Review of Live Aid 20 Years Ago Today (Various Artists)

Introduction

The introduction to the recent Live 8 concerts was a performance of Sgt Pepper by Paul McCartney and U2, opening purposefully with the line "It was 20 years ago today…" This was a clear acknowledgement of the original "Greatest Show On Earth" that was broadcast to the world on 13th July 1985, the granddaddy of charity concerts and the one that still puts all the others in the shade.

There can`t be many people now who don`t understand the origins of the Band Aid Trust, what they tried to achieve and how they went about it. It`s the 20th anniversary year after all, and Live 8 was just a culmination of the work carried out before. My guess is that it`s not over yet, but then that`s another story.

The sad thing about Live Aid was that for years we only had old and stretched video tapes to aid our memory of what had happened on that momentous day. Then internet auction sites and writeable DVD technology combined to spread the word and give people a tidy profit for something that many people wanted to see in a decent format. At some point and in a quite staggering lack of foresight, the Band Aid Trust saw what was happening and belatedly realised that the only people who should be making a profit from this concert was the trust itself who could plough the profits back into the trust and use it to further their cause. Thus the Trust set about contacting all those performers who gave their time for free and brought together a lot of the performances from that day, but not all, in a 4 DVD set that was released in time for Christmas 2004. My family understood that this was the only thing that mattered in terms of what I would have liked for that particular Christmas, and I was not disappointed in any way.

Now, just in time for the aftermath of Live 8 and just before the 20th Anniversary date of the concert, comes a "Special Collectable Highlights Disc".

Video

It`s old TV footage so whilst it`s as good as it originally looked, don`t be expecting anything special.

Audio

Sound is good and in normal circumstances best played loud.

Features

Detailed listings of everything contained on all four discs of the proper set plus songwriting credit for all the tracks used here if either can be classed as extras.

Conclusion

Just as a lot of pre and post Live 8 discussion is centring around the profits of the bands who performed, along comes a disc that is a clear cash-in and a pretty poor one at that. Collectable highlights? Edited performances on a straight to the coffee table coaster more like.

Boasting performances of some of the highlights of the day, each track is edited down so across the 45 minutes of this disc you will never see a full track by any artist. Some of the artists only get a few bars, but most of those lucky enough to make the grade get a couple of minutes each.

I`m guessing the idea of this disc is to persuade people to buy the real thing, in which case why make this the DVD equivalent of a poor Starsound or Jive Bunny medley and then have the gall to charge nearly a tenner for the privilege? If this was a free sampler then all would be good, but to charge money for this is disgusting. It`s not as if they couldn`t have made a proper sampler with a full disc with a selection of full performances across 2-3 hours, there`s enough material there.

The full set is still available and has only been out for around 8 months at a cost of about £40 for over 8 hours of superb live entertainment. If you only have a tenner in your pocket now, wait a couple of weeks or however long it takes and buy the real thing. After all the good work done and the fantastic memories of that day, I feel like a real curmudgeon and spoilsport by pouring a dampener on something like this, but the truth is that this is a poor imitation and should be avoided at all cost.