I was thinking of some of the acts who would've made the Live Aid concerts so much better and did some digging around and found these acts who turned it down...

Bruce Springsteen-didn't think it was going to be as big a deal as it was
Michael Jackson-refused saying it was a racist show
Stevie Wonder-same reason, and attempted a boycott even though he was on the bill
Deep Purple-Ritchie Blackmore refused to take part, so the band pulled out
Tears For Fears-I believe the band had visa problems or something, but Geldof publicly slammed the band for keeping Africa hungry
Cat Stevens-wrote a song for the day, showed up at Wembley but was denied to play by Geldof
Cyndi Lauper-backed out
Yoko Ono-backed out
Eurythmics-Annie Lennox was ill, they backed out
Billy Joel-on the bill, but never played
Huey Lewis & News-backed out because of disagreements with Bill Graham, were on the bill
Paul Simon-same as above
Rod Stewart-on the bill, never played
Waylon Jennings-same
Kris Kristofferson-same
Frank Zappa-refused, calling the show the "biggest cocaine money laundering scheme of all time"
Marillion-were not asked after Fish and the band turned down Band Aid, although the band didn't know their manager shot it down
Van Halen-turned it down
Yes-turned down by Geldof who claimed too many acts were on the bill
Foreigner-same reason, though they played at Farm Aid
The Smiths-turned it down
Frankie Goes To Hollywood-told Geldof to fuck off
Talking Heads-turned it down
Thin Lizzy-band was disbanded, but hoped to reform to save Geldof's pal Phil Lynott and resurrect his career, but Geldof didn't want "a junkie" on stage
Donna Summer-turned it down
Diana Ross-turned it down
The Kinks-turned it down
George Harrison-didn't want to play with Macca

There were all of these rumors about Paul, George and Ringo playing together. I'll never forget when Paul came on to close the show and those MTV nitwits were talking over him and one of them said words to the effect that "It's a reunion. It's a reunion of some of the people who played earlier in the day with Paul." Dumb asses. I remember too that Paul's microphone wasn't working for a minute or two after he came on. I wish that it had been theirs instead.

They actually fixed that for the DVD and had Paul sing in the studio to hide that mistake.

They should've left it alone.

Yeah, I'm aware of that and I agree with you that they should have left it. I don't like changing history.

The only ones that really jump out to me are Michael Jackson and Frank Zappa. Racist? Cocaine money laundering?

For all of the negatives surrounding Live Aid, I have to say that I still have great memories of it. A day that starts with Paul Weller and ends with McCartney can't be all bad. My sister was moving in a few doors down from me that day so I was helping her off and on, but I was running the VCR and ended up catching most of it as it happened. So many great musicians and classic moments, and it was my birthday too.

Zappa felt it was just a bunch of coke-sniffing self-indulgent "me decade" coke fiends feeling they'd saved the world while they backstage doing lines (he was probably right.)

I'm shocked they asked him to play.

How cool would it have been seeing Zappa baffle a billion people with his music?

MJ and many others felt it was an offensively white bill to feed a black nation.

Actually, the Philly show had a number of black artists as headliners or guests (Teddy Pendergrass, Ashford & Simpson, Four Tops, Billy Ocean, RUN-D.M.C., Patti LaBelle, Eddie Kendricks & David Ruffin, Tina Turner, Bo Diddley, Albert Collins, etc.)

Now, how many of those were added after the criticism I don't know.

Prince, Kool & The Gang and B.B. King all played via satellite as well (Prince's was just a new song he wrote and did a video for).

As for London, that show had virtually no black acts so that's the one they should've been griping about!

The same criticisms were leveled at Live 8 20 years later.

Yep, me too. I went to a friend's apartment about an hour away from home. She was working, but she had cable and a VCR. I took my VCR down and was running both. Caught just about everything. She came home during lunch and caught Dire Straits. They were coming to town and we'd talked about it but hadn't decided whether to go. As soon as their set was over, she whipped out her checkbook and wrote a check and said, "Buy the goddamned tickets." That show ended up sold out - and was the only Dire Straits appearance here.

I still have several Beta tapes w/almost everyone who was on, and a few cassettes from the radio simulcast.

I was on a nice hot beach in Belmar, NJ, listening to the broadcast and taping it at home.

Very interesting info you posted, Pete. Thanks for the Live Aid-related tidbits. On a related note, my beloved Big Country would have played, but apparently Bob Geldof thought they had broken up so they were never invited. Who knows what that could have done for their career. As one of the greatest live bands I've ever seen, I have no doubt they would have put on an amazing show.

Oh, and how come there wasn't a Canadian component called "Live Eh"?

Another who shot it down were Echo & Bunnymen. basically telling Geldof everyone was doing it just to promote their careers and they would not be part of it.

Some people also caught flak for their set lists like Bryan ferry who chose to promote his new album by playing 3 songs from it and only 1 classic.

I remember being put off by him doing that but it was cool seeing David Gilmour playing with him.

I can't believe Marillion's manager screwed them like he did!

For Live Aid me and my then girlfriend now wife went down to lower Manhattan and watched some of it at a fancy bar with a big projection screen as at that time neither of us had cable tv.

As cool as it would have been to see Marillion at Live Aid, I can't imagine it would have impacted their career since prog-rock was at its commercial nadir at the time. Then again, Fish was quite a frontman and I'm sure he would have done something memorable to make them stand apart from the other performers.

I was working at Record Town in the Staten Island Mall and we listened to the radio broadcast of Live Aid all day. When I got home I watched the broadcast TV coverage because I didn't have cable at the time. It would be years before I finally saw most of the performances, although I had a mediocre VHS copy-of-a-copy with those annoying wavy lines from cable. What a memorable day that was, and I wasn't even at the show.

Well, they had the #1 album at the time in the UK, and it would've reached US audiences in a huge way.

No way IMO it wouldn't have made an impact as they were already in the US Top 50 with Misplaced Childhood.

Through the years I have pieced about 90-95% of the show together from sources all over the world with the help of a lot of people.

I have what is the most complete version of Live Aid with just about every missing song from the MTV and ABC broadcasts as well as the overseas broadcasts.

The official DVD was a hacked-up farce,

When I interviewed Eric Bazilian of The Hooters for my book we talked about Live Aid and he told me Geldof didn't want them there telling Bill Graham, "Who the fuck are The Hooters?"

George Thorogood told me in my book that they got the call because, "who else do you call when everyone else isn't available? George Thorogood and the Destroyers!"

Awesome stories.

Luckily, we had MTV since 1981 so I was able to record the Oz For Africa portion of Live Aid in the wee hours and then Live Aid itself, but like I said, the MTV broadcast is missing quite a bit.

So doing nothing was a better alternative?

MJ: "Not enough black artists...I better back out so there are even fewer"

Don't ask me, it was him or his handlers who decided that.

Stevie Wonder was the one who tried a boycott.

I video taped the white thing, the frustration I had was the satellite connection was woeful and many songs were cut off. The sound also was dire, well in Australia was. Also many acts were not great in concert, I remember seeing Madona for the first time in concert, bloody awful

The highly anticipated Led Zeppelin portion of the show was a huge letdown

I see a lot of oft-repeated rumor in this thread... if anyone can actually document Michael Jackson calling Live Aid "racist" or Stevie Wonder actively organizing a boycott (beyond Joan Baez' infamously unsubstantiated quote), I'll eat my hat.