PROGRAMMING NOTE: Watch CNN Original Series “Live Aid: When Rock ’n’ Roll Took On the World,” celebrating the definitive story of how two rockstars inspired the largest global music events in history. The four-part series continues Sunday, July 27 at 9pm ET/PT.
Paul McCartney hadn’t taken the stage in over five years when he sat down at his piano to sing “Let It Be” for Live Aid on July 13, 1985, in a performance that was almost totally derailed by a single tech glitch.
There the music legend was – performing live for the first time since his post-Beatles band Wings had broken up, and his lifelong friend and Beatles bandmate John Lennon had been assassinated – to sing “Let It Be,” one of the last songs the Fab Four ever released… and minutes into the performance, McCartney’s microphone died.
“One guy. A mic and a piano (and) a mic for the voice. Really simple. What happened?” Live Aid organizer and musician Bob Geldof recalled thinking at the time in CNN’s “Live Aid: When Rock ‘n’ Roll Took On the World.” Geldof added that he thought, “Oh no, it’s going to be a disaster.”
All of the estimated 1.8 billion viewers tuning into the mega benefit concert couldn’t even hear McCartney, let alone the massive crowd that stood before him at London’s Wembley Stadium.
