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Beyond Tiki, Bilge, and Test / Bilge / The new DVD of the Live Aid Concert and the conspicuously absent 'Led Zeppelin'

Post #132251 by donhonyc on Tue, Dec 21, 2004 11:42 PM

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Just had an early Christmas gift opening session since I'll be gone during the holiday and one of the gifts I got was the newly released DVD of Live Aid from way back there in the 80s....1985 to be exact. There are some great moments, but there are still some moments that suck as much now as they did nearly 20 years ago. It's funny to reconfirm how some things from the 80s have absolutely no Retro-Value whatsoever and should be tossed in the trash heap for good. I knew it back then, and it's still true today.

Some of the highlights are U2, David Bowie, Pretenders, Black Sabbath (!), Judas Priest, Queen (ah..Freddie Mercury..what can you say? One of the most passionate performers in Rock music. Great performance, and a little sad to watch.) and I'll be goddamned but Simple Minds was even great to see! I gotta admit I had a couple of twinges of emotion just remembering where I was when the show was actually happening, and how long ago it is now. Where the hell did all that time go?

BTW, it's a four disc set clocking in at nearly 10 hours, that's more than half of the actual concert itself. I DID NOT watch the whole thing. I gladly skipped through acts like Nick Kershaw and Howard Jones.

After a good look at the program notes, I could not find the perfomance by the momentarily reunited Led Zeppelin with Phil Collins and Tony Thompson from Chic sitting in on drums for the late John Bonham. I'm surprised..and yet not surprised that they didn't include that. I remember there was tons of anticipation about that performance and it was a HUGE dissapointment. Led Zeppelin...indeed! However...did it actually suck that bad that they couldn't include it in this restropective package? I mean they included Dylan's performance with Keith Richards and a very fidgety and weird Ron Wood. Hmm...maybe it was a legal thing with including the Led Zep set. Who knows? But I would say if you grew up in the 80s and paid attention to popular music back then Live Aid on DVD isn't a bad step into the past.

[ Edited by: donhonyc on 2004-12-22 00:16 ]