BAND: Everyone
VENUE: Wembley Stadium
DATE: July 13, 1985
PA: Hill Audio

When it comes to decadence and excess, there can be few industries to better the efforts of the Pop Music industry. What an unusually fine thing this was, then, to see the cream of the world's Pop party animals federated in the name of world care, inspiring almost two billion worldwide to give: the First World unusually in mind of the Third.

Near enough 72,000 of us gathered at Wembley Stadium 'neath the blue Summer sky in the name of peace and goodwill, linked live by satellite to a further 90,000 in Philadelphia: it was like a latter day techno-pragmatist's version of Woodstock.

Getting In

The setting-up had started on the proceeding Wednesday and when I visited the site on the Friday the place was teeming with workers racing, some more frantically than others, against an ever nearing deadline. Hundreds of yards of cable of various kinds were being taped together and laid across the earth floor between the stage and the control tower, the BBC were checking their camera, sound and talkback feeds to their outside broadcast unit trucks at the rear of the stadium and carpenters were busy completing the physical structure of the stage.

The stage was a full proscenium affair based on the Springsteen construction used only the previous weekend, with the important addition of a 49' diameter revolve. The revolve was divided radially into three sectors: 1. Current Performance. 2. Set-up. 3. Breakdown. It was set within the rectangle of the fixed stage thus giving each band a performing area about 60' x 10' plus the triangle of ¹/₃ of the revolve. Interestingly enough, the motors used to turn the revolve had a backup system — two shire horses. Nice to see the animal kingdom doing its bit.

The basic stage construction was of Quickform scaffolding, apparently as used to support motorway bridges when they're being built. Resting on that, four scaffolding towers supported a roof 60' wide by 45' deep based on a system of alloy trusses capable of taking 23,000lbs strain.

The System

The main PA was run in stereo with two towering walls of Hill three-way, 1.4kW M4 cabinets 120 in total, positioned either side of the stage fronted by gauze showing the Live Aid insignia of a guitar in the shape of Africa.

About a quarter of the way down the stadium from the stage stood a rough board and scaffolding construction that was the PA and lighting control tower. To facilitate a pre-fade sound check of the next band whilst the current act was actually on stage performing, there were two operationally separate Hill 32:8:2 J-Series consoles each with its own auxiliary rack containing a Compex limiter, a Klark Teknik DN60 spectrum analyser, an AMS DDL, a Roland SDE-3000 DDL, an Eventide Harmoniser H910 and eight stereo Drawmer compressor/limiter/gates. Also available was a Lexicon 224 and a Roland 555 Chorus Echo.

One of the consoles was augmented by a 12-channel extension and it was the stereo outputs of this 'main' console that fed the PA via a stereo Compex limiter, a pair of White 1/6-octave equalisers and a Hill three-band crossover. The stereo outputs of the second desk went through the last two channels on the 12-channel extension.

The three-phase mains supply at the stadium is surprisingly bad and Mike Scarf from Hill Audio told me of something like eight volts being measured between earth and neutral and the three phases bringing in about 245, 250 and 255 volts. Hence they had to bring in their own generator which caused some considerable delay.

Mounted on the rear of the tower was a small mono mid/top system driven through a delay line to help maintain definition towards the rear of the stadium. These units were similar to the mid/top end of the M4 cabinets, consisting of Hill 2x10 cabs and 2" compression drivers on radial horns.

On the day the control tower was more than a little cramped, swarming with sound and lighting engineers rechecking arrangements for their own band. Although each band's engineer had been given the chance to submit a mike list, the obvious need for expedience meant that it was, to some extent, a case of making use of what was available.

Diamond Vision

Either side of the stage were the two massive Mitsubishi Diamond Vision TV monitor screens supplied by West Nally Vision and made famous by their use on the recent Springsteen tour. These two screens, measuring 5.4m x 4.1 m and 8.7m x 6.5m were transported by a fleet of six 40 foot articulated flat bed trucks. One of the screens, originally designed for permanent installations, required a pair of 100 ton cranes to lift its three sections into position on and off the trucks at Wembley. Even so, it only takes four hours from the end of a concert for the four-man crew to get the things on the road afterwards.

The screen is made up of a number of 'lighting units' which comprise 32 individually adjustable Cathode Ray Tubes split into eight groups of four — red, green, blue and white, and thus each pixel of the picture is made up of one of these sets of four tubes. Each of these CRT's needs its own digital control signal and so the standard 1v peak to peak analogue television signal is A-D converted and under computer control is fed to each tube individually. You'll get an idea of the scale of this operation when you consider that the smaller of the two screens is made up of 27,000 of these CRT's; even so it only draws a modest 70 amp current.

Each screen has its own control room equipped with a couple of U-Matic VCR's, colour correctors, a colour effects unit, a graphics generator, a bank of monitors, a couple of colour cameras and a simple edit suite with wipes etc to put it all together on-line as required. The cost of this facility varies with length of engagement and location, but a short term London gig would probably cost in the region of £12,000 per night — not a lot if you're playing to 70,000 of The Devoted at a time.

Special

The press were quite rightly required to cough up £100 per ticket for which we were allowed to sit in the 'Special Enclosure', the specialness of which would undoubtedly be more apparent if you were watching a game of football or a brass band spectacular (god forbid). As a sound monitoring position, however, room was left for improvement. It was midway along the length of the stadium halfway up the side. Here we were already subject to considerable reverberation from the stands and the metal roofing that covers them, and also the sound was lacking in hi-mid and top, making everything, especially the vocals, rather woolly, honky and indistinct.

Temperatures soared into the 80's during the afternoon, and those sunkissed ones lucky enough to be squashed in at the front were in serious danger of overheating. So the officials in yellow tunics were moved in to turn the hoses on their grateful, gruesomely ruddy faces. Each time as a hose was turned on, the crowd would erupt into a forest of beckoning hands desperate for a little coolant. One fine young person in the audience took the law into his own hand, and returned not only with a bottle of water to drink but also a Squezy bottle full to squirt over the over-heated in a wide radius around him.

However, as I strode about through the crowd, manfully ignoring the impending sunstroke, I discovered that their reward was considerable in that the sight and sound information was reaching them in synchrony and with excellent sonic fidelity. The sound coming out of the main rig was very full and clear, and what's more it reached the listener at the same time as the visual information. Moving further back from the stage the difference in the speeds of propagation between sound and light became increasingly apparent as an action on the stage or screen would be shortly followed by the relevant sound — a rather dissatisfying experience, though practically impossible to correct.

Moving behind the tower, and away from it, the delay speaker system continued to keep things clear and musical, though not as studio-like as in front of it. Moving further back the spectral balance became increasingly uneven with the high-mids and highs falling off rapidly, and this, coupled with the diminishing direct-to-reverberant, saw much of the detail and clarity disappear.

Towards the rear of the stadium, about seven-eighths the way down, the sound was very muffled and reverberant with discrete reflections bouncing from the rear wall. Right back by the rear stands, things improved a little by virtue of the loss of those delayed rear reflections.

One problem was a slight lack of volume — caused, apparently, by Brent Council and the GLC coming down very heavy that morning over noise levels. There was a meter recording the level all the way through to back up their threats of prosecution if it went over the 100dB mark, so the Hill people were understandably soft-pedalling.

Calling The World

The international TV networking system for this project was quite awesome, although in order to keep all the contractual details simple and workable there are to be no repeat showings or commercially available cassettes. It was strictly a one-off.

There were basically two broadcasters — BBC over here and ABC in the States. These two exchanged transmissions and having compiled their own programmes they transmitted them to all the other receiving stations world wide.

The BBC had two OBU trucks, one taking six cameras to cover the stage performances with the second taking a further two for interviews inbetween acts. Of the six performance cameras two were on dollies in front of the stage, two were hand held on stage, one was on the control tower and one was up in the GoodYear airship.

The signals from Wembley went via land lines to the BBC Television Centre from whence they were sent via the international news company Visnews at Park Royal to the British Telecom tower, then still by land lines to the satellite link up in Goonhilly, Cornwall which sent it via the Brightstar satellite around the world to Andover, Maine, USA. Then via another link up the signal was sent via a domestic satellite to a transportable dish in Philadelphia, thence into the ABC OBU truck. Once ABC put their programming together in their truck, they sent it into the JFK display system and up again to another domestic satellite to be distributed all over the USA. The satellite transmission line for the rest of the world makes that lot sound simple, so suffice it to say that most of Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand and of course Europe were included. Transmissions from the States were NTSC standard while we sent to them in PAL, so that conversion was effected at the final destination. All audio signals were in stereo and over here BBC Radio were simultaneously broadcasting the sound on FM stereo.

Other countries involved in providing live items included Australia, Austria, Germany, Holland, Japan and Yugoslavia.

America was originally scheduled to start their show at noon — 5pm our time, but then changed that to 9am. However, we couldn't link up with them until 5pm and so the first three hours of their concert was recorded on to VTR over here for possible transmission after Wembley had closed at 10pm, although in fact Philadelphia was still supplying us with live material until 4am when Auntie Beeb finally reached for the Horlicks.

Opening Quo

Status Quo opened the day perfectly with Rocking All Over The World and Caroline, and everyone clapped enthusiastically (not to mention perfectly in time), whether they were Quo fans or not; it was more an expression of support for the whole Live Aid project than simple applause.

Then Bob Geldof came on a little early so that Princess Di and Charlie Boy could see him before they left. The reception was justifiably ecstatic and it was straight into I Don't Like Mondays — what reason do you need to die? If he was ever passe, and he certainly was, all had been forgiven and he was firmly back in the hearts of the people.

The third number from Robert saw the first bit of trouble for Malcolm Hill and the boys — Bob's mike went down and didn't really come back for the remainder. Still, he'd made his mark and contribution.

After a very brief Adam Ant (and few complaints) — there came a video from Australia, which gave everyone a chance to look for their sandwiches and go to the bar — or to sleep.

Soon after, Spandau Ballet proved to have the best mix yet in that, though the backing wasn't always too clear, the vocals were always well out front.

Then Elvis Costello, on his own: "I'd like you to help me sing this old Northern Folk song", and it was straight into All You Need Is Love. We the audience joined in with zeal, even singing the brass arrangements between lines of the chorus. Shame he just did the one.

Short performances from Nik Kershaw and Sade plus US transmissions from BB King were followed by the much awaited Sting, who was accompanied only by his own guitar and a solo sax. He and Phil Collins, accompanied by his own piano playing, alternated songs assisting each other with occasional harmonies. But Phil couldn't hang around, he had flash zoomings about to be concerned with: being flown to Heathrow by helicopter, then via Concorde to Philadelphia to repeat his set and drum with Eric Clapton and then the specially reformed Led Zeppelin over there.

By mid afternoon Strato cumulus clouds had started to form and it wasn't long before a downpour brought blessed relief from the heat of the sun.

Howard Jones then took the stage with his piano and Pearl In The Shell to prove that he knew what the black notes were for with a well executed cascading piano intro.

Paul Young showed his soul complete with his serious band of backing singers and also introduced Alison Moyet to do a number.

U2 crashed in with Sunday Bloody Sunday, and Bono later leapt offstage into the safe area between barrier and stage to pull a swooning young thing (female) over the barrier for a dance, subsequently returning to stage to find a couple more waiting for him. Springsteen sure started something with that Born To Run video; no wonder they call him The Boss.

From the USA — a very middle aged Beach Boys came on with Help Me Rhonda, Surfing USA etc. Perfect sunshine music.

It's 6 o'clock and as the light begins to fail the lighting is starting to be more noticeable and the stage becomes increasingly colourful and interesting creating more the feel of a concert than a festival.

Around 6pm Dire Straits turned up along with Sting who opened with Money for Nothing. Then it's Sultans of Sting — I mean Swing, except he'd gone by this time.

Queen and Bohemian Rhapsody proved to be a well recognised anthem that got the flagging arms waving to and fro above heads in time honoured style. Freddie then did his usual routine of getting everyone singing 'Deyo' in various different ways. I thought it was unspeakably banal, but the crowd went mad for it, so what do I know? Freddie's party animal then got even more carried away as he grabbed the camera man by the hip with his spare hand to do a little writhing into the camera. This was followed by other songs including We Are The Champions — another surefire arm swinging anthem. They were definitely the stars among stars in terms of audience response.

The big screens then came alive with the premier of the Jagger/Bowie video for Dancing in the Street — where the two kings of It are seen shaking it together in no uncertain terms.

Heroes

Bowie's live performance was probably the high light for most people there, opening with TVC15 and then Rebel Rebel. A particularly clever banner in the crowd had LIVEdAvID Bowie written in such a way as to accent Live Aid.

Favourites that followed were Modern Love and Heroes in which Bowie was the first to benefit from the freeze frame update effect on the video screen. Much to the distress of the crowd he ended a song early to allow a film on Ethiopia to be shown: "Let's not forget why we're here", he said in answer to the complaints, and left like a Hero.

The next live act was The Who — after trouble with Roger's mike and some horrendous mains hum, Wallop! My Generation — but the man's vocals are still pitifully quiet and the crowd (including me) don't like it one little bit. It's on then off, then on for good, but it still isn't really loud enough. Maybe it's because the band are so very loud.

Pinball Wizard — and the crowd are up for it in a huge way. It's big fun, clapping and joining in on the chorus and by this time the band are down a bit and Roger is coming through good and strong.

After The Who Billy Connolly came on to introduce Elton John — "At no expense at all", and announced that 95% of the possible TV stations had shown the show. Elt came in with I'm Still Standing — but he was really sitting in front of his very own specially delivered piano with a red fez on his bonce and stripey tinselled jacket. He's a lad, old Elt. Kiki Dee came on for Don't Go Breaking My Heart, and then George Michael arrived with gratuitous shades and beard to do Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me, with Mr Ridgeley demoted egolessly to backing vocals along with Kiki.

On the video they were now freezing and colourising just before cutting to another shot.

From the States Bette Midler, with customary taste and discretion, introduced a woman "Who has pulled herself up by her bra straps and who has also been known to let them down from time to time Madonna." "I'm sympathising with you by keeping my clothes on," explained the celebratory one amid shouts of disapproval from the crowd, "I ain't taking shit off today, I don't want it held against me in 10 years time". Most prudent, my dear, I'm sure.

After a brief acoustic duet from Brian May and Freddie Mercury the piano of Paul McCartney could be heard playing the legendary chords of Let It Be, but was there any lead vocal? Was there 'eck. There was a vague suggestion of it from the foldback, poor old Paul probably didn't even know we were in the dark. But then for the second verse it was all happening and we all sang along — and so did Bowie, Alison Moyet, Geldof, Townshend.

Then the finale, and it had to be Do They Know It's Christmas — with absolutely everyone singing along, taking it in turns to take the lead, and passing the mikes round between them.

Whether or not Live Aid will do any longterm good in changing the structures that create such mindless international inequality, it has undoubtedly done more than any other single event to draw the world's attention to the situation in Ethiopia and to bring immediate relief. Saturday was a great concert and a great day.