Live Aided Many But Sir Bob Was Shining Light

So, did Live Aid change the world? It certainly changed music … and a lot of people’s careers

Live Aid was one of them events of the modern era that everyone remembered where they were. A bit like when JFK was shot, September 11^th and Raul Moat’s recent public execution

I remember watching Live Aid on video (it was a long time ago) in my mates house when I was thirteen. He’d recorded it the week before and I remember sitting there with his parents and sisters when half way through, I think it was when Spandau Ballet were on, a giant black cock appeared with a young ladies lips wrapped around it and here head bobbing up and down (you get the picture). Turned out his sister’s boyfriend taped over it with a porno for a laugh. That was a pretty uncomfortable moment to be honest as I turned to their parents with their gobs wide open in utter disbelief!

Anyway: getting back to the event.

Live Aid was twenty five years ago this week in Wembley Stadium on what turned out to be a scorcher of a day! A few rock stars of the day including Midge Ure and Bob Geldof organised this live event that was aimed at bringing aid to starving kids in Ethiopia. But one of the many things that happened that day did bring much need … to the ailing rock bands of the time!

Many of the day’s main acts including U2, Dire Straits and Queen turned into some of biggest acts on the planets as a result of Live Aid. Before that Dire Straits were teetering in the brink of superstardom (you could say – in Dire Straits), Queen were considered ‘past it’ and U2 were, well just another Irish rock band with a complete twat for a lead singer (why he still insists on getting young women out of the crowd to dance with him today is still way beyond my comprehension). Bad mullet as well!

With regards to the far reaching events of the day, music had tuned into International global audiences viewing international global events for the first time. Although a few technical difficulties needed to be solve first. After that – stadium rock was well and truly born along with the afore mentioned band’s new found stomping grounds for bringing in the money and enhancing their reputations

But, for me, there is one individual that really stands out for me after Live Aid. He is the one true shining individual of the day. A monster of a man. A beacon of light in a world of dark, greedy capitalism. A true hero = Sir Bob Geldof!

Here was a man who didn’t really care what people though of his personal appearance or what he said live on television. Here was a man who is forever known as the man whose wife ran off to shag Michael Hutchence from INXS and having a rather wayward young daughter who is too fond of the paparazzi lens!

On the day itself he sat in the royal box with Charles and Diana in a pair of jeans and a scruffy denim shirt that looked like it’d seen a few sweaty live appearances in its day! He even had the balls to correct Charles when he asked them who that band were (Status Quo) playing first.

And most famous of all, in a remarkable show of passion and damn right whole hearted determination, stamped his fist on the table live on television in front of Millions upon millions of people demanding they “give their money now and don’t go to the pub”.

That for me summed up Sir Bob. He truly believed in the cause after first hand witnessing the suffering in Ethiopia that obviously left its mark on this tough street fighter of a singer from the rough streets of Belfast! In other words = he didn’t give a shit and he didn’t give a shit what people thought of him.

The world needs more people like him!

Long live Sir Bob

Mol

Take Splatt! Ch-Ching

Stop the world, evacuate your towns and prepare yourselves for some really bad new … Robbie is back!

Yes, that’s right people, what every woman in Britain aged forty to fourteen has been waiting for: Take Splatt have fully re-formed! You can almost feel the dampness on the undergarments and the sudden over-excited piss-stains appearing in their jeans already!

Before I continue with what you will probably already predict from my newly sharpened mouse, I’d like to thank my wonderful sister for adding me to the Take Splat mailing list in the early nineties. The postcards in the hall were a particular embarrassment when my mates knocked round. Cheers for that luv! Haha

So, Robbie, Mark, Jason, Gary and that gimp who sounds like he’s sucking on a piece of tree bark have decided to make themselves whole again. Interesting that they have cited their reasons for getting it on again as purely professional and “for the great songs they have stored up”. Hahahahaha, don’t make me fucking laugh

There is one reason and one reason only they have re-formed and it’s as plain as the big gay nose on the end of their big gay faces – money!

Anyone who is taken in by this bullshit these five blerts have come out with about it being “about the music” needs to go and have their craniums examined and book themselves in for a full lobotomy!

The only negotiations they have been sorting out before they announced their news is how much they can get in endorsements from the likes of Pepsi, Sky and any other gang of corporate wankers willing to pay them far too much money for their services!

Take Splatt are nothing short of media whore corporate slags who are willing to sell their souls to the devil in return for fame and fortune. If you don’t believe me do a quick Google search of Robbie Williams last record deal and then have a listen to the SHIT he released in return!

You will be truly shocked

Take that … and FUCK OFF!!!

Mol

Festival of Cheap Talk

You know that feeling you sometimes get when you wake up in the middle of the night, hot, sweaty, extremely anxious and your bed having the trade mark resonance of a Dutch Oven? That’s how I felt the other night when I woke up and realised the hot and sweaty months of summer are well and truly upon us

Anyway, before you ask, I hadn’t shit the bed, it was something more terrible – I realised its music festival season! Great!

These days people don’t really need to go to festivals such as Glastonbury, Isle of White and the ‘V’s’ as ITV and BBC pretty much have every base covered when it comes to their coverage

But the really shit thing about the coverage these two channels and many others have of these events are the endless amounts of arse licking the interviewers do to the musicians they have on their show

An example of this was me watching the NME channel the other day at the Download Festival. The cameras were backstage and they were interviewing Taylor Hawkins from Foo Fighters. He was sat there in his typical rock star pose, slouched in his chair, Aviator shades on, beer in hand (plastic cup, of course) talking about how he got there (flight), what he had for tea (sandwich), how long he slept on the plane for (five hours), where he got his wellies from (some hippy guy gave him them), who he was gonna ‘hang with’ (the list was too long, but let’s just say his feet must have been really sorry after all the names he dropped).

Anyway, by this time, in between serious fits of yawning, he relentlessly (what most Americans do) went on and on and on and on and I thought to myself what a load of fucking utter rubbish! Who really wants to know all this shit apart from celebrity obsessives and other rock stars? I eventually came to the one conclusion that was all rock stars are utterly boring self-absorbed bastards who are about as exciting as listening to an Athlete album!

But, going back to the intrepid roving reporter. There’s something that bugs me about them and the way they stick their microphones where they shouldn’t and it’s the pure look of star struck dumbness that comes over them while their subjects are telling them about what they had for dinner, who they met on the plane, who they’d like t o shag, etc, etc, etc!!!

Personally, I don’t get it; it’s like a real life version of Face book with a set of boring, friendly generic questions constantly reeled out time after time guaranteed not to offend. Dull dull fucking dull!!!

Now before you all start calling me a grumpy bastard (again) I would like to point out that not all British Music festivals are shit. Glastonbury, thanks to the father and daughter partnership of the Eavis family, has independently maintained their festival for over forty years without it being over taken by the massive corporations such as the V’s and T in the Park for example. You have to take your hat off to them for that

But that’s not my ‘beef’; my beef is with the constant shit that the TV companies do whilst covering these events

I firmly believe the producers of these programmes that order their presenters to mix it in the mud for a few days with the ‘stars’ they have to chase are told to over-sensationalize them to the point that many people/fans see these musicians as some sort of god-like figures

It’s nothing short of pathetic and another example of fame being all about smoke and mirrors

Until the summers over, I suggest you either attend one of these music festivals or turn off the telly and go and live in a tent until the autumn

Leave the willies in the shed though!

Mol