This past weekend at Bottletree, Brian Teasley organized a re-enactment of the Band-Aid group, who performed a live Karaoke version of the song at the conclusion of their Xmas show. At the last minute, I was invited up to sing as part of the chorus. It was a trainwreck in the best possible way. The only thing that sucked was some dude went to jump up on stage and slipped, and fell on the concrete floor. He was ok, but apparently it looked scary.
Obviously its been 25 years since the single was release, and this time, 25 years ago, the single was at it's sales peak. I remember when this song came out. U2 had just released Pride (In the Name of Love), I was going to superskates to listen to all of the awesome mid 80's rock/pop music that was coming out... I had just started 5th grade? Even at age 10, I was aware that this grouping of brit-poppers was both interesting and laughable.
Anyhoo... Thanks to Youtube, there's now a ton of outtakes and documetary footage from the recording sessions for Do They Know It's Christmas? Some of the highlights are bob Geldof guilting the western world into giving up their food, the conversation between Bob and Bono about Bono's famous line of apathy, Sting's hair and incredulous attitude, The bad 80's hair, the interesting vocal pairings, Phil Collins playing a really nice drum groove... I also found out that the intro "african" drum part at the beginning of the song is a Slowed down drum sample from The Hurting by Tears for Fears, who weren't quite ready to release their string of smash hits yet.
I few months later, Michael & Lionel organized the We Are the World single in early '85. Here's some clips from the making of Do They Know It's Christmas, one of the most self-righteous charity songs ever.