Long-hair Metal Poodles Come Up Short! (Sorry Ethiopia)

For a generation drunk on histrionic power ballads, coke, over-indulgent fashion, and the constant threat of thermonuclear war, Live Aid may've seemed the perfect sedative:
The problem: A severe drought in Ethiopia causing catastrophic stress on food resources. This in turn made worse by the abuses of a ruthless local government. Eventually, as many as 8.5 million would be effected.
The response: Back when televisions bulged thicker than the Berlin Wall, the West witnessed the catastrophe play out from the distance of the evening news. The leaky-bleaky hearts of rock's (white) elite community would be spurred into action, or song at least. This spur would eventually take the form of Band Aid in 1984, and then Live Aid a year later.

The brainchild of Irish and Scottish do-gooders and middling has-been rockers Bob Geldof (Boomtown Rats who was temporarily knighted for his effort, the Irish) and Midge Ure (bubble-gum era Ultravox, the Scottish). Beginning successfully with the recording of Do They Know It's Christmas under the moniker Band Aid, the record raised $24 million. (It'd be re-recorded in 1989 and 2004.)

Live Aid was to be a double concert extravaganza that would live telecast a simultaneous performance from both sides of the Atlantic (London and Philadelphia). The event would also inspire same-day concerts around the world including the Soviet Union, Japan, Canada, and Australia. For its part, the London concert would famously feature The Greatest Live Performance in the History of Rock Music! 

In the end, the positive effect of Live Aid has been the subject of debate. It was estimated that the concerts ultimately raised $225 million (£150 million) – that's $526 million in 2018 dollars. Though, it was later estimated that a fat portion of that money was siphoned off by the country's ruthless president and, even more sadly, the starving in Ethiopia only continued, being even worse today.

Back to the viking north of 1985: Wanting to toss their coins to the cause, Sweden responded with their own fund-raising performance featuring 80 of its top metal poodles, blonder than the Playboy mansion grotto and enough flammable hair product to fuel several Hindenburgs. With heaving hearts and unctuous vocalizing, the moussed mob stood together and sang a Joey Tempest ditty (he from the Swedish band best remembered for The Final Countdown) written for the cause: Give a Helping Hand. Take note: The pitchiness in the video may've been an omen: The record sold a paltry 50,000 copies – not enough to cover even Live Aid's craft services. (Though, note that the gender representation is far better than Live Aid’s)

Beyond simply fueling sniggers for our endless amusement, the vid may've also documented the last dying gasps of Nordic hair metal. Several years later the much rawer genres of death and black metal would become all the rage in the hinterlands and these coiffed cuties would be curbed for evermore.

The Greatest Live Performance in the History of Rock Music!

If measuring such a thing were even possible.

This bold claim was made according to the votes of more than "60 artists, journalists and music industry executives" based on this performance from Live Aid in 1985. Utterly "Dionysian," according to one critic. But what must've really piqued their pointy heads were the sheer numbers of clapping hands and ringing voices from this audience of 75,000. Watch as they go ga-ga along with Freddy in this video compilation of some of the greatest moments from the Greatest Live Performance, etc:



I myself saw Queen onstage during their Day at the Races period. Hearing Bohemian performed to a taped chorus, even with Freddy fronting, was less of an experience than I was hoping for. I thought that even a truncated version of the song would've been the better choice (which they did above). Other bands of the period that would tour with large ensembles, such as orchestras, found themselves quickly going broke. Taped, quasi-Karaoke presentations pale in authenticity even when compared to Vegas jukebox fare like "We Will Rock You". In doing this Freddy presaged generations of canned performances soon to follow: e.g. the mall tours of Debbie Gibson and Tiffany and the virtual singers Britney Spears and Kanye West. By then onstage spectacle obliterated the musical shorthand. A couple of years after my Queen experience a friend would drag me to see Beatlemania. (For those who don't remember: Beatlemania was a live re-creation of Fab Four music played by four musically inclined actors/acting inclined musicians in period costumes all standing before a projected back drop of dated newsy memes. The version I saw even had Paul look-alike playing left hand bass.) The lesson of Beatlemania's success was that however off the mark the show was musically, it was a live performance first and foremost. In Beatlemania's case, it was as close to the real thing as most of us would ever get. The live performance aspect also gave the music a certain amount of heart, however forced, which was just enough for audiences needed to buy the premise. Not long after, MTV's Unplugged would offer even more proof: Audiences crave authenticity, even if it comes by standards less than they remembered. (The post-classic Rolling Stones figured this out a long time ago.)