by Peter Yezukevich

From 1985 to the present, the Band Aid Trust and Live Aid Foundation have spent over $144 million on famine relief in Africa. This is an impressive number, and it highlights a true legacy of the trend of giving and selflessness that arose among pop culture icons in the mid-eighties. But after spending New Year’s Day watching hours and hours of performances from the recently released DVD Live Aid, all I can think is “What the hell was (insert musician name) thinking wearing that?!” From David Bowie and Mick Jagger looking like Bea Arthur and Rue McClanahan while destroying “Dancing in the Street”, to Bono slow dancing in tight leather pants while sporting the mullet to end all mullets, the real story behind the Live Aid DVD is not the money raised or the music Live Aid gave us, but the fashion faux pas it unleashed on our unsuspecting collective consciousness.

Do you know the picture of Mr. T dressed as Santa Claus, with First Lady Nancy Reagan sitting on his lap? I always thought that image perfectly summed up the overall otherworldly feel that permeated the eighties. No longer. Now, it’s the barrage of day-glo Reeboks and flowing oversized shirts and pants that fill the screen as Bowie and Jagger skip, jump and flirt with each other for three minutes straight in the perversely fascinating video for their cover of Martha & the Vandellas’ “Dancing in the Street”. The video premiered on the day of Live Aid, broadcast as part of the show, and the official book of Live Aid claims that during the broadcast “there were reports of people dancing in the streets all over the world.” Impossible. How could anyone have unglued their eyes from such images as Bowie lifting his leg ballet-style in front of Jagger as Jagger namechecks the U.S.S.R., or the two shaking their scrawny British butts at the screen at the video’s finish? Angela Bowie, David’s ex-wife, claimed on The Joan Rivers Show in 1990 that she once came home to find Bowie and Jagger in bed together. No doubt seeing this video jarred loose that deep-seated memory.

Fittingly, the Jagger-Bowie collaboration is included in the DVD while Prince’s contribution to the event, the sober, poignant “4 The Tears in Your Eyes” is nowhere to be seen. I can only suppose the black and white performance piece was simply not garish enough to merit a spot. Instead of the Prince video, we get to see Elton John bring his half-hit wonder partner Kiki Dee onstage to perform “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart”. Immediately afterward, Dee presumably returned to her hermetically sealed oxygen chamber, never to be seen again. 

While there is a host of dead performances on the discs, seeing Run of Run-DMC tell 90,000 people waiting for Tom Petty to play that “there are a whole lot of rock stars on this stage here tonight, but I want you all to know one thing. I’m the King of Rock!” may just worth be the price of the DVD. Keep in mind “Walk This Way” with Steve Tyler and Joe Perry was still a year away, and you can imagine the looks on the faces in the crowd.

There was one band that comes out of the wreckage unscathed, the arena-rock gods Queen. Freddie Mercury has total command of the audience of 72,000 at Wembley Stadium as the band rips through greats such as “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We Are the Champions”, and even his skin-tight bright blue jeans and leather-studded armband cannot stop him. My memory always led me to believe that U2 and Queen were the true stars of the day, both enrapturing the crowd with passionate, brilliant sets. Well, I was half right. U2 was okay.

Historically, U2’s midday set at Live Aid did a lot toward creating a foundation for the worldwide adoration they would receive on their “Joshua Tree” tour, then still two years away. But seeing their performance for the first time since the mid-nineties, when I was dating someone who had the whole day taped from MTV, I was shocked at how annoyed I got with Bono’s offstage leap into the arms of a female audience member. When it first aired, I remember thinking he was brilliant, and I wanted to be him. Now all I saw was The Mullet. As the band played on and on, I quickly scanned through my seventh grade yearbook, looking for evidence that I may have tried to follow Bono’s fashion lead. Thank goodness, I looked more like someone who traded his mirror and comb for 500 Ding-Dongs. I think I made the right choice.