Bob Geldof was left 'mortified' when he read the script for the Live Aid musical
Bob Geldof was left "mortified" when he read the script for the Live Aid musical.
The 78-year-old musician teamed up with Midge Ure to organise the the benefit concert and raised funds for relief of the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia with a major concert starring the likes of late Queen star Freddie Mercury, pop legend Sir Elton John and rock band Status Quo amongst a host of others but just days before the story behind it launches as jukebox musical titled 'Just For One Day' in London's West End, he admitted he felt uncomfortable reading about himself.
Speaking at Wembley Stadium on Thursday (01.05.25) as he announced the release of the 'Just For One Day' cast recording, he said: "It's extraordinary, the musical is extraordinary. I'm not familiar with this sort of thing, I'm more of a Rodgers and Hammerstein guy, and when they approached me I was mortified by the script because, you know, you're reading a version of the self.
"My main thing was that it has to be politically pertinent. It has to be about what it was always supposed to be about, the charity, which everyone 40 years ago had understood. These days it's about Freddie [Mercury] – genius and all that – but what the musical does for us is put it in the contemporary perspective.
"What happened 40 years ago at Wembley was to lay that idea to rest that there is such a thing as society, it proved that human beings do care about each other."
'Just for One Day' will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of Live Aid with a very special performance at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London on 13 July, and the Boomtown Rats star - who co-wrote 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' in the months before the legendary concert took place - admitted that he had no idea all those years ago that the issue would be as "vital" today.
He said: 'We couldn't possibly have known that 40 years down the track, the issue would be as vital or the interest as great. Millions of children today are being forced to starve as an instrument of war, and millions of lives are in peril due to AIDS and because of cuts to international aid.
"This musical is extraordinary, and it brings Live Aid to a new generation - the possibility of what individuals can do together. It refutes Thatcher's dictum that there's no such thing as society. There is and it roared its existence on that day 40 years ago in Wembley Stadium. Human beings do care about each other - they rise above contemporary politics.
"Just For One Day puts Live Aid into perspective. It's a phenomenal piece of work. I read somewhere that it's a 'jukebox musical' - dude, it's the original musical jukebox! That's what we called it back then - 'Live Aid - the Global Jukebox'! That's what Live Aid was, arguably the greatest collection of songs of the rock era, and so this musical is hit after hit after hit, stunningly arranged for this generation! Its achievement is to conjure that vivid sense of 40 years ago, and to make it relevant to now."
'Just For One Day - The Live Aid Musical' (Original Cast Recording) will be available from 11th .
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News.com.au
6 days ago
- News.com.au
Harry and Meghan's extraordinary words to late Queen revealed
IN LONDON New details about how Prince Harry and Meghan approached the late Queen about using her nickname for their daughter have surfaced after some telling remarks in the Duchess of Sussex's recent podcast finale. In June 2021, the couple announced the birth of their second child, whom they called Lilibet in a nod to what close family had called the late monarch from childhood. Harry and Meghan insisted that she had given her blessing, but it was later claimed by author Robert Hardman in his biography, King Charles III: The Inside Story, that she was furious at that assertion. The duke and duchess later instructed their London-based law firm to issue a threatening legal letter to the BBC over a report claiming they had 'never asked' for the late Queen's permission to use 'Lilibet', calling it 'false and defamatory'. However, rather than confirming their version of events, the UK's Telegraph reported at the time that the Palace refused to deny the BBC's suggestion. The publication further added that the Queen was 'told' about the name after the baby was born. Just last week, Meghan issued advice to expectant mothers about how to approach naming newborns, warning them never to tell anyone what they're planning on using. 'I will say this to every woman in the world or every person in the world who's going to have a child — if you have an idea about what you are going to name that baby, you keep it so close to your heart, until that baby is born and it's named. Don't ask anyone's opinion,' she said on her podcast, Confessions of a Female Founder. Harry and Meghan are parents to Prince Archie, 6, and Princess Lilibet, 3. A source has now backed up earlier claims to the Daily Mail that the couple had, in fact, only told the late Queen about the use of her name after the fact. 'Harry and Meghan presented this to the Queen as: 'We're going to call her Lilibet. Isn't that great?',' the insider said. 'The palace version was that they didn't ask. The Queen was asked to prop up their version of events that didn't match her own. She wasn't furious about using the name Lilibet, it was the way it was handled.' Amid the earlier furore, a spokesman for the Sussexes told People magazine that 'the Duke spoke with his family in advance of the announcement, in fact, his grandmother was the first family member he called. 'During that conversation, he shared their hope of naming their daughter Lilibet in her honour. Had she not been supportive, they would not have used the name.'
Perth Now
6 days ago
- Perth Now
Yungblud talked to ghosts at haunted Idols album recording location
Yungblud talked to ghosts while making 'Idols'. When the 27-year-old star's American label heard some of the songs that feature on his upcoming album, which is a melting pot of Britpop, classic rock, ballads, and even has orchestras, they didn't get it and tried to dissuade him. Unfazed, the 'Fleabag' rocker decided to remind himself of his roots and ended up recording the record in a "haunted" converted Tetley brewery in Leeds, not far from where he grew up in Doncaster, in the north of England. Speaking to Louder about the record, Yungblud - whose real name is Dominic Harrison - said: 'I like the ghosts. I talk to the ghosts. It was, like, 'This f****** feels right.'' On a serious note, he explained the purpose of the location: 'I needed to be in the north. "Timothy Taylor's ale and my best mates and the smell you get in northern England when the rain bounces off the gravel because the roads haven't been tarmacked properly for years. I needed all that just to be, like: 'Who the f*** are you, man, as a human?', without anybody else's opinion, good or bad.' Yungblud isn't chasing hits with 'Idols', instead, he wants a "shot at the big boys' table". He told the publication: 'It's the most ambitious I've ever been. I went there with this: 'I'm going to put everything I've got into this shot at doing something extraordinary.' Let's make a double album in two parts that references Dark Side Of The Moon [Pink Floyd] or Rumours [Fleetwood Mac] or A Night At The Opera [Queen], and has an idea and a through-line and a story, as opposed to 'how many songs we can get in the f****** Top 10.' Because why the f*** not? Let me at least try. Let me have a shot at the big boys' table.' The ambitious project comes in two parts, with 'Idols' part one set for release on June 20.
The Age
30-05-2025
- The Age
One of Melbourne's favourite falafel crosses the river to get to this southside bar
It's worth coming to cocktail bar Nobody's Baby for the crunchy-fluffy falafel alone. Previous SlideNext Slide 14/20How we score It's mid-evening, dark outside, the trams sound like applause and flash like fireworks. People – young, older, shiny, expensively rumpled – are at new bar Nobody's Baby before dinner, after dinner, for dinner or just for drinks. Speaking of, our next round of cocktails arrives: they're called Fat Bottomed Girls, after the Queen song, or maybe after me. Shaken vodka drinks in long-stemmed coupe glasses, they taste of pepper, honey and lemon with the sesame richness of tahini picking up the Middle Eastern flavours of the food menu. It's all timber and curves in here, the components built off-site in Torquay and installed in three days. Arches separate the bar area from the lounge's booths and banquettes, and the bar itself makes a broad sweep to a DJ set-up, where a cruisy guy mixes in a record by The Police (later, there's Khruangbin, and was that Hank Williams?). It's medium-loud: you're not whispering, nor are you needing to shout. My friends and I are full of falafel and love, at that leaning-all-over-one-another stage of the night. Annalisa pulls my hair back into a ponytail. 'Why don't you wear it like this more?' she asks, taking photo after photo. Emma walks in from the toilet out the back. 'There's a tattoo parlour in the yard,' she tells us, presenting un-inked arms in enquiry. Indeed, when the previous bar tenant Raindancer was here, a patron once finished a drink and followed up with a tatt. Not us, not tonight. I pick up a piece of pickled cabbage and swipe it through zhoug, a Yemeni green chilli relish. A small dog – hitherto hidden under the next table – lets out a polite bark. 'The falafel have a thick, crunchy shell that gives way to a herby, fluffy interior: it's worth coming for these alone.' What is a bar anyway? Restaurants have cocktails, bars serve food, so what actually is the difference between a bar and a restaurant (especially when the bar serves food as good as this)? For me, it's the feeling and the flexibility, rolling from drinks to eats and back again, having people join you later or peel off, the possibility of perching on a stool to ponder life with patrons and pourers alike. The team here knows all that stuff. Tim Badura and Gustavo Prince met at retro bar Joe's Shoe Store in Northcote, which Prince founded (he also owns neighbouring Pizza Meine Liebe). When they landed this place, they invited Shuki Rosenboim and Louisa Allan from Brunswick's Very Good Falafel to bring their pulse-fuelled joy southside. What a move. The falafel here, handmade using a metal press, have a thick, crunchy shell that gives way to a herby, fluffy interior: it's worth coming for these alone. But you may also fall for sumac-cured sardines on challah, roasted Brussels sprouts with pilpelchuma, a Libyan-Jewish chilli and garlic paste, or grilled whiting with harissa and latkes, a perfect assembly of sea, spice and starch. Chicken skewers and lamb meatballs are cooked over charcoal; the chicken is interspersed with plump green olives; the lamb is squished in pita with roasted onion, tahini and amba, an Iraqi-Jewish pickled mango condiment. It's simple and excellent: big flavours, sauces you'll want to swipe your fingers through, and sharp and salty enough to keep you drinking. The obvious nightcap is Baby Brulee, a whisky, Baileys and vanilla concoction with a bruleed top. Ask for it to be torched at the table, making your cocktail an event for the whole room and turning Nobody's Baby into everybody's wondrous child. Good Food Guide.
