In 1985 me and my friends had eschewed Live Aid and gone away on holiday to a cottage that had no TV. We were maybe the only people in the country who didn't see or hear even a note of the historic concert. We were punks (punks who were eight years too late and who worked hard for their exams) and were very finnikety about which bands were OK to like and no doubt thought there was something phoney or uncool about the whole event. Such an attitude has pervaded through my life and meant I've missed out on all kinds of great stuff for fear of being judged. It's a shame.
Even though we were partly right about Live Aid, you know, it's a shame to miss out on an epoch definining event.
Today, twenty years on and it's Live 8 as you may have noticed. I now live in London and could possibly have attempted to use my connections to secure myself one of the VIP spaces which I thought rather sick-makingly were right at the front, in the way of all the ordinary people who'd won their tickets fair and square. The enclosure wasn't even full and only the celebs were allowed to buy booze. I don't think that that is right.
And who am I kidding? I could never have got in.
In any case I had a gig in Bristol and it was also my mum's birthday lunch in Cheddar, so I was going to miss most of the thing again. I wondered what kind of people would be wanting to come out to a comedy gig on this night of all nights. Mainly people who hated music and the poor. My kind of audience. Plus perhaps a few middle-class teenagers who thought they were punks and were intellectually superior to the event. Again my ideal audience.
We did manage to catch some of the action on the radio on the way down to Somerset and also on the telly in the evening. I am less cyncial nowadays and though there were some aspects that jarred (the VIP enclosure for starters- but was any of this down to jealousy that I hadn't been invited? I don't think so actually. It just seemed out of the otherwise democratic spirit of the day) I did think it was an amazing show of human spirit and a much more accessible and admirable protest than any of the marches I have ever seen. Because it was celebrating life at the same time as trying to effect change and played on the very thing that all democratically elected governments most fear - people power. And it would be very hard to say, "oh it's just a load of crusties and anarchists looking for a fight" because all over the world it was ordinary people (and champagne swilling celebrities) doing something fun, whilst at the same time making the point that the world we live in is ridiculously out of balance. And whilst I still baulked a little at the multi-millionaires wearing the "Make Poverty History" bracelets and the embarrassing sermonising of some of the performers (as well as their slightly childish desire to shock the world by swearing - if they were going to do that they should at least have been brave enough to use the word cunt - "George Bush is a cunt!" would have been a good use of the expletive) it was a moving and worthy and amazing and truly historic day.
I think people assume that the world can't be changed and so there's no point in trying, but the world has been changed, time and time again and often by ordinary people and often without recourse to violence (or saying fuck).
It was amazing to see the young African woman who had been 15 minutes from death, but saved by the original charity effort grown up, healthy, beautiful and full of grace. I think it made it very hard to be cynical, still possible, but only the hardest heart of the most idiotic journalist would not conclude that that alone made the whole thing worthwhile.
The most amazing thing of the whole day though was that UB40 had been asked to perform. Why? Please tell me why? Out of all the bands from their era? And they seemed to do about five times as long as anyone else. And were shit.
Anyway aside from this I was glad I caught a bit of it this time round, though missed all the excitment of Pink Floyd and Robbie Williams because I had to go and talk about yoghurt in Bristol.
I had emailed Bob Geldof to tell him that he shouldn't put his event on the same day as one of my previews and that it would be him that suffered if he tried to take me on, but he hadn't listened. And I was proven correct when over 60 Bristolians eschewed the event to come and watch me. I thanked them for giving up on witnessing history to instead watch me talking rubbish - "You'd better be worth it" came a voice from the crowd. I think I was probably just about as good. Almost certainly. Yes.
And I raised over £16 for SCOPE which I think put's St Bob's efforts into some kind of perspective.
