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What do you think of Zep's 1985 Live Aid Concert?


Eman the Epic

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Jimmy was drunk off his ass...no excuse. Same thing happened the first date of the ARMS concerts, all subsequent dates Jimmy played great but that first one...blech. Oh, and of course he was again drunk off his ass at the 40th explaining his poor performance.

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Well, Phil Collins blew things up there and Jimmy's guitar had every kind of guitar effect on at once and his playing was suffering. He was playing the Fender Telecaster on The Firm tour (which is a more difficult guitar to play) while playing the Les Paul at the reunion. (Which is a much easier guitar to play) He should have had no struggles there. Maybe the moment was quite nervous for him.

I praise Tony Thompson for his drumming.

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Everybody blames poor old Phil. What did HE do??? And if you can try to put his crimes to human ears in the 80s out of your mind and listen to records like Foxtrot, Selling England By The Pound, Lamb or Genesis Live you will hear some of the best drumming ever put to tape!

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I think Phil did get some excessively undeserved bashing for the Live Aid debacle. I think when the fingers started getting pointed after the performance, it was simply easier to place blame on him by Zep fans and critics.

However, I know enough about drumming to know that it's probably the number one instrument whereby you can inflict the most damage to a band's performance by way of poor time-keeping. There's a reason musicians gather around the drum riser. It really is the engine room. I also know that in rare circumstances, having two drummers is a sure-fire way to fuck things up. Yes, there are some 2-drummer bands that pull it off really well, but they are always the result of experience playing together and a lot of practice. The biggest factor in the band's poor performance that day was lack of rehearsal time, so to think that a second drummer could fly across the Atlantic and play along, with zero rehearsal would work out, then the result was inevitable. Not that it would have made much of a difference, but I really don't understand why Collins needed to sit in with Zeppelin. He'd achieved his goal of performing on both the UK and US stages with his solo piano sets.

Phil aside, there was plenty of blame to go around that day. Nerves. Alcohol. Lack of rehearsal. A multi-band festival set on one stage (perfect recipe for technical problems with the constant and quick band changes).

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I think Phil did get some excessively undeserved bashing for the Live Aid debacle. I think when the fingers started getting pointed after the performance, it was simply easier to place blame on him by Zep fans and critics.

However, I know enough about drumming to know that it's probably the number one instrument whereby you can inflict the most damage to a band's performance by way of poor time-keeping. There's a reason musicians gather around the drum riser. It really is the engine room. I also know that in rare circumstances, having two drummers is a sure-fire way to fuck things up. Yes, there are some 2-drummer bands that pull it off really well, but they are always the result of experience playing together and a lot of practice. The biggest factor in the band's poor performance that day was lack of rehearsal time, so to think that a second drummer could fly across the Atlantic and play along, with zero rehearsal would work out, then the result was inevitable. Not that it would have made much of a difference, but I really don't understand why Collins needed to sit in with Zeppelin. He'd achieved his goal of performing on both the UK and US stages with his solo piano sets.

Phil aside, there was plenty of blame to go around that day. Nerves. Alcohol. Lack of rehearsal. A multi-band festival set on one stage (perfect recipe for technical problems with the constant and quick band changes).

Feels like he probably 'invited himself' to join in on that one. :bubble:

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Feels like he probably 'invited himself' to join in on that one. :bubble:

Don't forget, it wasn't billed as a Led Zeppelin performance. It started off as a Robert Plant performance. Plant was touring the States with his solo show, and once invited, there was a clamoring for it to be Led Zeppelin. I believe it was Plant who invited Jimmy to join his band. JPJ got wind of it and simply didn't even ask. He just bought his plane ticket and flew in, basically just inviting himself. Collins and Plant were close at the time, so whatever decision about Collins joining was just between him and Plant.

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Feels like he probably 'invited himself' to join in on that one. :bubble:

Collins basically produced Pictures at Eleven and Shaken n Stirred, so Phil and Robert were great friends. I think it was bad play to blame Phil, especially considering that they'd been friends before.

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