Neil Young-“Needle & the Damage Done” Live Aid Phila. 7-13-85

Dallas-Ft.Worth radio station Q102 and the Dallas Morning News  sent me to JFK Stadium in Philadelphia to cover the US Live Aid concert. About a year later Neil Young was doing a live interview with me on my afternoon Q102 radio show, and during it I played him performing “The Needle and the Damage Done” at the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia. It stopped Neil Young in his tracks, and he began asking me where I got it.

When I told him that we broadcast the entire historic day’s performances forty years ago, Young made me promise to get him a copy of his entire five-song set including this from that day, as he had nothing for his now-famous archive. Q102 had one of the country’s first Digital Audio Tape recorders, and Neil had one as well at his ranch studio, so after our interview I transferred his Live Aid performance from open reel tape to digital and Fed Ex’d the DAT to his engineer. It began a personal relationship with Neil Young which I cherish. –Redbeard