Choose Live Aid...

Forget grey hair. Forget aching when you wake up. Forget HRT. The real marker that highlights age is remembering stuff from years ago. Forty years ago, for example. And not just vague memories. Not brief flashbacks, mental snap shots, or the fuzzy recognition that other people's stories create in your head. I'm talking honest to God memories. Of things you experienced in the flesh. Where you were present and mindful, even though it'd be decades before you understood what being present and mindful actually meant. 

I'm about seven here.

Forty years ago, I was seven. Some people don't remember being seven. I live with an adult man, who has only a bare recollection of his childhood. I remember everything. More or less. In July 1985, I had a three-year old sister, a two-year old sister, and a three-month old brother. It's fair to say, this state of affairs nudged me towards independence and self-sufficiency. Both in terms of getting my school shoes on without help, as well as finding pastimes that were my own. Pop music was my own. All mine. Top of the Pops was broadcast on a Thursday night after ballet. (And then Treasure Hunt. RIP Wincey Willis.) My younger siblings didn't care about that. Not then, anyway. I'd dance to Wham, Culture Club, and Bananarama in my leotard, whilst family life happened around me. I imagine an onlooker wouldn't think twice. They'd see a seven year old girl, jig around the front room in front of the telly, whilst toddlers ambled past and a baby had his nappy changed. But for me? I was channelling Bananarama and living my best life. 

Forty years ago, I watched the news. Well, I watched the headlines before I got bored. I knew about the miners strike, although I regularly mixed up Neil Kinnock and Arthur Scargill. I remember the Brighton bomb from the year before, and how I'd had to look away from the screen when they pulled people from the rubble. I'm still squeamish like that. I also remember the Ethiopian famine. It was all over the TV. The previous December, Band Aid, under the direction of Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, had reached number one with Do They Know It's Christmas? - a festive jingle of a song that brought UK pop stars together to raise money. Forty years later, we hear criticism of the project as being a bit 'white saviour'. Maybe it's a valid point. Back then, the campaign to send money felt important and urgent. Either way, when I was seven, I was simply full of the joys of seeing my favourite singers on telly. The wider political issues went over my head.

Band Aid led into Live Aid. I knew it was coming. I was all over it. I don't remember how I knew so much. Top of the Pops, probably, and the odd issue of Smash Hits. (I'd be bought a copy whenever Wham were on the front cover.) My mum remembers me explaining Live Aid to her. I knew all about Phil Collins jetting off to do the US version, Noel Edmonds' helicoptering, and the line up of artists going to be featured. I was borderline obsessed.

ALL the Live Aid gifs are
of Queen. Fair play. It's a 
performance I've come
to love over time.

On the day itself - 13th July 1985 - I had the TV booked. I don't remember making that demand, but I was mostly in the front room on my own. I had the running order from the paper and I was giddy. A whole day of bands, with the promise of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley turning up later on.  It wasn't like I loved every single act. I could take or leave Status Quo who opened the thing. I wasn't fussed on Adam Ant either - he got famous a bit before I'd started watching TOTP. None of that mattered. I loved it as a whole. Song after song, band after band. I let them all wash over me, wallowing in being given space, and my choice of TV, for such a large chunk of time. It was unprecedented.

It's easy to be more critical now. For example, it's striking how few women were featured artists on stage. Alison Moyet and Sade had to represent. Likewise, people of colour? Not so many. There's criticism that this was a concert for Africa, without featuring any African voices. Well, yeah. Hashtag the eighties, I guess. Again, I was oblivious to this at the time. I just loved the spectacle. What's more, in my classic seven-year old way, I was completely indifferent to Queen's set. People talk about Freddie's performance as iconic. Obviously I can see that now. But then? Nah, soz. They went on too long and they just weren't Wham.

Backstage. Can you even imagine?

Ah, Wham. There was the tiny disappointment that George Michael shared the stage with Elton John. Apologies to Elton, but I didn't want to hear George do one of his songs. I didn't know who he was. But waiting for them to appear as the hours passed by, was the definition of delayed gratification. When they turned up, late on, waving to the crowd, with Andrew wearing a cracking tartan jacket, I was chuffed to bits. After ten hours, a few technical hitches, and a shed load of music, the UK broadcast culminated in a ramshackle version of Do They Know It's Christmas?  I was so happy. It was the best of days. 

If anyone asks me what my favourite year is, I always say 1985. It's because of this memory. Of Live Aid, of loving music, and watching a massive world wide event. I'm sure I've had loads better times since. In fact, I know I have. Life shouldn't peak at seven, but this memory is locked. Apologies to my brother, whose birth three months earlier has been completely overshadowed in my mind.

So how will you be celebrating the 40th anniversary of this epic event? It's on Sunday, if you didn't know. You've got almost a week to make plans. On the radio, Simon Mayo is broadcasting the whole thing from start to finish. I imagine I'll have that on. Last night, the BBC showed a documentary about the event. It's on iPlayer if you want to catch up. 

Seven year me in my
forty-seven year old body

For me, my main commemoration has already happened. On Saturday I went to a Live Aid party. It was hosted by my friend's sister and brother in law, who've only met me a couple of times. To be honest, I was touched to be invited. Touched and ecstatic. A Live Aid party? As an adult? YES PLEASE! I donned my Frankie Says Relax t-shirt, double-denimed up to frig, and lived my best life once again. 

Getting to relive something you loved first time round, is fab, isn't it? Is that why people enjoy their wedding anniversary? My own romantic calendar dates are blown out of the water by seven-year old Me's ten hours of pop. It's more than that, though. Live Aid united the world in a cause. Nothing unites everyone now. We're fractured and disparate. Every cause has screaming voices for and against. Maybe my love of that day is really the longing for a shared collective experience. For a cause that brings everyone together without being drowned out by opposing views. Of trying to find community and validation in a society that feasts on division and pushes us towards the perceived safety of isolation. Or maybe it's because I want to jig about in the front room, channel Bananarama, and live my best life. All explantions are valid.

Have a lovely week, folks.