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From: ran@bentley.UUCP (RA Novo)
Newsgroups: net.music,net.flame
Subject: Live-aid
Message-ID: <528@bentley.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 16-Jul-85 09:33:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: bentley.528
Posted: Tue Jul 16 09:33:25 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Jul-85 09:24:51 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Piscataway
Lines: 64
Xref: watmath net.music:8385 net.flame:11226


I watched the live aid concert here in the NYC area on channel 5 during
the day and channel 7 at night. The coverage was quite pitiful. During
the day, we would see about 30 seconds of a song, then interrupted
by 3 minutes of ads (it seems that they only had 3 different ads they
used over and over) and a 3 minute sales pitch by Sally Field asking 
for donations. Before the concert, Bob Geldof was worried that the
big names involved would overshadow the cause for which this concert
was held, but when watching it, I constantly had to remind myself that
this was the concert event of the century, and not a spin-off of the
Jerry Lewis telethon. (BTW, was that David Gilmour playing guitar
behind Bryan Ferry?)

At night the coverage was somewhat better, but not by far. The Led 
Zeppelin set consisted of half of "Stairway to Heaven". I felt like
strangling Dick Clark when he gave the long speech on the Led Zep
background directed towards the Madonna and Michael Jackson fans
while half of the set was lost. Later on the local news, they played a 
small part of Whole Lotta Love (Did anyone notice that there was another
drummer to back Collins up. Did John Bonham use another drummer?).
When the Who played, we only heard a portion of "Won't Get Fooled Again". 
Well, at least Dick Clark didn't sing along with Roger Daltrey.

Dick Clark also persisted in priming us for "mega-surprises" until the
last minute. By the way he was talking, I was expecting the finale to
be a duet between JS Bach and Kate Bush! :-) The potential for surprises
was there, but that's all it was, potential.

Highlghts of the day:
 Morning: Dire Straits (They had one of the few sets that was uninterrupted)
	  Autograph (It was interesting, seeing Russian rock, even though
		     their quality left something to be desired) 
	  Ozzy back with Black Sabbath (I guess, if you like Metal)

 Evening: Led Zeppelin and the Who (A bit of nostalgia. Does anybody know
		                    what their whole sets consisted of?
				    Please respond by mail.)

Low points of the day:
	Too many ads.
	Sally Field.
	Led Zep and the Who (We wanted more)
	Madonna (Were all her concerts that raked in cash that bad?)
	Bob Dylan (Blowin' in the wind was a letdown.)
	We were set up for too many surprises.
	Phil Collins (So, he flew from London to Philadelphia, big deal,
		      has anyone heard of Charles Lindbergh? He played
		      the same songs in both stadiums (stadia), and messed
	    	      up one of them in London. True, he played for Clapton,
  		      and Led Zeppelin, but as a drummer he is only mediocre.)

Well, here's my review of "the big event of the century", but from the
sound of things, promoters want to turn this into a yearly event. 

flames to /dev/null



-- 

Robert A. Novo				"Captain! They put creatures
AT&T Bell Labs				 in our ears! They made us say
Piscataway, NJ                           things that weren't true!"
...bentley!ran