I was two weeks shy of my thirteenth birthday, and in Oregon filming Stand By Me, when Live Aid happened in 1985, and I was a little too young (and focused on making the movie) to fully appreciate it. When I was old enough to understand what I’d missed, I never thought I’d get a chance to experience the show.
Never that is, until the good kids at Rhino released Live Aid on DVD, which Anne gave me for Christmas. For the past two days, I’ve turned off Fred and let the DVD run while I work on various writing projects. I’d heard a little bit of it over the Thanksgiving weekend, when XM played it on the 80s channel, so I expected to enjoy it, but I’m a little surprised at just how much it rocks. The performances really hold up, and one of them even made an impression on Ryan and Nolan.
After listening to Paul Young perform one of my all-time favorite songs, (Come Back And Stay), I moved to the couch to watch U2 perform. In order to fully recreate the concert experience, I cranked up the Onkyo to a million, and bounced a beach ball around my living room.
Ryan walked into the room, and sat down on the couch next to me. He and Nolan have grown up with U2 the way I grew up with The Beatles, so he recognized the song right away.
“Is that U2?” He said.
I told him that it was, and while Bono continued to sing, I gave him a brief history of Live Aid.
“. . . so Bob Geldof decided to —”
“Wait. I’m sorry to interrupt, but what’s up with Bono’s boots?” He pointed to the screen, and for the first time I noticed that Bono was wearing leather pants, tucked into knee-high suede boots. They had an impressive heel.
“Uhh . . .” I began.
“And is that . . . oh my god. It is.” The color drained from his face. “He has a mullet.”
Before I could reply, Nolan walked into the room.
“Hey!” He said. “What are you watching?”
“It’s Live Aid,” I said. “They were raising money for —”
“Woah! That is a sweet mullet!” Nolan pointed at the screen and erupted into peals of laughter.
I paused the DVD, and turned to face them.
“Listen, you guys. It was 1985.”
They looked back at me, blankly.
“Oh, nice.” It’s yet another ‘I’ve-just-become-my-parents’ moment, just replace ‘it was the sixties’ with ‘it was the eighties.'”
“The mullet was the official haircut of rock and roll,” I said.
Before either of them could point out how ludicrous this statement was, even if it was true, I tried to explain: “This concert was a really important event! Not only are these all incredible bands at the height of their popularity, but you can see what happened when a bunch of people came together to make a difference in the . . . in the world . . ” I realized that they weren’t listening to me. Ryan’s face was turning red and Nolan was choking back massive giggles.
“What?” I said.
Ryan’s face cracked, and he howled with laughter as he pointed at the TV. I looked up, and saw that I’d paused the movie on a shot of Bono, his head thrown back, eyes clamped shut, microphone held high . . . and mullet in full-effect.
“I’m sorry, Wil.” Ryan said. “What were you saying?”
I laughed in spite of myself. Bono did look pretty ridiculous. “I’ll tell you another time. For now, just try to enjoy the music.”
“Oh, we can do that,” Nolan said, and made a big production of putting his hands over his eyes.
“Hey, let’s see how well your rock and roll heroes hold up in twenty years,” I said.
“As long as they don’t have mullets, I think we’ll be fine,” Ryan said.
I pressed play and we watched — well, I watched and they listened, to the rest of Sunday Bloody Sunday, followed by Bad.
“See?” I said. “That was during Unforgettable Fire, just before Joshua Tree. Those two songs they just played are the reason you have heard U2 since you were too little to know what music was.”
As the final strains of Bad echoed over an aerial shot of Wembley Stadium, they cut to footage of Phil Collins about to board the Concorde.
“Who’s that?” Nolan asked.
“That’s Phil Collins. He just finished performing in London, and now he’s going to fly to Philly to perform there too,” I said. “It was pretty cool.”
“Phil Collins?!” Ryan said, “The wussy Tarzan guy?!”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Well . . . yeah.”
“He was cool?”
“Phil Collins was . . . ” I cleared my throat. “He was an international superstar.”
Ryan looked at me, genuinely confused. “Why?”
I took a deep breath and gave the only answer I could.
“It . . . it was 1985.” I said, suddenly not that uncomfortable to take another step toward becoming my parents, and silently grateful that the kids hadn’t been in the room when I was rocking out to Adam Ant.
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Oh man, I so remember when Phil Collins “sold out” and performed on Solid Gold! I also remember being pissed that my sisters got to see him perform in a small venue with only 200 people back when his first album came out. Sometimes I think celebrities that die at the height of their popularity have it better than those that go on. But then I think of Sting and Bowie and Bono and all those others who just seem to get better with age, or at least whose changes I can respect. It’s so weird to think that concert was 20 years ago. Damn, we’re old 😉
Beautiful! I don’t have kids, but I can only imagine having similar conversations in the future.
I think I waited until college in 1988 to grow my mullet….
I live in one of the towns where some of the scenes in Stand by Me was shot (one of my favorites by the way) Animal House was partially shot here also, along with a few others, kinda exciting for such a small town. And Adam Ant is an Icon in our home. My sister wore out all of his CD’s and has had to replace most of them so you aren’t alone, only her kids openly think she is a huge dweeb. But that could be because of the dancing, who knows. And the reason they poke fun at their dad? Well that would be his Phil Collins obsession!
You’re a great Dad, Wil. The boys are very lucky to have you.
Dang, I feel old now too. 🙁 You can’t really experience the concert fully until you turn the amp to 11.
Yes, it’s fun raising children to be U2 fans. My two-year old loves to watch the “hello, hello” song (Vertigo) on the TIVO over and over, and the five year old knows the words to the entire song. I eagerly await the coming tour to see them for the third time.
I, too, grew up in the 80’s (class of ’86) and remember cranking Phil Collins and Huey Lewis. What was I thinking? But mostly I listened to 60’s/70’s music such as the Doobie Brothers, Beatles, Boston, etc. as I recognized even then that the current music scene was crap.
Of course, it wasn’t just the mullets, but the makeup and spandex as well. God, what possesed those heavy metal bands to look like that?
What a great scene, I can truely picture it both because of the great writing and because I know EXACTLY what you mean, having been a teenager then.
I will now tell you about my live aid sorrow, because, I didn’t go. I could have. I lived just an hour from Philly and knew people who were going. The ticket price would have meant only a few weeks of staying home to save gas money, and perhaps some targeted borrowing from friends and family. I managed to videotape the entire event, which I watched several times. At the time, I didn’t realize what a huge cultural phenomenon the concert would be. I didn’t realize that my gen-x nostalgia would be so strong for this one concert, but at the time, I didn’t feel it was important enough to justify changing my priorities. I am pained to write these next few words because they are perhaps the most pathetic thing I have ever said: I didn’t go because I HAD TO WORK. Yes, at 18 years old, not a year out of high school, I was told to work the day of live aid and i showed up. I regret that day now, standing in that electronics store making barely above minimum wage selling resistors and LEDs and wire-by-the-foot, becuase I really doubt they would have fired me if I had called in sick. They should have closed the store that day anyway. Even if they did fire me, I got a job at a new a/v store that opened a month later anyway, so I would have been out a month’s salary. BUT I WOULD HAVE GONE TO LIVE AID!
Pity me.
On second thought, no, don’t do that.
I’m pathetic enough already.
What I remember about Live Aid is how excited I was that the original lineup of Black Sabbath was reuniting. This was six years after Ozzy left and there was still bad blood. No one thought it would ever happen, but they did it for Live Aid. If you’d told me at the time that by 2004 Black Sabbath reunions would be annual affairs I wouldn’t have believed you. Of course, at the time I refused to believe that Judas Priest’s Rob Halford was gay.
Oh, and tell the kids that thier kids will make fun of fashion trends in music that they thought made perfect sense. Maybe it will be hooded sweatshirts, or perhaps those square “thoughtful” glasses. But it will continue. Just like the cool longhair rockers of the late 70’s/early 80’s were considered “losers” by the late 80’s, and soon the goatee’d, ballcap-wearing fred durst type with the baggy jeans and white t-shirt will be the next stereotype to become comical. Personally, I can’t wait for that one.
Hey, Nice Write up in the LA Times today. Wasn’t expecting it, but there it was. BTW, it was in the Calandar Section, so you have to get a free temporary membership in order to read it online at LATIMES.com Look in the Calandar section on the right side of the screen and look under BOOKS…
.
.
HA BOOKS!
Let’s dance in style, lets dance for a while
Heaven can wait we’re only watching the skies
Hoping for the best but expecting the worst
Are you going to drop the bomb or not?
Let us die young or let us live forever
We don’t have the power but we never say never
Sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip
The music’s for the sad men
Can you imagine when this race is won
Turn our golden faces into the sun
Praising our leaders we’re getting in tune
The music’s played by the mad men
Forever young, I want to be forever young
do you really want to live forever, forever and ever
Forever young, I want to be forever young
do you really want to live forever? Forever young
hee. hee hee.
Ah, the 80s. That’s pretty fantastic!!
Thanks alot Wil, the title of your post has me yearning to dig through several layers of boxes to find my old Alphaville album. Now I’ll be up til 4am listening to LPs that haven’t seem the light of day for 15 years…
Dude, I still have my VHS tapes of the Live Aid broadcast! I should buy the DVD, now that it’s out.
I recently caught myself saying to my 22 year old coworker “When I was your age…” and I thought I’d turned into my mother! I guess it happens to everyone sooner or later. Although it’s pretty funny to discuss what we wore in high school with someone else who is the same age. The conversation always ends with a huge “WHAT THE HELL WERE WE THINKING?” and loads of laughter. Haaa mullets! Those were the days! 😀
I am *NOT* old.
Okay, I’ll beg here:
Wil, will you pleeease post the LA Times article on your website??
I wasn’t even listening to rock in 1985, that’s how completely uncool I was! I remember getting my first ever CD in 1986 or ’87, and it was the soundtrack to the London Les Miserables…yes, musical theater….
Have you heard the Temperance cover of “Forever Young”? It’s killer.
That was a really wonderful story; thank you.
Well… We’re really growing old. My first U2 concert when I was 15, just after Live Aid. There were also Pretenders, Big Audio Dynamite and Lone Justice… And yes, this was almost 20 years ago.
No children to remember these everyday to me…
This is the first time I’ve been on your site, and being introduced to you by running into the Live Aid blog really made me smile. I just turned 20 this month, and came home from school to spend christmas with my parents and two younger siblings. my dad and I have argued a bit over the last few years but we’ve always shared a love for music, so going to see shows together usually keeps the bloodshed at a minimum. anyway, he bought me the Live Aid dvd for christmas… i had never heard of the Live Aid, so he told me the story of how it got started, the guys who showed, etc… very much the way it sounds you explained it to your stepsons. he always played those guys’ music around the house, but to see them in their prime (except for roger and pete… my dad and i were awaiting townshend to pop his shoulder out)… i think i may have had as much joy watching what it meant to my father as listening to my earliest musical influences. and it was a distinctive mullet… but my dad said you could still be an male sex icon and wear 5 inch heels… Live-Aid brings us together, eh?
1985…when Live Aid was performed I -think- I was still in Germany. That was a rough year. Moving back to the US after living in Germany for almost five years was a HUGE culture shock, especially the new school in Middle-of-Nowhere, TX where they still paddled kids for discipline issues (the principal found out he COULDN’T paddle me, heh). The only good thing about that year was that I went to Disney.
Remember, Wil: Ridicule is nothing to be scared of.
Mullets….yeah…
Business in the front, party in the back.
God those were (are) awful.
I got this set for Christmas too, I can’t WAIT to listen to it.
I have been saying for years that Live Aid shoul dbe released on DVD. Finally!!!11oneone.
Those were the days weren’t they? Dang it, I feel old. Anyway I really thought the 80’s was a really cool time and the early 90’s also. I remember LIVE AID. The styles, the music was one of the best times of my life. Now that the Tsunami happened I hope we can help as much as we can like LIVE AID back in the 80’s. Wil you really are a great father to the two boys and I can just see the whole thing in my mind. Those boys are lucky to have a great guy like you in their life. Oh by the way it was stand by me that I became a fan of yours and it is still today as one of my favorites still. my favorite line? “suck my fat one you cheap dime store hood.” LOL
Morgan
This past weekend I saw a guy in the supermarket with the perfect mullet. I couldn’t help staring. I think I was actually following him around and staring – early 40s, 60 pounds overweight and a ‘mullet’!
Thanks for the memories
Member of the Ant Army,
Deb
Okay, let me get this straight Wil. 1985… Live-Aid… Bono… mullet.
1985 was 5 years after I graduated from college. Bono and U2 were in their second decade of making music. Easily their second – about their 14th year I believe. I never had a mullet – because only kids thought they were cool, and I wasn’t a kid.
Now put yourself in Bono’s shoes, er, boots. Second decade of making music.
And that was 20 years ago.
What’s he doing today? Selling iPods and touring yet again, striking poses onstage like he did 35 years ago. Almost makes you start spelling out M-i-c-k J-a-g-g-e-r.
Again, put yourself in Bono’s shoes Wil.
And you feel old? 🙂
I “torture” my boys with 80s music all of the time (I don’t think they mind).
Sure, Phil Collins was cool, but not likely in that context. :-p
For evidence, see: albums from Genesis that contain Peter Gabriel; albums from Brand X. The drum work on songs like Nuclear Burn is not to be believed. 🙂
I usually just lurk, but this post made me actually crack up out loud, causing my children to stare at their bizarre mother. Nicely done – this entry deserves a book of its own.
I had to be in a wedding the day of Live Aid. fortunately, it was a really great wedding, and yes, they are still happily married…
I taped as much of the event as I could, but, hmm a DVD you say…
My eleven year old son, with his wild unruly hair past his shoulders, watches Full House reruns. They aired the pilot episode last night…holy moley, you should see the mullets John Stamos and Dave Coulier were sporting. Very impressive indeed. The eighties surely were a distinctive fashion decade…
By the way, the same eleven year old has recently discovered Queen and U2. He got Queen’s Greatest Hits I & II for Christmas. We rock out every day to Bohemian Rhapsody. My coolness factor went up considerably when he discovered I could sing along and had Queen albums.
Wil,
It’s posts like this that bring us all together, with respect to our music choices growing up. It shows you how diverse your audience is when it comes to age and musical tastes. I think it’s grand that we all even know what a mullet is and can associate it with U2 from the 80’s and fat old guys in the supermarket today. What a country. Nice post.
In 1985, MTV had only been around for a few years. Music wasn’t as “visual” as it is today. People liked Phil Collins because he was a great musician, not because he looked cool.
One of the great things about American Idol was it showed the Music Industry that the people of the US were willing to choose the fat, geeky, strange looking performer over the one that looked cool because they sang better.
Don’t worry Wil, you do realize that you’ll have your revenge when they grow up and have to explain to their kids that wearing your pants halfway down your pelvic area was…well it was 2001 and um….
You need to show the kids the Music Video 1985 by Bowling for Soup (http://launch.yahoo.com/ar-299909—Bowling-For-Soup). It does a good job of showing us all those “cool” things from 1985.
By the way does an “ariel” shot have something to do with mermaids? Or did you mean aerial shot?
Keep up the good work it’s stories of everyday life like this that keep me coming back.
I remember being 14 in 1984 (the most awesome year of the 80’s as far as I’m concerned) and trying really hard to make my very straight blonde hair look as much like Pat Benatar’s dark brown curly fem-mullet as I could. Boy oh boy, those were the good days! (Music that you can dance to, that and that alone is enough for me!!)
LK
Wil,
That was such a great blurb. Bono went from mullet to being Jesus Christ with Rattle and hum. Our family had purchased our first VCR and of course had to record everything under the sun. One of the first thing I recorded was Bono being interviewed with his long Straight hair from Rattle and Hum preaching to us even then.
I also used to be awakened to the sounds of Phil Collins singing Sussidio. I remember thinking how cool he was. Now he is just the Tarzan weeney. How far we have come since 1984/5.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you http://www.mulletsgalore.com. I no longer sport the mullet, but I can still appreciate a good one. This site shows that there are still many people who value the mullet, even today.
Wil, excellent site. I read it regularly but this is my first posting. Don’t worry about explaining what rock icons used to look like, I am still waiting for someone to explain the one pant leg rolled up to the knee to me.
Wil, were you speaking of this here mullet?
http://www.atu2.com/view.html?/events/85/liveaid/bad3.jpg
This post totally made my day. I never actually saw Live Aid; I was only a year old at the time. I have, however, since seen U2’s part of the show on the Internet in various places. Absolutely amazing. I totally need to see them live on their next tour. Hopefully, they’ll come to New York and play elsewhere in addition to the city. 🙂
It’s nice to wake up and read ~40 comments from people who relate to this story. What a great way to start the day!
Yearous: thanks for pointing out my egregious spelling error. I’ve fixed it. 🙂
Dave: That is, in fact, the mullet in question. Sweet.
I was 15 on 7/13/85.
Unfortunately, my wife has horrible memories of that day because her dad’s diabetes acted up and his leg shut down and they had to amputate. She didn’t get to see most of the concert until the DVD came out last month.
Oh man, I remember watching Live Aid that day on MTV, with their unending “Is Springsteen gonna be here” ramblings, and watching them showing Martha “the clueless” Quinn sing along to Led Zeppelin (instead of the stage!) and messing up the words.
And yes, I wanted Bono’s hair. And those boots. That was COOL in 1985. Seeing him jump 15 feet down to the audience and pull that girl out of the stands for a 30 second hug, seen by two *biillion* people, still gives me goosebumps on the DVD.
I just wish the DVD was a lot more complete. (Uh, guys, Sting played “Message in a Bottle.” I *know* he did.)
<gumpy old guy>
Top 40 was just so much better back then.
</gumpy old guy>
Thanks for making me laugh on a Friday morning – it’s been a veeeerrrry long week.
I graduated from high school in 1984, so I remember Live Aid being a pretty big deal when I was at college. The big thing was that Phil Collins was going to perform concerts on two continents in the same day! Wow! 😉
Aaaahhh….the good ol’ days. Yes, mullets were awful, but at least U2 was still releasing good music. I’ve been underwhelmed with everything after Joshua Tree. Oh well.
Happy weekend!
Was that a secret Napoleon Dynamite reference?
1985. I was 4 years old. I just realized that the age diference between myself and Wil is 9 years… the same difference between myself and my youngest sister. Pretty cool.
But Wil, It was sunny yesterday for the last time in a week for us in Southern Cali… please tell me you went running or at least outside sometime during the day. If I weren’t stuck in this damn office, I would have been outside riding my bike 🙂
***”WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?”***
Hey WIL!
This is a touch off subject, I know, and I’m sorry, BUT, you GOTTA see this film:
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Spread the word!
OMG, Wil. I had a similar sort of experience with my daughters (who are younger than your stepsons). “The 80s.” I was a college radio DJ in the 80s. And all my daughters want to know is: “Hey Mom, did you wear legwarmers and listen to weird music?” Well….yeah. Then they want to know why everyone was so WEIRD back then. And I try to explain…it was the 80s…it was one of the coolest decades in music….mullets were THE THING. Almost every guy I knew had a mullet! Jesus, I even had a female mullet for a while. A femullet. I had an 80s Femullet, I admit it!
But it was THE 80s, fercrissake! We didn’t know, I swear we didn’t! We shamlessly went from our Skinny Tie/Black-n-White Sneakers phase to our Boy George/New Romantic Puffy Shirt phase. We used lots of hair gel and we were very pastey looking. Sigh. I miss those days….
BTW, if anyone’s interested in 80s music, check out the Live365 re-broadcast of my college radio show from the early 80s. You can get to it from my website: http://www.lynnzee.com. I haven’t changed the show rotation in a while, but I plan to soon. The shows now playing there have some pretty good music….
(I hope it’s OK to post this, Wil. I meant to add it to my last comment but I forgot).
I don’t remember that, especially since that was around the time I was born 😛
I was in college then, but I admit it, I don’t remember a darn thing about LiveAid, except that it happened.
But here’s my Adam Ant story: In the mid-90’s, Adam Ant came around to Seattle on a tour, and a bunch of us folks at Wizards of the Coast decided that we just had to go see him, even at that washed-up stage of his career. I was able to overlook the slight paunch, and the lack of all his 80s coolness. What I couldn’t get over though, was the loss of tempo. All those songs I used to Pogo to had slowed down to a point of complete non-hoppable-ness. I should probably drag out my old “Kings of the Wild Frontier Album”, and see whether I can reclaim some happier memories. . .
When it comes to Adam Ant, we must all rock out.