WPDH Soundcheck: Queen, Clapton, The Cars 35 Years Ago At Live Aid

Most of us have seen the movie "Bohemian Rhapsody" and in the film they recreate almost perfectly the scene that took place on July 13, 1985 at old Wembley Stadium in London where Live Aid took place where Queen stole the show and almost brought the house done with their over 20 minute set.  Well we have the real audio footage and you will hear it in its entirety track to track on the WPDH Soundcheck, Sunday night at 10pm

Also on that day Philadelphia's JFK Stadium was also a site host and we'll have performances from The Cars and Eric Clapton.

The benefit concert was organized by Sir Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for the ongoing famine of Ethiopia.  The combined attendance of Wembley Stadium and JFK in Philadelphia was 161,484 and the broadcast was seen by over 1.9 billion across 150 nations.

Many artists took place in the 1 day show including:

U2, the band from Ireland was just starting to stretch it's wings in the music business, they only played two songs in London, Sunday Bloody Sunday, and Bad.

David Bowie, he played on the London side that day, and his setlist included, TVC15, Rebel Rebel, Modern Love, and Heroes.

Phil Collins....well he did something unique.  He started his day in London and then took a Concord to fly across the "pond" to land in Philadelphia. In London he did a set with Sting and sung his solo work.  Then in Philly he performed a couple of solo songs and played drums for Eric Clapton's set and then for the big prize he along with Tony Thompson joined these guys on stage for their set.

Led Zeppelin, they reformed for this special occasion.  Things did not go well during their performance as they complained about Phil's drumming.  Critics complained about Robert's voice, Jimmy Page's out of tuned guitar and poor sound from the monitors.  The band did not want to be on the DVD release or the cd release of their performance and has since not been able to be heard except for radio and video bootlegs that have surfaced on youtube.

The Who played in London that day, a four song set that included My Generation, Pinball Wizard, Love Reign O' er Me and Won't Get Fooled Again where the neighbors of Wembley really heard Roger's scream.

Mick Jagger....But where was the rest of the Rolling Stones?  I guess resting.  Mick did have his solo band in Philadelphia, and was joined by Tina Turner on stage for a couple of tunes.

And of course Elton John had to attend this benefit show, and he did six songs including a Marvin Gaye classic "Can I Get a Witness" plus he dueted with Wham! and did a song with Kiki Dee, yep the classic "Don't Go Breaking My Heart".

Over 127 million dollars was raised in one day from donations through phone pledges (remember no web address at the time).  There was another Live Aid later on called Live 8 in 2005 with Pink Floyd reuniting for a four song set and it was a good chance to raise more money for famine relief around the world.