Gen X and Live Aid (Week 20 of Fireflies at Dusk: A 52-Week Project)

"It's twelve noon in London, seven AM in Philadelphia, and around the world it's time for: Live Aid...."

- Richard Skinner (British Radio and TV Broadcaster) opening the show

Many Gen Xers remember Live Aid as a monumental event that took place on July 13, 1985. The concert  was a collaborative effort between JFK stadium in Philadelphia and Wembley stadium in London, along with acts happening in other parts of the world like the INXS performance in Australia. I remember the buzz going around my sleepy, small-town neighborhood about the event, though at the time I could not have imagined how big it all was. I did not know that weekend would hold "the day music changed history."

I was just an elementary school kid who hadn't really gotten into music yet - I could recognize a couple of Top 40 songs from the radio, but that was about it. By the end of the day though, things had changed - I had been introduced to the best bands of the decade, along with the concept of social consciousness. Bob Geldof of the Boomtown Rats had organized "the greatest live concert ever staged." Roughly $283 million was raised for the famine in Ethiopia at the time.
 

I will never forget that day.  Around 2 billion of us were watching this broadcast. Gen X watched this together from both sides of the Atlantic and countries around the world. I spent the day learning who different bands were. I also worked on learning the names of all the male singers with blond hair - Sting, David Bowie, Tom Petty, Bryan Adams....

Duran Duran had split, but came together for the day. Queen's set was considered by many to be the best performance in rock history. The feed was supplied by the BBC, ABC, MTV, and the radio. Any musician you can think of from that era was there, meant to be there, or helped to write some of the music.  Fuses blew, cords came loose, a generator broke down, but the show went on.

Clips I decided to watch of Live Aid this week on YouTube included:

 Bono saving the life of a girl about to be crushed by a massive wave of  people pushing forward toward the stage - they were performing Bad, and everyone thought he had just picked her to dance with him. These days he regrets the mullet.

Cyndi Lauper's commercial to get people to buy the Live Aid book - unlike now when you can go online and look at info. and photos of an event immediately, back then you had to drive to a book store, bring the book home, open it, and actually turn the pages....

Simple Minds singing Don't You Forget About Me - What could possibly be a more iconic Gen X moment than this?

First wave Gen Xers will remember Live Aid as something they looked forward to for weeks - it was a day they took off to stay glued to the TV. If they couldn't get the day off, they listened to Live Aid from radios as they worked at their minimum wage summer jobs. Second wave Gen Xers like myself were introduced to the music of the time for the very first time. Live Aid was the Saturday we put our cartoons and toys aside to open our eyes to the larger world around us.

 


 
(c) 2011 photo and writing by Chloe - all rights reserved

Nothing Like a New Guitar (Week 12 of Fireflies at Dusk: A 52-Week Project)

I got myself an electric guitar. I'd always wanted one as a teenager. I never really stopped wanting one.

I bought one online several weeks ago.  When it was delivered to the doorstep, my heart was pounding. I ripped open the packaging, set it aside, and planned to play it that night once I had gotten all the responsibilities of the day over with. That afternoon, I was cutting some dried fruit with a dull steak knife (bad idea) which slipped onto my finger. It tore open my fingernail so deep that it even ripped into the skin underneath.  As blood came rushing up to the surface, the first thought I had before "Should I call 911?" was "Now I can't play my new guitar!" This week it finished healing so I finally got to play. I had taken a semester of guitar in college and I used to have a classical guitar, so I can do some basic chords.

All the music that influenced Gen X in our teenage years is still near to me. The songs became threads in the fabric of who I am.  As a teenager, I'd allow myself one new CD per paycheck from my minimum wage jobs. After picking up a new CD at the mall and bringing it home, I'd play the cd for the first time and I'd look at the lyrics and drink them in like poetry. I remember the rush I'd get from the smell of the paper the lyrics were printed on. It was something like the smell of fresh cut grass after the lawn mower has just been put away, or when coffee beans are just coming out of the grinder, or maybe something like the chemicals we used in high school photography class back when pictures had to be developed in dark rooms and digital photos weren't part of our vernacular....

That is what inspired me. That is why I wanted to play the guitar - to be a part of all that.

U2 was my favorite band then, and still is now.  Tonight, when the sun goes down, I'm going to take out the sheet music to The Joshua Tree.  These songs were the background music to my life, and to the lives of so many Gen Xers. Tonight I'm going to play the songs I have loved with all the intensity that I felt when I heard them for the first time, the second time, and even the thousandth time.



(c) 2011 photography and writing by Chloe - all rights reserved