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Legendary Artist Performed at Live Aid in Two Different Cities and Got ‘Caught in a Toxic, Dysfunctional Web of Led Zeppelin'

Legendary Artist Performed at Live Aid in Two Different Cities and Got ‘Caught in a Toxic, Dysfunctional Web of Led Zeppelin'

Yahoo17-07-2025
Legendary Artist Performed at Live Aid in Two Different Cities and Got 'Caught in a Toxic, Dysfunctional Web of Led Zeppelin' originally appeared on Parade.
Perhaps no look back at Live Aid on its 40th anniversary is complete without focusing on the herculean task of on July 13, 1985.
The Genesis singer-drummer and solo artist was the only artist to play the historic fund-raising concert in both London and Philadelphia.
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Amazingly, Collins first performed and played drums for and in London at Wembley Stadium and then he traveled by helicopter to Heathrow Airport from where he flew on the Concorde to New York City and then jumped on another helicopter to Philadelphia.
Once in Philly, he performed a solo set and played drums with and the reunited Led Zeppelin.
With Sting in London, the Police singer started his set with two Police songs, 'Roxanne' and 'Driven to Tears' before Collins joined to perform his hit 'Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now,' the Police's 'Message in a Bottle,' Collins' 'In the Air Tonight' and 'Long Long Way to Go,' and the Police's 'Every Breath You Take.'
At JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, Collins did his own two-song solo set consisting of 'Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)' and 'In the Air Tonight,' then backed Clapton on the Cream song 'White Room,' Clapton's 'She's Waiting' and Derek and the Dominos' 'Layla.'
But he wasn't done. He also backed Led Zeppelin's , and on a three-song set featuring 'Rock and Roll,' 'Whole Lotta Love' and 'Stairway to Heaven.' Drummer was also on hand because apparently it took two drummers to fill the shoes of the late .
'It's just great to be part of something like this,' Collins told reporters backstage at the Wembley show, per Music Radar. Later, he was interviewed in the Concorde's cockpit while in transit, Collins said, 'Basically the reason I'm doing this is because it can be done. It's good fun isn't it?'
However, Collins would later have second thoughts.
Initially, Plant, Page and Collins were possibly going to perform, but it eventually turned into a full-scale Led Zeppelin reunion.
''You, me and Jimmy maybe doing something together' had become the second coming of history's greatest rock band. This is a development for which I am blissfully ignorant. Robert hasn't called, so I don't know that John Paul Jones is coming too. All of a sudden, it's Led Zeppelin,' Collins said.
He went on to further detail the experience in his 2016 autobiography, Not Dead Yet.
'I didn't come here to play with Led Zeppelin, I came here to play with a friend of mine who has morphed back into being the singer of Led Zeppelin -- a very different animal to the one that invited me,' Collins wrote. 'Now I'm caught up in the ceaselessly toxic, dysfunctional web of Led Zeppelin interpersonal relationships'
Collins admitted he knew things weren't going well during the short set.
'I know the wheels are falling off from early on in the set," Collins wrote in his book. 'I can't hear Robert clearly from where I'm sat, but I can hear enough to know that he's not on top of his game. Ditto Jimmy."
Despite the honor of playing the gig and making history that day, Collins admitted it ended on a sour note.
'If I could have left that stage, I would have left, half-way through 'Stairway,' if not earlier,' he wrote.
Legendary Artist Performed at Live Aid in Two Different Cities and Got 'Caught in a Toxic, Dysfunctional Web of Led Zeppelin' first appeared on Parade on Jul 11, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 11, 2025, where it first appeared.
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Smithfield's 'We Speak Pork' Campaign Features Pork So Good It Speaks for Itself
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Smithfield's 'We Speak Pork' Campaign Features Pork So Good It Speaks for Itself

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The Fickles: An alternative Hobby Awards

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'We were in no position to start a family or have a baby enter our lives at all, nor were we thinking about it.' But that night, Stewart saw a box with what looked like a doll in it on the 14th Street subway platform — and was shocked when he looked closer and saw movement. He quickly notified authorities and the infant was swept away. Stewart was celebrated as a hero — and interviewed by the likes of CNN and the BBC — before interest in the story initially subsided. That, thought Stewart, now 59, was that. A shiny moment in the news and then back to his regular life. Then things took a wild turn when Stewart was asked to provide testimony at a hearing to sever the baby boy's biological parental rights so that the child, then called "Daniel Ace Doe," could be placed in a foster home. (The birth parents never came forward; a DNA test many years later revealed he was Pacific Islander.) 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A same-sex couple raising a child of a different race, they were generally accepted and supported by their New York City community, they say — though Mercurio admits he was waiting for some sort of pushback or challenge to their adoption during what became a two-year process. 'They're going to see two men on the forms and we're going to get delayed,' Mercurio says of his fears back then. 'None of that happened because the judge was so in charge of everything and wanted this to happen.' Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Kevin proved to be a motivated and talented boy who excelled academically and socially. The family was open about his origin story, and they shared it with his classmates. 'We wanted to be honest with him,' Stewart says. 'It was always about love and being found.' Mercurio put together a short picture book when Kevin was about 5 as a way to tell the story of how their family came to be, and the dads would read it to Kevin every night. 'Is this about me?' he asked one night. When Mercurio told him it was, Kevin wanted him to read it again. The next time it was his turn at show-and-tell, he brought the book and shared it with his classmates. 'He owned the story after that, which was really comforting for us that it wasn't a traumatic thing for him,' Mercurio says. He says the couple only encountered one piece of hate mail about them being gay and questioning how they could become a real family. But he knows this sort of discrimination has dogged other gay couples. Naturally, as Kevin grew older, he began to ask questions about his background. 'I think in his middle years, just past elementary school as he was entering his teen years, where he seemed to be like 'Who am I?' 'What is my identity?' ' Mercurio says. Their family was also not as well-off as some others in their neighborhood. 'I just got emotional because I remember feeling at the time that if Kevin had been adopted by one of these families, he could have had all that,' Mercurio says. 'But I don't feel that way now.' Stewart says he believes his son struggled a bit with a sense of being alone. 'I think it came to a head in college when he said there were differences not only racially, but also financially and class-wise,' Stewart says. 'As a parent, I wished we could have prepared him for the racial discrimination he felt when he went off to college.' Kevin would tell them how sometimes when he sat down on the bus, people wouldn't sit next to him. Or when he went to school in Philadelphia and would take the train home to New York City — if he was late, he avoided running to the train while wearing his hoodie and carrying his backpack. 'That was just heartbreaking stuff we did not prepare him for,' Mercurio says. Still, Kevin has thrived. In 2022, he graduated from Swarthmore College, outside of Philadelphia, where he double majored in computer science and mathematics. Last year he moved to Pittsburgh and works as a junior software developer at a creative agency. The couple says he supports their projects, like with 18 months, but prefers to stay private with his life. Looking back at their family's journey, Stewart says, 'Everything lined up just so perfectly." Call it serendipity, fate or "some higher power that just was leading things to happen in this particular way," he says. "It just gives me chills." Read the original article on People Solve the daily Crossword

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