TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

After the unexpected phenomenon of the Band Aid single, Do They Know It's Christmas, a follow-up concert was whispered about, with feelers put out, and formal approaches made in April 1985.

The TV presentation would not be given to Channel 4's The Tube, whose show was instrumental in helping to create the Band Aid single in the first place and whose cameras captured the recording process on that November Sunday morning. Band Aid instead chose the BBC who in turn brought in the production team from The Tube's avowed nemesis, Whistle Test.

Despite (a word that will appear a lot in this article) the concert's importance, and a potentially world-breaking audience the BBC schedulers would only give the UK half of the show to BBC2, with the more-popular BBC1 deciding to go with Grandstand, Terry & June, the movie Aces High and The Val Doonican Show, all considered likely to get a larger audience.

Trailers promoting the forthcoming show ran on the BBC from the beginning of July, suggesting that Culture Club, Huey Lewis & The News, Billy Ocean, Stevie Wonder, Judas Priest, Billy Joel and Tears For Fears would be appearing. Despite the tease of the promos none of these names would actually appear. Thankfully the Trades Descriptions Act probably couldn't be applied to a final line-up. Bob Geldof claimed "fifty bands on two continents", but it got larger as time went on with the USSR, Australia and some African countries chipping in with clips.

Despite the seeming lack of commitment from American acts (no Prince, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Diana Ross among others) the American audience was seen as the primary target as far as money raising was concerned, after all it was a money raising event only. When the show kicked off at mid-day in the UK it would only be 7.00 am on the east coast, 5.00 am on the west coast of America. So the British acts who were relatively unknown in the USA were put on first - Status Quo, The Style Council, The Boomtown Rats, Adam Ant, Ultravox, Nik Kershaw, but as time went on the more "internationally known" acts like Sade, Sting and Phil Collins appeared on stage, hopefully encouraging an American audience to reach into their pockets. American coverage came from two sources, terrestrial giant ABC who dipped in to the show during the day, and MTV taking cable rights and broadcasting the whole show live.

Despite the temptation, very little product placement was evident with small logos for Pespi, AT&T and Kodak atop of the Wembley stage. Money was the only point, the only purpose of the show in the first place, but despite the stellar attractions money was slow in coming in, that was until about 7.40 pm when David Bowie introduced a clip assembled by a news team at CBC in Canada. Momentarily everything just stopped, and then the phone lines lit up.

Despite (that word again) the criticism at the time, and later parroted by critics that no British black acts were present (the names Aswad and Steel Pulse were usually brought up) the two biggest contemporary British black acts were approached, with Sade appearing, but the other, Billy Ocean, backing out.

The American half of the show would be produced by rock promoter and ex-Fillmore owner Bill Graham, a totally inappropriate candidate given the choices made. It's seemed unlikely that he had even looked at a Billboard Top 100 chart in the previous ten years. Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Crosby Stills and Nash, Patti LaBelle were not going to bring in the money, so British acts were flown in to fill the gap, with Duran Duran, The Thompson Twins, The Pretenders, Simple Minds, a reformed Led Zeppelin and Mick Jagger filling the void. Run DMC had made an appearance earlier in the day but should have been put on later, while singer Teddy Pendergrass made his first pubic appearance since his potentially life-ending car crash. Joan Baez ruined the day for many by claiming "this is your Woodstock". No it wasn't. Rumours persist to this day that Bill Graham was somehow sabotaging the American side of the show, sensing the annoyance from the UK of his ignorance of the mid-eighties music scene and the choices made.

Yusef Islam/Cat Stevens was on the sub's bench that day and is probably still baffled as to why he wasn't asked to go on. A tentative schedule shown on TV the night before the concert had him on stage at around 9.00 pm.

Sartorially the show will be remembered for the dazzling range of long coats on display on the UK side, with Midge Ure, Tony Hadley and others all going to the long coat wardrobe, probably for the last time. A fantastic selection of mullets were also on parade, with Bob Geldof, Bono and, backstage, Andy Kershaw all sporting fine examples, thankfully all recorded for posterity, which raised a further problem. The Band Aid Trust explicitly requested the BBC not to record the show, probably fearing video piracy, but since the show was being recorded on so many domestic video recorders anyway the BBC felt that the request was a pointless gesture, beside they had to record both video and audio for legal compliance reasons. Those recordings were eventually released as a twentieth anniversary DVD box set by Warner Music and then by EMI a few years' later.

LIVE AID FOR AFRICA

BBC2/BBC1

13/14th July 1985