethiopia.

Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats, a band best known for 1979's I Don't Like Mondays, watched the BBC report delivered by reporter Michael Buerk and cameraman Mohamed Amin on Oct. 23 and 24, 1984. Punctuated by frame after frame of dying children and the wails of misery, Buerk called the situation "the biblical famine of the 20th century."

Geldof snapped into action. A month later, the charity single Do They Know It's Christmas was out. And on July 13, 1985, scores of the world's most-popular musicians gathered in London's Wembley Stadium and Philadelphia's JFK Stadium for a 16-hour fundraising concert dubbed Live Aid.

Twenty-five years later, here are some of the enduring memories and forgotten moments of that day.

An early start

The concert began at noon London time, or 7 a.m. here on the East Coast. Princess Diana and Prince Charles, accompanied by Geldof, took their seats to a horn fanfare. The first band to play: Status Quo, which started its set with Rockin' All Over the World. Other concerts were held that day around the world, including shows in Australia, Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union.

Were you watching?

Television coverage was a challenge, as was handling the sound mixing for the bands. Feedback was a constant problem. The BBC supplied the feed from Wembley. ABC broadcast only the final three hours of the Philadelphia concert, while MTV provided a simultaneous feed of the U.S. show. While the BBC version was commercial-free, the U.S. broadcasts included ads and interviews. As a result, several performances weren't seen on TV and aren't included on the DVD version.

The big winners

Phil Collins made headlines for playing both venues; he flew to Philly on the Concorde after his set finished in London. U2's set had only two songs — Sunday Bloody Sunday and a 14-minute long version of Bad. But fans and critics raved, establishing the band as a must-see live act. British rockers Queen, likewise, energized the Wembley crowd with a medley of hits and used the momentum of Live Aid to mount a comeback tour afterward.

The big losers

Among those who declined to participate were Michael Jackson, Prince and Bruce Springsteen, who later said he "simply did not realize how big the whole thing was going to be." Bob Dylan did himself no favors by complaining on stage in Philadelphia that some of the proceeds should go to American farmers instead. His remark inspired the creation of the annual Farm Aid concerts.

Breakups and reunions

Duran Duran broke up after Live Aid; the band's original lineup wouldn't play again until 2003. The Who returned after "officially" disbanding in 1982. And a much-rumored Beatles reunion (with Julian Lennon subbing for dad John) never took place. Instead, Paul McCartney took the stage alone to sing Let It Be.

Take a bow

Each show ended with sing-a-long versions of the charity singles: Do They Know It's Christmas in London, and We Are the World in Philadelphia. In the aftermath of the concert, Geldof has had to defend himself against allegations that much of the estimated $100 million raised was used to pay for weapons for Africa's civil wars instead of grain. "It's possible that in one of the worst, longest-running conflicts on the continent, some money was mislaid," he told a reporter this year. Still, he continues to insist, without Live Aid, "far more than a million people would have died."

WRITTEN BY: Steve Spears with original article at St. Petersburg Times available by clicking on the title of this posting

April Fool's

You pick up the receiver at work to answer a call to your business, and find no answer. The phone line sounds like it is dead in fact. And yet even though you answered the call, the phone just keeps on ringing. Then you finally notice it...someone has taped down the 'plunger' on your telephone's main box. When you picked up the handset to answer, the plunger stayed down, so you were in fact talking to no one when you answered the call. April Fool's! Someone just got you with one of the oldest office pranks in the world. Today is that day, April Fools Day, and all around the world there are people playing practical jokes on one another. The exact origins of this day are unclear, but there are a few stories that make sense down through history. One traces all the way back to the Biblical story of Noah, when after the flood he sent a raven off in search of dry land too early. Tradition says that he did this on the first day of the Hebrew month corresponding with April. Another story traces it's origin back to the 16th century and King Charles IX of France, who changed the beginning of the year there from April 1st to January 1st. Those who continued to celebrate the old April 1st date were called 'April Fools'. A similar story comes again from that 16th century and the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, which replaced the centuries-old Julian calendar as the still utilized standard around the world, and referred to those who continued to follow that Julian calendar as 'April Fools'. Also, many pre-Christian cultures are said to have celebrated May 1st, or 'May Day', as the first day of the summer planting season. Those who jumped the gun and planted in April were called 'April Fools'. There have been some well-known public April Fools jokes played over the years on a large scale. One in 1996 had the folks at Taco Ball claiming that they had purchased the Liberty Bell and renamed it the 'Taco Liberty Bell'. White House press secretary Mike McCurry was asked about the purchase in a press conference, and dead-panned that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold and renamed the 'Lincoln Mercury Memorial'. Not to be outdone by their fast-food rivals, Burger King revealed in 1998 the 'left-handed Whopper', which was designed that the condiments would drip out of the right side. The campaign was so sincere that day that people actually ordered the product at many stores, and some others even specified that they wanted the old 'right-hand Whopper' instead. That same year of 1998, radio DJ's Opie & Anthony were on the air in Boston, and issued an alert that Boston mayor Thomas Menino had been killed in a tragic car accident. The rumor spread like wildfire and was excacerbated by the fact that Menino was on a plane flight and could not be reached. The pair was fired in the aftermath as numerous news stations had to issue alerts regarding the hoax. In the 1950's, Dutch television news reported that the 'Leaning Tower of Pisa' had finally fallen over, and the station was bombarded with telephone calls for more information. In 1957, early gullible television viewers in Britain bombarded the BBC with calls after a program showing the harvesting of spaghetti from trees, wondering how these trees could be purchased. In 2003, the producers of the television game show 'Hollywood Squares' played a prank on host Tom Bergeron by inserting two actors as the contestants, and instructing them to be 'difficult'. The actors proceeded to give horrid answers and act in otherwise annoying fashion. One of the most famous modern April Fools jokes was perpetrated by Sports Illustrated and legendary writer George Plimpton, who penned a 1985 article about a young New York Mets pitching prospect named Sid Finch who possessed a fastball that had been clocked at 168 miles per hour, and who had pinpoint accuracy. On the web in 2003, numerous Chinese and South Korean sites ran with a story that claimed CNN was reporting the assassination of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, which resulted in a 1.5% drop in the Korean stock markets. In 2005, the official NASA website had a link to what they said was a photo that revealed 'water on mars'. When visitors clicked on the link, it took them to a picture of a glass of water sitting atop a Mars candy bar. Whether it is done the old fashioned way in person, or over the phone, or on television or radio, or here on the internet, April Fools Day remains a favored day in the hearts of pranksters everywhere. Watch out, because today you never know from where the next one may come. NOTE: The title of this post is as always a link to more information, this time to the Sid Finch story, which still reads incredibly well today.

Octuplets? That's How Many?

There is nothing like a new life being welcomed into a family to bring up the spirits of everyone involved. My niece Cheri Clegg, my wife Deb's sister's daughter, was admitted to a hospital over in New Jersey today in order to have her 3rd child. She was overdue and has been in our thoughts and prayers, and we are very much looking forward to meeting the new entry into the family. It was just six months ago that my eldest daughter, Christine, brought my grandson Reznor Lloyd into the world. It is blessed events like these that grow and sustain a family, and we look forward to even more grandchildren, nieces, and nephews in the future. Just yesterday, at the Bellflower medical center in California, a woman gave birth and her family also grew. Why the interest in a California family welcoming a new birth? Well, that birth involved the family welcoming not one child, but multiples. No, not twins, not even triplets. Nope, not quadruplets, quintuplets, or sextuplets. That would be six, by the way. Do you even know what they call a 7-baby birth? I didn't, I had to look it up. That would be septuplets. But no, the California woman had even more. She gave birth to what might end up as an American first should they all survive. They are only the 2nd set of octuplets to be born alive in this country's history. The first set was born to the Nigerian-born American citizen Chukwu family in December of 1998 in Houston, Texas. In that birth, one of the babies, the tiniest, died of heart and lung failure at one week old. The other 7 survived despite being born three months premature, and are all healthy, happy 10-year olds now. Can you imagine what that family went through, and still goes through, in raising ten children of the same age all at once? I had two little girls when I was 19 years old, and I thought that I had it tough. This octuplet thing is beyond anything that most any of us could ever fathom. In this latest octuplet birth out in California, the 8th baby was a complete surprise even to doctors and hospital staff, who had been preparing for weeks for the arrival of what they all believed would be septuplets. The 8th baby was not discovered until well into the birth process, which was by Cesarean section. Dr. Richard Paulson is the director of the fertility program at USC and stated "When you hear about someone having octuplets, it's almost always the case that they took fertility medications". In many cases of fertility drug-induced multiple births, couples make a life or death decision involving their children and opt for what is known as 'selective reduction' of the unborn babies, reducing their number to a level of what they and their doctors determine to be manageable risk. The other babies are effectively aborted. So despite the obvious challenges and risks, to hear of a couple taking all of their babies through to the birthing process is both encouraging and inspiring. Both over the next few days and on into the future, this family is going to take on many challenges and is going to need as many prayers as possible from the wider human community, so take the time to say a little prayer for them. Octuplets? That's eight babies, in case you didn't catch the idea yet. God bless them all.
NOTE: As always, the title of this post is a link for further information. In this case to a BBC article titled "How Do You Raise Octuplets?" pertaining to the practical steps necessary to care for this many babies at once.