Live Aid: With a living John Lennon.

As it says on the tin. What would the effects be? Would Live Aid even happen? And if so how awesome would it be if The Beatles came out together and proved once and for all, yes they are the greatest band in the history of the world.
 
The biggest problem is that the Beatles' greatest musical corpus were the stuff that wouldn't work well live (save for outliers like, say, Come Together or Hey Jude).
 
As it says on the tin. What would the effects be? Would Live Aid even happen? And if so how awesome would it be if The Beatles came out together and proved once and for all, yes they are the greatest band in the history of the world.

Band Aid and Live Aid were the handy work of Bob Geldof and Midge Ure. I don't think either gave much of a damn about bands and artists of the earlier generation. On the Band Aid single there were no artists from the sixites apart from Staus Quo. All the singers were from Bob geldof's era (1978) to 1984.

No Queen. No Pink Floyd, no Ozzy Osbourne, no Who, no Hollies, not even Elton John or David Essex or Paul McCartney.

John Lennon being around would hve made no difference to Band Aid. Live Aid was 7 months later and classic bands were brought on. Obviously Queen and Freddie Mercury stole the show. I think a reformed Beatles would have got a lot of attention and given Queen a close run. It all depends on John's voice holding up and the songs they choose.
 
They said they'd never perform live again though. So, I mean, this seems unlikely. John in particular hated performing live.
 
They said they'd never perform live again though. So, I mean, this seems unlikely. John in particular hated performing live.

They almost did perform live again, see the Saturday Night Live incident. I don't think it is impossible and it is also interesting because the reason they hated live performances was because the audio quality was so godawful in the 60's. By the 80's concerts were far better.
 
The biggest problem is that the Beatles' greatest musical corpus were the stuff that wouldn't work well live (save for outliers like, say, Come Together or Hey Jude).

Also a Live Aid set was only something like 20 minutes I believe? Granted if the Beatles got together I could see Live Aid giving them as much time as they want. After all this is The Beatles.
 
If his final interviews are anything to go on, Lennon wouldn't be involved in Live Aid. Not because he was against performing live, though he certainly didn't love that after the Beatle tour years. Lennon hated the kind of charity event megaconcert that live aid was. So he probably wouldn't be involved. Doesn't mean others people would try to persuade him. After all, Lennon was very skilled at turning down concert offers. In 1979, for example, there was very nearly a Beatles concert, a concert that never happened largely thanks to John Lennon's refusal to participate.
 
I never said Lennon was against performing in 1980. What I meant is that Lennon was not inclined to do a concert ala The Concert for Bangladesh. I don't have the quote directly on me, but Lennon said something to the effect of he made his charitable donations, "tithing" he called it, and therefore he wasn't inclined to do a full on benefit. He also seems to have believed that the money in such concerts, for the most part, didn't actually go towards charity anyway. And finally, he thought of that kind of concert as something he had already done, the concert in NYC was for charity. I know, that might be a reason to think Lennon would be involved, but that was in 1972, and what matters here is his opinion in 1980.

Now, there is some time between December 8th 1980, and Live Aid. Lennon's opinions could change. But there is at least still a chance he wouldn't want to be involved.
 
Just wondering does anyone know where I can find the link to the TL where the Beatles reunite. The damn search function has given me nothing.
 
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