Live 8

Hype aside these huge concert spectacles are hugely enjoyable watching from the comfort of your armchair. As I predicted many musical genres were poorly represented last night, and those that were the usual suspects.

Shortly after Christmas 1985 when Sir Bob was introducing his idea of raising money to the world, myself and several other local bands and musicians did our own money-raising effort for Live Aid. We all played for free and raised about £150 which was no mean feat when we were only charging 75 p admission! These gigs with many bands of differing abilities were always interesting. With no one person in charge it was everyone for himself in terms of securing a decent position in the running order. We ended up somewhere near the start for some reason but I had written a one-off song to rival Do They Know It's Christmas called We Know It's Not Really Christmas.

Here is the lyric:

Kilamanjaro's snow has spread to the Serengeti
Reindeer grazing side by side with buffalo
The tribesmen hunt with spinning bolas
But we know it's not really Christmas

Frozen waterhole yields no moisture
Flamingoes land like ducks on ice
And the lions of hunger wait in the tall grass
But we know it's not really Christmas

copyright SJH 1986