The Daily Tonic: Ambience Technicians

What with it being the 35th anniversary of Live Aid, we’re giving today’s issue over to some of our favourite legends about the acts who played that day.

But because tomorrow is our 100th daily, we also wanted to revisit a few of our earlier reader questions so that newer subscribers get a chance to answer them too.

Today’s Questions:

* What is the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen a famous person do?

* What is the best piece of advice a celebrity has ever given you?

* Have you ever shared a cubicle with a star?

If you have any answers to those questions, send them to hello@popbitch.com and we’ll dish out some digital goody bundles to the best ones.

Even though The Police’s drummer Stewart Copeland was present backstage at Wembley, Sting opted to play his Live Aid set without him. Given there were cameras there, it was probably for the best.

Tensions between Sting and Stewart have always been legendarily fraught. One of Copeland’s ways of working through it is to take it out on his drums.

Drums which have the words “Sting”, “Is”, “A” and “Cunt” written on them.

Phil Collins grabbed a lot of the attention on the day of Live Aid for his transatlantic stunt, playing sets in both London and Philadelphia thanks to a trip on Concorde, but Collins had already firmly cemented his place in roadie rock history for something else.

Phil was the one to popularise the rider term “ambience technician” in the early 80s: a phrase used to semi-officially describe a rock star’s on-hand drug dealer.

He also used to have a special gak annexe constructed at the side of his stages on tour – a little den made out of lighting flight cases – so that he could nip into the wings for a discreet sharpener during his sets.

An even more persistent problem than poverty, famine and disease, Bono is constantly showing up at celebrity charity events. It’s easy to take the piss out of his omnipresence – but, in fairness to him, he does seem to truly believe in the world-changing power of music.

Especially his own.

When Bono met Nobel laureate and internationally admired human rights activist Malala Yousafzai, he presented her with a very special gift. An iPod. Loaded solely with U2 tracks.

As well as having the distinction of being the opening act of Live Aid, Status Quo are also the proud owners of one of rock music’s finest apocryphal touring tales.

The story goes that, during a tour of Australia, the Quo’s bus hit a kangaroo while in transit through the desert. Initially, everyone piled out to look at the damage but it wasn’t long before the rockers had dressed the kangaroo corpse up in a tour t-shirt, jacket and shades and propped it up against the bus for a Weekend At Bernie’s-style photo-op.

However it soon turned out the animal wasn’t actually dead, merely stunned. It came to and quickly bounded off into the desert, still dressed like Rick Parfitt.

The band and roadies all fell about laughing at this until someone realised that the jacket they put on the kangaroo belonged to the bus driver… and it still had the keys to the bus in it.

In keeping with the theme, today’s audio round is made up of ten songs that were played at Live Aid. Some were played in London, some were played in Philadelphia – and one was done elsewhere but still sort of got tacked on somehow.

You get a point for naming the artist and a point for naming the track. Ten songs, twenty points.

[Here we go]

The Random 90s Festival Generator
[inc. live footage]

Adam Ant’s other attempt at mixing charity and music
[“Save the gorilla!”]