July 13th will mark 40 years since Live Aid occurred. I think for my generation, this was sort of our Woodstock. Appropriately for this generation, our revolution was televised and most of the audience, including me, saw it that way. 

Here is a link to the line-up for you to peruse:

http://liveaid.free.fr/pages/liveaidtimesdetaileduk.html

I actually remember this day pretty well. I lived in a neighborhood of brothers at the time, meaning there were a lot of families with boys on my street. My brother and I, three brothers next door, four brothers next door to them, two brothers next door to them, four more brothers across the street from them, two brothers on the other side of our house...it was a real bro kind of street. As such, we all hung out, played sports, beat the hell out of each other, and generally had all the kind of rough and tumble fun boys will have. 

My father was well known to everybody on the street. Essentially, the kids loved to come to my house, he always had the latest stereo and TV equipment, we had the first VHS machine on the street, and he had a movie theater popcorn machine in the living room, cases of soda from the local soda factory in every flavor and color, and had no rules...none. He also said hilarious things that included plenty of foul language that the neighborhood boys loved hearing. My dad was known for having a knack for turning an unusual phrase. He had been in the Navy, and I think this provided him with an education in bizarre foul language usage and other wacky ways of putting things. I generally would horrify teachers in elementary school with many things I said.

There was a pool out back, and kids would line up to have my father pick them up and hurl them into the air into the pool. 

So, on this midsummer day, guys from the neighborhood gathered at our house to watch Live Aid. It was an event. 

The huge thing that day was the tease that the remaining members of Led Zeppelin would reunite. More on that later. 

The house phone kept ringing, my dad would pick it up and yell, "Reggie, one of your harem is on the phone again!" and all the guys would laugh and harass me. Then he would walk over and say to me "Is that all you do, son, chase tail?" prompting a chorus of comments and laughter from the gathered crowd. It was an annoyance to me at the time and I had to keep asking "Do you not know that Led Zeppelin is going to reunite today?" which seemed to have very little impact on the girl on the phone. So, not everybody was watching Live Aid that day.

Anyway, does anybody else have memories of Live Aid?

Here was one of my favorite performances that day: