Wednesday, July 13, 2005

BY THE TIME PAUL MCCARTNEY'S MICROPHONE [HAD FAILED]: Today, July 13, 2005, is the 20th anniversary of Live Aid proper, leading me, as always, in John Wesley Harding's direction, to a song Craig and I saw Wes perform at Penn's Landing on the fifth or sixth anniversary, after which the skies immediately dumped rain and lightning on us all as punishment:
Well, the powerful voice of pop music
Solve the problems, feed the world
So what if there weren't any blacks involved?
There was Everything but the Girl
Bob Geldof has no ego
That man should get the Nobel Prize
By the time he sang the solo on "Feed the World"
I thought he should be canonized

I felt guilty about the starving
But I felt good to be alive
And I must admit I shed a tear or two
In the very moving video for that great Cars song "Drive"
Saint Bob made me feel like shit
So I got out an envelope, opened it
Put in a very crisp ten pound note
(It was the same one I used earlier to snort my coke)
And that made me feel good inside
(Sending the money, not snorting the coke)

The local public television station is showing an hour of the 1985 concert tonight for pledge purposes, and a few things strike me for the first time:
  • Back in 1985, Madonna looked a lot like Kate Winslet (does now)
  • My goodness -- The Edge has no hat! And Bono . . . is that mullet a wig? They were definitely a bit more effeminate back then, before Bono assumed the role of Most Important Person In The World
  • A rather nice performance of "Every Breath You Take" by Sting, Phil Collins (piano/vox) and Branford Marsalis (sax) that I had completely forgotten
  • Tom Petty had yooooge sideburns back then.
  • Since the late Freddie Mercury knew he was wearing a wifebeater, could he have shaved his pit hairs or at least tamed them down a little?
  • I miss Simple Minds. That was a pretty darn good band.

Oh, and by the way? That Queen performance was every bit as good as I remembered it to be.

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