Any Way The Wind Blows
We ventured out to the Botanical Gardens at lunchtime. It was planned last week because you have to book a slot to control visitor numbers. There isn’t a lot to report about the visit itself, except that it was nice to wander relatively aimlessly around the park.
The original idea was that all three of us would go, but that changed at the last minute as eldest daughter Lindsay had her start day at work brought forward to today. I made sure I was up to see her go, just as I was for her first day at school. It struck me that today marked success of a sort: both of our kids are now working full time, so we have done something right with this parenting thing.
All of which would have been something a very long way in the future had you told me/us 35 years ago tonight. At the time I was house sitting in Kirstin’s Gran’s house on the south side of Edinburgh in Greenbank. On 13 July 1985, we had beer and I’d made several pizzas and we sat with friends and, like half the world, watched Live Aid.
I’d love to say I remembered everything about it, but I don’t. People still talk about the big acts, but the main one I remember enjoying at the time was when Albert Collins joined George Thorogood and the Destroyers on stage in Philadelphia for Madison Blues. I also vaguely remember Jimmy Page being out of tune and shit-faced.
These days, the performance that’s most remembered (and why not?) is Queen. Of all the bands, they were the ones who rehearsed for a week with some ruthlessness to ensure they fitted pretty much exactly into their allotted time slot. I think that let them prepare some samples to trigger too (In Radio Ga Ga). They also had far and away the best front man:
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