Fact #163845

Jerry Dammers (leader, The Specials) : The Nelson Mandela 70th birthday concert followed on from the series of Artists Against Apartheid concerts which I organised with the Anti Apartheid Movement. These featured The Smiths, New Order, Big Audio Dynamite and others who I contacted and culminated in a huge concert of quarter of a million people on Clapham Common featuring Peter Gabriel, Sting, Boy George, Hugh Masakela, Maxi Priest and many more. The 70th Birthday concert was a follow on from that at the instigation of the Anti Apartheid Movement . I was involved in the early stages of getting it off the ground, planning and I contacted artists.

It was intended to highlight the plight of Nelson Mandela and the South African People under Apartheid as part of a campaign which had been going on for years.

I think the first major artists to agree and get the ball rolling towards Wembley were Dire Straights but it was felt to be very important to get a massive black artist on board to give the whole thing credibility and viability. Whitney Houston was that artist and it has to be said that it was a very bold move for such a massive middle of the road American artist to do that at that time, she must have been under a hell of a lot of pressure not to. If she was a bit moody on the day it was probably because she knew that if it hadn’t have been for her the whole event probably wouldn’t have happened and she was right. She got a terrible press.

The whole event was too big for me to organise in the way I did at Clapham Common and was handed over to Elephant House productions, a professional production company who worked with the anti apartheid movement. Although there were some arguments between me and Elephant House about how much political content there should be, to be fair to them the concert was apparently seen by over a billion people around the world and I think most of them got Mandela’s name and the Anti Apartheid message of the whole thing somehow.

Bruce Findlay (manager, Simple Minds) : Jerry Dammers rang up Jim Kerr of Simple Minds to ask if he’d be willing to get involved in an Anti-Apartheid concert to raise awareness of the situation in South Africa.

We were already heavily involved with Amnesty International and we’d done Live Aid, so we were well used to these kinds of events, but Jim felt that, from a point of view of raising awareness, it would be best if the concert could focus on one specific thing. Jerry then mentioned that Nelson Mandela’s 70th birthday was coming up, so that seemed a natural way to focus attention on his plight.

Also, under the Thatcher government, there were restrictions on the kinds of political statements you could make in the context of a pop concert, so by making it a birthday celebration rather than a political rally, we were able to sidestep those restrictions to some extent.

We were the first act to commit to playing there. I remember Ed Bicknell, who managed Dire Straits, rang me up and asked if we were going to do it and when I said yes, he decided they’d do it as well.

It turned out to be a very tricky event to get together. We were still anxious, for example, about exactly what we were getting into. There were elements of the ANC which could easily be seen as terrorists, and Amnesty International was expressly committed to non-violence, so they refused to be involved.

We went down to London for meeting with Tony Hollingsworth of Elephant Productions, and Bishop Huddleston and Mike Terry in order to thrash out the specifics, because I wanted to be 100% certain that none of the profits would go to funding any kind of terrorism.

It was fascinating, even in the month leading up to the concert, to see how much people’s awareness of Nelson Mandela shot up. Even the pre-publicity for the event made people much more conscious of who he was and what the problem was.

I was told by the ANC to assume that my phone was being tapped.

The first objective of the event was to raise awareness of Nelson Mandela’s plight, and the second was to give value for money to the fans attending it, because we knew it would inevitably be compared with Live Aid.

It was broadcast in America, where they re-named it the freedom Fest, with a seven hour delay to allow them to remove any contentious political comments before transmission. We were aware that this would happen, so a lot of the bands, including Simple Minds and Eurythmics, deliberately included their political raps right in the middle of the songs so that they couldn’t be easily edited out.

David Quantick (reviewer, NME) : I went down to Wembley on the train with Stuart Maconie, who I had never met before and who appeared to be about 17, which shows the power of memory. He had the job of reviewing the actual bands and stuff, and I was supposed to wander round getting quotes from pop stars about the campaign to free Mandela.

Bruce Findlay : The day itself was incredibly emotional and there was a definite camaraderie backstage. It was a bit like being behind the bikesheds at school and having a smoke, because we all felt like we were defying authority.

David Quantick (reviewer, NME) : It was an interesting atmosphere. On the outer edges, where the press were allowed, it was all very efficient and people were organising interviews with pop stars and people from the ANC.  I heard Phil Collins being astonishingly vague with a journalist - you know, in case there were two sides to the whole freeing Nelson Mandela thing.

Stuart Maconie (reviewer, NME) : Mega phenomenon Sting starts the proceedings whilst many are still negotiating Wembley’s labyrinthine underground. A few hugely amplified old faves performed with assured dignity, rapturously received, and he is gone.

Bruce Findlay : Certain artists were completely committed to the political ideals of Artists Against Apartheid and others were there, to a greater or lesser degree, to use the event to get exposure for their latest release. People like Little Steven, Meatloaf, Whoopi Goldberg, Dire Straits, Eurythmics, they were all actively involved in the organisation and the pre-publicity. Whitney Houston and George Michael, although we were pleased to have them there, played it very safe, and participated in a very politically correct way

David Quantick : I met someone from the ANC who personally thanked me, as a representative of the NME, for all I had to done help the Mandela campaign. So that was nice.

Anyway, the press area was really boring, so I borrowed a pass for "ten minutes" and went into the proper backstage. This was tons better, as it was a sort of tent thing with free food and drink and actual celebrities. I remember a very long conversation with Billy Connolly, who just seemed delighted to be alive.

Later, I felt I ought to do some work, so I went up to Harry Belafonte, who is very prominent in the whole civil rights thing and had been instrumental in setting the show up. He was a god. The world's most good-natured man, just completely delighted that this
whole event was happening at all. And a major contrast with Tracey Chapman's manager. I saw her and asked for a word. I sort of reckoned that what with her having an acoustic guitar and being African-American, she might have some good things to say about the event. But her dick of a manager was giving it all, "Tracy isn't doing interviews right now," in a really officious manner. Plenty of time for not giving interviews later, I should have said, given her imminent nosedive off the radar.

Rich Campbell (bassist, Natalie Cole) : With close to 80,000 in attendance in the stadium and close to half a billion people watching on TV worldwide, the Nelson Mandela Freedom Fest ranks as one of my all-time favorites, because there, ... using my talents to raise funds for Mandela's legal defense, I was helping in some small way to better the whole of human existence.

As insignificant as my own contribution was to that event, I still feel proud that in some small way I may have helped bring about the end of apartheid in South Africa. And it definitely showed me the power and influence that music can have to effect change.

Bruce Findlay : Musically, the highlights of the day for me were Peter Gabriel doing Biko, that was a real spine-chilling moment; Tracy Chapman coming out with just an acoustic guitar and she was sensational; and of course Jim Kerr had written Mandela Day specially for the event and that was great.

There were no great cock-ups backstage. The worst thing was someone stole Stevie Wonder’s computer programs for his electronic keyboards.

Mike Appleton (director, BBC tv) : As a result, Stevie couldn’t go on at his scheduled time, which left a hole in the day. We filled it by getting Tracy Chapman, who’d been on earlier that afternoon, to go on again. This time, however, she was going out at peak viewing time and it got her across to a huge audience that previously hadn’t known her stuff.

Ken O’Neill (concert director, Elephant House Productions) : Tracy Chapman just captured the spirit of the day somehow. We’d chosen her because she’s fresh and exciting and the nature of her material was totally appropriate to the day. When we had the problem with Stevie Wonder, she was ideal to go back on, a solo act with just an acoustic guitar. I think part of her appeal was her bravery as a new artist, standing there alone in front of 74,000 people, let alone all the people watching round the world, the vast majority of whom didn’t know who she was.

Ken O’Neill : And the crowd took to her in a very British way. This little girl on a sidestage had as much impact as any large band and that translated to the people at home and somehow summed up the mood of the day. It was very different to the revival of Queen at Live Aid.

Marc Cooper (reviewer, Q magazine) : By the time she had finished, the slow build that had been accompanying the release of her album at the beginning of April had turned into a torrent. The Nelson Mandela Concert made Tracey Chapman a world star almost overnight.

Mike Appleton : Her single, Fast Car, went on the charts that week, and her album was at No1 three weeks later.

David Quantick : Just as I saw an old friend from college who was working as a soundman on the day and was trying to impress him with my backstageyness, a security man chucked me out back into journoland.

Stuart Maconie : Little Steven fronts a monumental Ain’t Gonna Play Sun City, living proof that stadium rock can be cool and pop can talk serious and still kick ass like a tank division.

Through no-one’s fault, the day never recaptures the mood of that half-hour again. Everyone wants to go ape about Jerry Dammers and friends Free Nelson Mandela, but it’s a hastily assembled, ragged affair marred by the worst sound of the day.

Jerry Dammers : Our version of Free Nelson Mandela was a bit of a disaster everyone seemed to forget what we’d done in rehearsals. So many musicians wanted to be involved someone came up behind me and started trying to play my piano “round me” doggy style.

David Quantick : I spent the end of the show watching Dire Straits bore the galaxy on a little TV screen. Still, good they were there.

Bruce Findlay : Little Steven was so furious with the American broadcasters that he wrote a letter to them in protest, and we all signed it and sent it off.

The next day there was a headline on the front page of the Scottish Daily Record saying that Simple Minds and Annie Lennox were scum, because their concert was funding terrorism. It was a statement from the Tory MP Nicholas Fairbairn, and I was furious. I considered suing the Daily Record, and it really upset the band. We knew we had done the right thing and to see it twisted round like that was appalling. The headline should have been Scottish Artists Triumph At Wembley.

On the same day, though, we flew up to Glasgow with the band, Oliver Tambo and the ANC guys, and we set off on a Peace March down to London with 20,000 people. When we finally got there, we took part in a concert in Hyde Park which had about 50,000 people at it.

Jerry Dammers : I think the concert had a massive effect, like the revolutions in Eastern Europe (where the t.v. stations were taken over first) we managed to take over T.V. stations world wide for up to a whole day. It was phenomenal and so popular that even Margaret Thatcher had to shut up, stop calling Mandela a terrorist and come on board to a certain extent, she really did, she wants votes like every politician.

Bruce Findlay : Two years later, Nelson Mandela was out of jail and he came to Glasgow to collect his Freedom Of The City award at the City Chambers, which was the first time I had an opportunity to meet him. There was a little function afterwards in the Hilton Hotel, and I was introduced him. I was so excited that I was literally shaking when he spoke to me. I’ve never been in the presence of a man with such an aura around him. I don’t want to get all spiritual but it felt like I was touching the hand of God.

He said that by the time of the concert, he had made friends with some of the guards, and they snuck a tv into his cell so he could watch it. he said, ‘I’m eternally thankful to all of the artists who took part,’ and then he gave a little wink and said, ‘but I have to confess, Whitney was my favourite.’

What was best of all though was that he said the concert had made a huge difference in getting him out of jail because, after all, that’s why we did it in the first place.