‘Can it get any weirder?’ Live Aid’s last-minute headliner recalls offer to play for 2 billion people

There are many, many ways that pop-culture fans have discovered shapeshifting rocker/actor Michael Des Barres over the decades. Some may know him from his big-screen debut at age 17 in the 1967 Sidney Poitier film To Sir, With Love; or as the frontman of the Deep Purple- and Led Zeppelin-associated bands Silverhead and Detective; or as the cowriter of Animotion’s 1983 hit “Obsession”; or as the longtime host of the Little Steven’s Underground Garage morning show on SiriusXM; or as iconic MacGyver villain Murdoc; or for his many other television appearances on shows like Roseanne, Seinfeld, Melrose Place, Northern Exposure, Frasier, and Nip/Tuck.

But if you’re one of the Gen X kids among the estimated 1.9 billion people (nearly 40 percent of the world population at the time) who watched the global Live Aid concert broadcast 40 years ago, on July 13, 1985, then you might best know Des Barres as the lead singer of the Power Station.

Live Aid was, incredibly, only Des Barres’s second public appearance with the Duran Duran-spinoff supergroup — as an extremely last-minute replacement, after original frontman Robert Palmer unceremoniously bowed out. And the Power Station were part of an absolutely stacked Philadelphia bill that included everyone from Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and the surviving Zeppelin members; to Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young; to Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Ronnie Wood; to comeback queen Tina Turner and rising pop princess Madonna.

And yet, it seems Des Barres was the only performer at JFK Stadium who wasn’t nervous that day.

“I'd been in many, many movies. I'd done 120 hours of television by that time. So, getting nervous is not something I do,” chuckles Des Barres, who was a decade older than the Power Station’s John and Andy Taylor, and (definitely unlike John and Andy) had already been clean and sober for four years when Live Aid took place. Des Barres’s young bandmates, however, were “very nervous and very frightened about what could happen,” he recalls.

The surprise success of the Power Station’s self-titled debut album (a success so surprising, in fact, that Palmer, whose only U.S. performance with the group was on Saturday Night Live, quickly decided that it was more of a commitment than he’d bargained for) had impressed all the rockist snobs who’d once wrongly dismissed the Taylors’ main band, Duran Duran, as mere pretty-boy teen-pop. And so, Live Aid, which was set to be followed by an international Power Station tour, was a massive opportunity. “They had prayed for something like this — and now it's happening, but Palmer has split. It was not cool, really, to do that to them,” says Des Barres. “I mean, God bless him, but a week away from a six-month tour — and he quits? That's kind of heavy.”

So, how exactly did Des Barres end up at Live Aid, playing right after Neil Young, in front of a live Philly audience of 100,000 people and a TV audience about 20,000 times that size?

“I was with Don Johnson — in Miami, of course — and we were just gallivanting around. We were doing a record together, me and him,” recalls Des Barres, who was longtime pals with the Miami Vice star and later used that connection to land the Power Station a cameo on an October 1985 episode on the slick NBC cop drama. “And I get a call: ‘Come to New York!’”

At first, the talent agent on the other end of the line, Wayne Forte, would only tell Des Barres that he represented a mystery band in desperate need of a new lead singer. But eventually Forte revealed that the meeting in New York City would be with John and Andy Taylor, who’d been impressed by Des Barres’s stage presence when another supergroup that Des Barres had fronted — Chequered Past, featuring the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones and several members of Blondie — had opened for Duran Duran the year before. “It was like saying Rudolf Nureyev wanted to dance with me,” Des Barres laughingly says of the out-of-the-blue offer.

Des Barres took a whirlwind flight to meet with John and the Power Station’s drummer, Tony Thompson of Chic, in New York, where they were “looking very nervous, because this was millions of dollars at stake.” He recalls that John was actually holding a list of other possible replacement frontmen. “I look down and I read all these names … I won't tell you who!” he chuckles, although it’s known that before Robert Palmer originally signed on, other singers that were considered included Mick Jagger, Billy Idol, and the Psychedelic Furs’ Richard Butler. But regardless, after the New York meeting, Des Barres moved to the top of John’s list, and he was then flown to London that same night, to meet with Andy.

“I hadn't slept for 24 hours,” Des Barres recalls. “There was a limo waiting for me at Heathrow Airport. I went to the studio. Five hours, I waited, exhausted. And Andy shows up with two bodyguards, big guys, and he says, ‘Go in and sing something.’” Des Barres, who’d been part of Britain’s early-‘70s glam scene, got in the studio booth and banged out the first verse and chorus of T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong” (the Power Station’s cover, released as “Get It On,” had just cracked the top 10 in America). Andy’s reaction was to just say, “Let's go shopping,” and the two took off to Vivienne Westwood’s store for the rest of the afternoon. Des Barres got the job.

For a moment, though, it seemed like Des Barres’s Power Station stint was going to be the shortest listing on his illustrious résumé, when, after returning to the U.S. via the Concorde, he got a call from his manager, informing him that Palmer had decided to do Live Aid after all. But the very next day, Palmer changed his mind again, this time for good, because “young girls were not his audience. It's as simple as that. He did not want to play to young, teenage [Duran Duran fans],” shrugs Des Barres. “Meanwhile, me? I'm in a bikini and eyeliner.” Des Barres was officially back in the band.

And so, after just three days of rehearsals and one warm-up gig at New York City’s 1,500-capacity Ritz club, the Des Barres-fronted Power Station, introduced by Don Johnson, played Live Aid, performing without a net and literally without any teleprompters. Not everything went smoothly. Andy’s amplifier blew up right before their set, and notorious concert promoter Bill Graham was being “an asshole up there … shouting at us all. I was laughing my ass off, thinking, ‘Can it get any weirder?’” Des Barres also recalls being the target of “a lot of anger from young men” in the JFK Stadium crowd, who were apparently upset that Palmer was a no-show. “One guy, I'm out onstage and this bucket of water is literally like in slow motion, coming towards me. I was going to be splashed in front of 2 billion people. I dodged it, and it went all over John Taylor,” he laughs.

It was also a risk that of the only two songs the Power Station played at Live Aid, they opened with a deep cut of sorts, the non-single “Murderess.” Des Barres says that decision was made to showcase Andy’s little-known and under-appreciated guitar chops. “It’s an Andy song. I thought it was a great song. He was so talented, but he was a rock ‘n’ roll guitar player, and I think that's why he left [Duran Duran],” Des Barres explains. “He wanted to play rock ‘n’ roll, and they're not a rock ‘n’ roll band. … Andy wanted to be Eric Clapton, essentially, a bluesy rock ‘n’ roll guitar player. That's why he left.”

Duran Duran also played JFK Stadium that day, and notably, this turned out to be the last time that Duran’s original “Fab Five” — guitarist Andy Taylor, bassist John Taylor, drummer Roger Taylor, keyboardist Nick Rhodes, and singer Simon Le Bon — would perform together until 2003. Le Bon, Rhodes, and Roger were already fracturing off with their own very different side-project, Arcadia, and when Le Bon hit that infamous, unfortunate “bum note heard around the world” during Duran Duran’s Live Aid performance of their James Bond theme “A View to a Kill,” the annoyed, exasperated look on Andy’s face made it obvious that tensions were running high within Duran’s ranks.

Des Barres didn’t witness much acrimony between the Duran members that day, as he was too busy enjoying the rest of the show from the stage wings (his favorite Philly Live Aid performers were Neil Young, Patti LaBelle, Tom Petty, and Mick Jagger with Tina Turner). But once he went out on the road with the Power Station, he “could see it splitting apart. [John and Andy] weren't even talking to each other much, and I was there, singing away. And that was that. … I would arrive, I would sing, I would leave. Then they could do their coke.” (Incidentally, Des Barres later helped both Taylors get sober. “So, I brought more than music to that experience,” he says proudly.)

As for the other snafus that took place at JFK Stadium that day, Des Barres may have kept his cool despite the daunting circumstances that led him to Live Aid, but he says, “Everybody [else] was in a different state of mind than I've ever seen from any artist, ever. It was fascinating. … It was very hard for a lot of people to come on and do 20 minutes, and [promoter] Bill Graham is screaming because the snare drum isn't there for someone. It got them on their feet, really. … They were all scared shitless, every one of them.”

Des Barres recalled that “Madonna was a wreck; she was shaking,” and that “Bob Dylan, Ronnie Wood, and Keith Richards were all playing in a different key; that was a trainwreck, but it was a fabulous trainwreck, I suppose.” His old Swan Song Records cronies Led Zeppelin, with Phil Collins on drums, were “not cohesive and didn't have that brotherly Zeppelin vibe. It was almost like a rehearsal or something. And then it probably was a rehearsal! It wasn't as powerful as I think people expected. … And nobody spoke about it [afterwards]. That's the only way to deal with shit like that."

Des Barres adds, "The most interesting person there was Joan [Baez], because she hated it and was riffing on how everybody was awful and that only her songs really meant something to the audience. It was the weirdest thing. There was that kind of irrational behavior,” Des Barres continues. “But I think that was her way of being scared.”

After Live Aid, the Power Station recorded one song with the unflappable Des Barres — “We Fight for Love,” which Des Barres wrote, for the Commando soundtrack — and it was all over by 1986, with John returning to Duran Duran and Andy going solo. But Des Barres will always consider his brief time with the band “a major chapter in my life,” and he will always be thankful for the opportunity to play for “the biggest audience ever,” which boosted his career in ways he could have never imagined.

“I love them to this day,” he says. “I was very grateful to them for getting me on that stage.”

Watch Michael Des Barres's full interview about his bizarre Live Aid experience: