Live Aid DVD - Classic or Dud?

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It's fabulous! How can anyone watch this and subscribe to the '80s fetishism which the new generation loves? With a couple of exceptions, the clothes and hair are appalling. About the only one who leaves w/his dignity intact is Bryan Ferry, who's worn the same sports coat and the same floppy bangs for 45 years. yet quite a few of the performances are wonderful. Queen and U2 you know about; what about Bowie doing "Heroes"? Or Paul Young and Alison Moyet doing "That's The Way Love Is"?

Favorite moments:

(1) Simon Le Bon, wearing a brooch and dyed dark hair, playing acoustic guitar during "Save a Prayer" saying, quite sincerely, "This song is very special to us...."

(2) Simon Le Bon's dancing.

(3) Madonna, Thompson Twins, Nile Rodgers, and Steve Stevens performing "Revolution." It's as awful as it sounds.

(4) Daryl Hall on keyboards during Mick Jagger's set. His mullet and black tanktop are fabulous.

(5) Midge Ure's trenchcoat.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 2 April 2005 01:37 (twenty years ago)

Donut, Kate Silver, Scott CE, myself, and several other folks had a party watching this. Skipped over a whole bunch, brought it to six hours, but yes, we watched it. Utterly fucking classic.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Saturday, 2 April 2005 01:49 (twenty years ago)

We watched it over sake and pizza last night. Enthralling.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 2 April 2005 04:28 (twenty years ago)

totally fucking classic.

it veers from either being gut-bustingly hilarious to sincerely awesome.

totally hilarious:
- how coked-out-of-his-mind Elton John obviously is
- the sheer quantity of mullets
- Phil Collins being interviewed on why he flew on the Concorde to make both gigs
- watching Bono's ego grow to Akira-size during U2's performance
- Madonna's laughable performance

sincerely awesome:
- Queen
- U2
- the size of the Wembley crowd going apeshit over...Status Quo!
- Bowie
- Paul Young doing "Come Back & Stay"

― heywood jablomi (heywood), Saturday, 2 April 2005 07:41 (twenty years ago)

Of course, it's both C and D. On purely musical terms mainly D, but:

Queen - I still don't have much time for them after Day At The Races, but bloody hell could Mercury perform or what?

U2 - Yeah, OK, Bono's ego first came to light here, but at the time U2 blew everyone off the stage with the exception of Queen. And in context, and ignoring the mullett, the performance of Bad is awesome.

Quo - Dammit they were good. You can knock them as much as you like but around 75-77 they were so entertaining live it was unreal. And they returned to form (just once) for Live Aid.

But buy the thing for a couple of the 'outakes:

1) The Live Aid around the world sequence, which is hilarious.

but primarily:

2)Run DMC in Philadelphia, as the crowd warm up/camera test. How good is that footage?

― Guilty Boksen (Bro_Danielson), Saturday, 2 April 2005 08:36 (twenty years ago)

I forgot Nik Kershaw. Vastly underated and was excellent, if too short in both senses.

― Guilty Boksen (Bro_Danielson), Saturday, 2 April 2005 08:38 (twenty years ago)

(3) Madonna, Thompson Twins, Nile Rodgers, and Steve Stevens performing "Revolution." It's as awful as it sounds.

no. no, it's worse.

― piscesboy, Saturday, 2 April 2005 09:05 (twenty years ago)

Is the Dylan-Richards-Wood trainwreck on there?

I have a hilarious boot of these guys rehearsing earlier that day and it's as bad as the show.

― shookout (shookout), Saturday, 2 April 2005 15:21 (twenty years ago)

The event is classic, and it was about time it was available on DVD.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Saturday, 2 April 2005 15:29 (twenty years ago)

classic : the queen bit. just..unbelieveable. apparantly they rehearsed the heck out of it for weeks before. it shows.

dud: the early days of product placing. full on pepsi cups all over freddy's old joanna.

ma-maaaaaaaa.

― piscesboy, Saturday, 2 April 2005 16:01 (twenty years ago)

Sting and Branford - classic

― bahtology runs amok, Sunday, 3 April 2005 02:32 (twenty years ago)

there were classic moments in an otherwise sea of dud. Then again, I came to Kate's later on.. I probably missed the better half.

― donut debonair (donut), Sunday, 3 April 2005 03:34 (twenty years ago)

the only good thing I remember was seeing Hall & Oates with the Temptations. the other moments were just either bad to knee slapping hilariously bad (Jagger and Turner.. UGH!)

― donut debonair (donut), Sunday, 3 April 2005 03:35 (twenty years ago)

I videotaped the entire TV broadcast the day it aired. I still have those tapes. Queen and Ultravox were the only things that mattered in the end, IIRC.

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Sunday, 3 April 2005 04:32 (twenty years ago)

this was the first time i heard adam ant's "vive le rock"

― prince charming, Sunday, 3 April 2005 09:51 (twenty years ago)

When I was at Uni, one of the tutors showed us the BBC's in-house documentary of the day including what happened behind the scenes when the power failed during The Who's set. Classic stuff. I assume that's not on the DVD.

― Jeff W (zebedee), Sunday, 3 April 2005 13:53 (twenty years ago)

The Pretenders were pretty solid; so was Ultravox, a band I can't stand. Bowie's "Heroes" is spectacular.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 3 April 2005 14:12 (twenty years ago)

I thought the Style Council were especially great/

― Brian Turner (btwfmu), Monday, 4 April 2005 12:29 (twenty years ago)

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