Rob Halford Remembers Live Aid On Its 15th Anniversary

07/13/2000 1:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(7/13/00, 1 p.m. ET) - Today (July 13) marks the 15th anniversary of Live Aid, the international event that featured many of the biggest stars in rock-music history performing in two different stadiums at opposite ends of the world to raise some $200 million toward stamping out famine in Ethiopia. The event, spearheaded by Boomtown Rats' lead singer Bob Geldof, took place in London's Wembley Stadium and Philadelphia's JFK Stadium, and featured more than 60 performances, including sets from the Who, David Bowie, Black Sabbath, Queen, U2, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, and various members of the Rolling Stones.

Heavy metal legend Judas Priest performed at the Philadelphia portion of the event and former lead singer Rob Halford tells LAUNCH that the experience was "amazing" and "transcendent." Plus, it gave Halford the opportunity to meet one of his personal musical heroes, folk singer Joan Baez. However, for Halford it was temporarily an anxious encounter, because Priest had made a monstrous metal anthem out of her song, "Diamonds And Rust," and he worried that she would not approve.

"She's like, 'I just wanted to speak to you about the "Diamonds And Rust" song,' and I go 'Yeah . . . OK. . .' She says, 'My son is like a huge Priest fan and, you know, I really think you did an incredible version of my song.' So, I'm like, huge sigh of relief, you know, major letting-go of the slumping shoulders," Halford recalled. "And I said, 'Well, that is so cool that you've said that to me because it is an incredible song and we certainly mutated it beyond belief.' Because the original version is just Joan and acoustic guitar, and Priest got a hold of it and just threw all these slabs of heavy metal on top of it and crushed it to death. And it was nice to know that she's got a heavy-metal, head-banging son."

To this day, Live Aid remains the mother of all rock-related charity efforts, its impact looming large. When U2 singer Bono was asked why he was involved in Jubilee 2000 and the debt-cancellation program earlier this year, he said, "I was inspired by Live Aid. In Live Aid we raised 200 million dollars for Africa. We couldn't believe it. We were just ecstatic."-- Neal Weiss, Los Angeles and Darren Davis, New York

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