Live AID: At the time, did you think Queen stole the show?

Yes.

 

No at all! They only caused a mic malfunction before McCartney sang Let It Be.... :-(

 

Queen for stagecraft. Bowie for music.

 

I was thinking about this while watching the Bo Rap movie the other day. My feeling was that Queen had been in decline for a year or two before that and were rather over-familiar certainly to the UK audience. Having said that a lot of Live Aid performances were a bit underwhelming so in that context, Queen, though playing songs we were almost sick to death of at that point, absolutely slayed it.
Personally I was looking forward to The Who and Zep, but both were disappointing. The Who appeared to forget where they were in one song at one point, and Zep were on really late for UK audiences and not helped by poor sound and picture quality (NTSC -> PAL?), but also poor playing (Jimmy) were awful.
I don't even remember U2 much, but sure they did their thing, and well.

 

Never cared much for Queen. I like some of their songs, I respect them and I love Freddie as a frontman. But when they play Live Aid the thing that impressed me the most was their connection with the stadium. Freddie played the stadium. It was like 'I know that you are waiting for me, don't you? Here I am. Here we are. You know what you have to do. Let's party'. All the other bands and singers went on stage. Queen owned the stage.

 

Queen were probably the band of the day. But from what I've heard about the film - which I won't be watching on principle - is that it paints the idea that Live Aid was a dud until Queen came on. Which, if it is how it's portrayed in the film, is rubbish. There were some excellent performances littered throughout the day.

 

It was good timing for Queen as it lifted their careers. The biggest uplift however was Wayne's World.

 

I think it was U2. Their performance of Bad put them on list of great bands. Giving nods to Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones was a brilliant.

But Queen was more impressive than I thought they would be. I never like Radio Ga Ga until I saw it performed at Live Aid.

 

MTV actually cut away from their performance to show whoever was performing at JFK -- IIRC it was during "Hammer To Fall", maybe? Cut back in during the last chorus of "We Are The Champions". So if you were watching the show on MTV, it was tough to tell quite how much they were killing it. But to see that sea of people rocking back and forth at the end, I remember thinking I'd never seen anything like it.

 

Brits owned the day even on US soil. A lot of American acts seemed sort of out of it. I expected more from the Pretenders, Neil Young (who I don't like normally, but respect, and I thought he'd do something memorable), etc. Honorary American mentions: Madonna made her appearances an Event; Tina Turner lit up the stadium with Jagger; and while I don't like Hall & Oates, they played a disciplined, TV-friendly, get-the-pledges set, which was exactly what they were supposed to do. Golf claps all around for both Hall AND Oates.

But even pre-Noon, and the launch of the transatlantic jukebox or whatever they were calling it... Judas Priest and Black Sabbath w/Ozzy in the hot blazing Summer morning sun rocked my world.

 

Absolutely, yes.

I was playing cricket about 10 minutes from Wembley Stadium at Kenton Park that afternoon. There were only 2 bands whose material was clearly audible and they were The Who and Queen. The NOISE at the end of Queen's set was different to that of ANY other band all afternoon.

A bar had been set that has only once been surpassed in a 15-20 minute live rock performance.

 

I watched it live, age 16.
Yes, I thought Queen blew everyone else away.

 

Not a big Queen fan but I remember thinking they had nailed it - great performance.

 

1.Bowie
2.Queen
3.U2

 

I was there at Wembley and I must confess I found Mercury amusingly camp but that was it. When the act was later described in such 'historic' terms I was genuinely bemused, and I remain so. I thought Costello was quite moving, I remember being very impressed by Bowie (but then he was a great favourite anyway), and baffled when we couldn't hear McCartney. (I wish I could forget all the people tucking into hampers of roast chicken whilst watching the Cars video and going 'Awww...').

 

It wasn't that sort of a gig. I watched this in a large tent in the back garden of my parents' house. The cause superseded any 'who was best' nonsense. It was a triumph and probably the most memorable moment was Bob telling everyone to "Give us your ******* money!" That is what it was about and egos were not the point. From Status Quo to McCartney we went along with it without letting allegiances get in the way of the cause. That was the case then and in my opinion that remains today. Anyone who tuned up deserved respect. It wasn't a race.

 

In the spirit of “what was your favorite Live Aid performance?”

I found myself mostly listening to The Pretenders... Tom Petty... and David Bowie on the cassette I used to record performances off the radio.

 

I'm as big of Who fan as there but, was underwhelmed by their performance. Kenney Jones should have been replaced with another drummer.

 

I barely remembered that they played Live Aid. And I had been a Queen fan for over 10 years at that point.

That's not to say that there was anything wrong with their performance, but there were a lot of great artists at Live Aid--I was (and still am) a fan of the bulk of the roster--who did memorable performances.

 

Ah--so that's probably why I don't remember them so well.

 

At Wembley, Queen came out like they owned the stage, the stadium. Definitely the best set of the entire event.
Other memories:
I was allergic to Bono at the time, so U2 got on my nerves.
Bowie was good (because I was and still am such a huge fan).
The Who and Led Zep were a bit of a let down I suppose but it was just great to see them up there.
Macca was a bit of a pain.
Tom Petty was great but I remember that the BBC cut him out just as he went into "American Girl". I went bonkers.
Mick Jagger was fun but looked a bit wrong without The Stones.
Minority vote: I thought Adam Ant was good!

 

Your line needs re-evaluating.

 

I hope you learned your lesson. Zep derangement syndrome is a hard one to break.

 

Yeah, but you know what? Those first few seconds when they got up there and it was FINALLY HAPPENING (after 5 long years. ha!).... ohhhhhhh. Nothing like it.