Technology

I was watching the Live Aid DVD this afternoon. Watching the young looking Bono, Phil Collins, Sting and Madonna strutting their stuff on July 13, 1985 put a smile on my face. I remember being a young college student in the US. I remember the charismatic Bono pulling up a female audience and dancing with her. I remember seeing Freddie Mercury do his thing.

What was interesting, of course, was how the live concert industry has changed and moved on from that point. Some things that I noticed in the Live Aid concerts :

Analog - Everything was analog then. No digital consoles with fancy recall. No digital signal processing. No mobile phones. No camera phones.

Loudspeakers - Looks like a lot of custom made (aka homemade) loudspeakers and monitors were in use then. Loudspeaker design has progressed tremendously in the last twenty years with more efficient transducers, computer aided design and digital signal processing. Gone are the massive arrays that were a feature at most 80s concerts, replaced by sleek and slim line arrays that are lighter, louder and faster to set up.

Monitoring - Lots of wedges all over the place. Nowadays, you'll be hard pressed to find an artiste who is not into in-ear monitoring.

Stage lighting - Noticeable was the lack of moving lights. I did see a few changes in the Wembley stage but in general, PAR64 and ACLs were the order of the day. Lots of flashes and chases... Varilite moving lights was in its infancy having been developed in 1981 and toured with Genesis in their concerts.

Video - again like lighting, there was nothing flash about it. No fancy video walls or backdrops. Just good music.

Some things that are still the same - Fender Strats and Teles, most music gear except for synths (DX7, Simmons electronic drums) which are obsoleted and mics; the SM58 was used then and is still used by quite a number of people today.

Live Aid in itself was pretty fantastic in a few aspects - it was done in London and New York on the same day. Phil Collins kinda made history by performing in London and then zooming off in the Concorde to perform in NY on the same day! The Who reunited for this gig. U2 and other acts got major exposure to millions worldwide.

I guess the only thing interesting to note that despite all the technology, it's still about the music and getting that across to the masses whether onsite or offsite.

Does anyone remember why they held Live Aid?