Traci Baker and I have never met. However, we share a bond through the music of Phil Collins, our all-time favorite musician. While I refuse to concede that she is the bigger fan, she certainly has more resources than I do. She has flown all over the world to see Phil’s solo concerts and many Genesis shows, placing first in the international VIP Genesis trivia contest held at the O2 Arena in London just before the band’s last-ever concert on March 26, 2022.
Perhaps most importantly, Traci is the head of the official Facebook campaign to induct the multi-talented legend into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, an honor denied him again this year. She leads the campaign in memory of her late husband Rodney, who passed away from cancer on April 28, 2021, at the age of 58.
Now, Traci has reached another triumph in tribute to our favorite artist. It has taken nearly two years to bring her incredible film Phil Collins at Live Aid: A Complete Look Back to the virtual world. Because of the lack of rights to copyrighted music, media outlets like YouTube continuously rejected the film, a fact that devastated the Arizona resident, who spent months perfecting it. Finally, on July 13, 2024 — the 39th anniversary of the historic concert benefiting third-world hunger—Traci could release the 107-minute documentary with a flourish on the Patreon website. She also included 27 minutes of bonus footage.
“A first of its kind, this 2-hour-8-minute special takes a look back at Phil Collins’ history-making day, July 13, 1985, at Live Aid,” she writes in promotion of the film. “Through interviews, rare backstage video footage, and photos, we will start at the beginning of Phil’s day in England and stay with him to the end, eighteen hours later, in New York, after being in Philadelphia. On two continents, on two stages—one mega superstar wows the world.”
For Traci, this was a labor of undying love for Phil Collins.
“I hope you will enjoy this complete look back,” she told fellow fans of the English drum virtuoso. “This movie is something I poured my heart into. It combines two things I love so much: Live Aid and Phil Collins’s music and career.”
Of course, her primary cause—getting the Genesis frontman elected to an organization that has ignored his contributions for decades—remains her biggest concern.
“I hope this movie, which recognizes Phil’s history-making contribution to a now legendary event, will further expose the #getphilvotedin campaign and that members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominating Committee and Voting Body—and members of the media—might see this and support the effort to #getphilvotedin,” she said.
Live Aid was a 16-hour charity concert that took place in London and Philadelphia on July 13, 1985. The goal of the concerts was to raise money for the starving population of Ethiopia. Phil Collins’s Live Aid appearance was historic because he performed at both the London and Philadelphia shows on the same day. He was the only artist to perform at both concerts. Although some regard Collins’s Live Aid performance as one of the most iconic of his career, the artist himself had a contrasting opinion.
On a blisteringly white-hot stage, Collins’s sweaty finger slipped off the piano key, causing an audible error during Against All Odds. He was so distraught by the mistake that, after his Philadelphia set, he never played the song on the piano again, now claiming to have forgotten how. The Led Zeppelin set, which featured Collins on drums, went awry because of lack of rehearsal time and technical difficulties. The band was terribly out of sync, and Plant’s vocals were off. Jimmy Page blamed Collins for the fiasco, but Collins asserts he knew his stuff. Plant had confessed to Collins backstage before the performance about Page’s belligerence.
Initially, Phil was not the only person scheduled to perform at both locations. Robert Palmer-fronted band Power Station was among other performers who planned to grace both stages, but after they all reneged, Collins made history as the only artist to do so. His reasoning was simply that his friends Robert Plant, Eric Clapton, and Sting invited him to drum during their sets besides performing his own solo hits “In the Air Tonight” and “Against All Odds” at both locations.
The entire time Phil Collins spent on stage in both locations that day was enough to fill an entire concert set list on its own. As well as his own set at both venues, he also played drums for Sting in London, then for Eric Clapton, and played with the reuniting surviving members of Led Zeppelin at JFK. On the Concorde flight, Collins encountered actress and singer Cher, who was unaware of the concerts. Upon reaching the U.S., she attended the Philadelphia concert and performed as part of the concert’s “We Are the World” finale, in which Collins was originally to have sung. By that time, an exhausted Collins was in a hotel room before making his way home the following morning.
Traci’s film takes you through the breakneck pace of those eighteen hours in a brilliant and fast-paced 128 minutes. The viewer feels pity for the artist who exerted all efforts for an unpaid charitable event, only to be criticized for the rest of his life. Critics would forever view his philanthropy as arrogant ubiquity, and die-hard Zeppelin fans never let up on blaming him for their downfall after that disastrous 1985 performance.
Phil Collins’s contribution to rock and roll is as endless as his repertoire and talent. Traci Baker’s documentary sheds light on this as much as any footage I have ever seen. Collins fans and music buffs alike can appreciate Phil Collins at Live Aid: A Complete Look Back for its unprecedented glimpse into this historic day in rock history. Watch it for free here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/documentary-phil-108043096.
