Just a wee bit of exaggeration in the title to this documentary, methinks. The night in question related to the date in early 1985 when effectively the American version of "Live Aid" was recorded, at a studio in L. A. featuring some of the best known popular music acts past and present Stateside.
Presented by the main driving source behind the enterprise, Lionel Richie, this was a sometimes sentimental, sometimes hyperbolic and if I'm being honest, often quite boring reminiscence of how the hit song "We are the World" came to be recorded. Bruce Springsteen, one of the major participants, makes the retrospective point, diplomatically you feel, that while the song itself might not be to everyone's taste, including his own you suspect, at least it did a lot of good with the substantial funds it raised to help feed the hungry in Africa.
As documentaries go, there's really not much to see here. Richie talks about writing the song with Michael Jackson, interestingly after Stevie Wonder was given first refusal and then corralling one of the top musical agents of the day, a guy called Ken Kragen to bring on board other big-name acts, including Quincy Jones as producer, to make it effectively an all-star affair.
Only of course it wasn't quite an all-star affair with no Madonna or Prince, two of the biggest stars of the day, despite the latter being invited. Still, they managed to enlist some genuine legends like Harry Belafonte, Ray Charles and Smokey Robinson who are put together alongside the young Turks of the day like Cyndi Lauper, Kenny Loggins and Huey Lewis, none of whom, I think it's fair to say, will ever be called legends.
Amongst those lined up to look back today were Richie, Springsteen, who must be catching up with Rick Wakeman in the number of rockumentaries in which he's appeared, plus the afore-mentioned Lauper, Loggins and Lewis, as well as a bunch of technical guys who helped out on the session itself.
I'm not struck on the song personally although I likewise didn't care for "Do They Know It's Christmas" either, which reminds me that Bob Geldof makes a "no show without Punch" appearance very much as you would expect. Other moments of minor amusement occurred when Stevie Wonder tried to insert a line in Swahili, causing an obviously befuddled Waylon Jennings to promptly walk out - you just see his stetson disappearing into the foreground - Cyndi Lauper wearing about a million necklaces around her neck unaware they're causing sound interference every time she moves her head and best of all a completely out of place Bob Dylan who after Quincy tells them all not to sing if the key is too high, keeps his mouth firmly shut while all around him are emoting for Africa.
Like I said it was all for a good cause and maybe I'm being too critical but watching this bloated music video certainly wasn't the greatest night of my life.
Presented by the main driving source behind the enterprise, Lionel Richie, this was a sometimes sentimental, sometimes hyperbolic and if I'm being honest, often quite boring reminiscence of how the hit song "We are the World" came to be recorded. Bruce Springsteen, one of the major participants, makes the retrospective point, diplomatically you feel, that while the song itself might not be to everyone's taste, including his own you suspect, at least it did a lot of good with the substantial funds it raised to help feed the hungry in Africa.
As documentaries go, there's really not much to see here. Richie talks about writing the song with Michael Jackson, interestingly after Stevie Wonder was given first refusal and then corralling one of the top musical agents of the day, a guy called Ken Kragen to bring on board other big-name acts, including Quincy Jones as producer, to make it effectively an all-star affair.
Only of course it wasn't quite an all-star affair with no Madonna or Prince, two of the biggest stars of the day, despite the latter being invited. Still, they managed to enlist some genuine legends like Harry Belafonte, Ray Charles and Smokey Robinson who are put together alongside the young Turks of the day like Cyndi Lauper, Kenny Loggins and Huey Lewis, none of whom, I think it's fair to say, will ever be called legends.
Amongst those lined up to look back today were Richie, Springsteen, who must be catching up with Rick Wakeman in the number of rockumentaries in which he's appeared, plus the afore-mentioned Lauper, Loggins and Lewis, as well as a bunch of technical guys who helped out on the session itself.
I'm not struck on the song personally although I likewise didn't care for "Do They Know It's Christmas" either, which reminds me that Bob Geldof makes a "no show without Punch" appearance very much as you would expect. Other moments of minor amusement occurred when Stevie Wonder tried to insert a line in Swahili, causing an obviously befuddled Waylon Jennings to promptly walk out - you just see his stetson disappearing into the foreground - Cyndi Lauper wearing about a million necklaces around her neck unaware they're causing sound interference every time she moves her head and best of all a completely out of place Bob Dylan who after Quincy tells them all not to sing if the key is too high, keeps his mouth firmly shut while all around him are emoting for Africa.
Like I said it was all for a good cause and maybe I'm being too critical but watching this bloated music video certainly wasn't the greatest night of my life.