Phil Collins once pulled off an intercontinental Live Aid stunt. It wasn’t without drama

In this Aug. 26, 2010 file photo, musician Phil Collins poses for a portrait in New York. (Victoria Will/AP Photo)

With the help of helicopters and a supersonic turbo jet, Phil Collins pulled off a series of performances worthy of a Mission Impossible movie at Live Aid 40 years ago.

The singer and drummer participated in the benefit concerts organized by musicians Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to draw attention to a famine in Ethiopia and raise money for relief efforts.

Collins didn’t perform on just one stage, but two – on two different continents.

The Genesis front man initially took to the stage in London at Wembley Stadium, where he performed Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now) and In the Air Tonight. He also played played drums for Branford Marsalis and Sting.

That would have been enough for most artists, but not Collins.

Instead, he hopped on a helicopter to Heathrow Airport in London, boarded The Concorde to New York City, then took another helicopter to Philadelphia, where he joined superstar Eric Clapton for his set and performed three songs with Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones.

(The Concorde was a supersonic airliner that allowed passengers to cross the Atlantic in under three and a half hours. It made its first test flight in 1969 and was officially retired in 2003.)

Backstage after the London performance, Collins gave an interview in which he said he thought the first performance had “gone very well, considering” and expressed his pride in participating.

“I’m very proud to be asked to do it because everybody’s involved and it’s just great to be a part of something like this,” he said. “It’s just too obvious to say it’s for a good cause.”

Trouble across the pond

There was, however, some drama in regards to the second show, and how the multiple performances came about.

Collins explained that both Plant and Sting had separately asked him to participate in Live Aid, with a UK-based promoter suggesting he take The Concorde in order to play both shows.

But Collins explained to Classic Rock in 2021 that second show with Led Zeppelin was less than smooth, in part because he neglected to rehearse with the band beforehand, and also due to the bandmates’ strained relationships.

“By the time I got there, me and Robert and Jimmy playing together had become The Second Coming Of Led Zeppelin – (bassist and keyboardist) John Paul Jones was there too. Jimmy says: ‘We need to rehearse.’ And I said: ‘Can’t we just go on stage and have a play?’” Collins recalled. “So I didn’t rehearse when I got there, but I listened to Stairway To Heaven on Concorde.”

He said the end result was messy, partially due to the fact that co-drummer Tony Thompson “had rehearsed for a week, and I’m about to steal his thunder – the famous drummer’s arrived! – and he kind of did what he wanted to do. Robert wasn’t match-fit. And if I could have walked off, I would have done, cause I wasn’t needed and I felt like a spare part.”

“Anyway, we came off, and we got interviewed by MTV. And Robert is a diamond, but when those guys get together a black cloud appears,” Collins continued. “Then Page says: ‘One drummer was halfway across the Atlantic and didn’t know the stuff.’ And I got pissed off. Maybe I didn’t know it as well as he’d like me to have done, but… I became the flagship, and it looked like I was showing off.”

It ended up becoming a Led Zepplin reunion that Collins wrote about not wanting to be a part of in his 2016 autobiography, Not Dead Yet.

“I didn’t come here to play with Led Zeppelin, I came here to play with a friend of mine who has morphed back into being the singer of Led Zeppelin – a very different animal to the one that invited me,” Collins wrote. “Now I’m caught up in the ceaselessly toxic, dysfunctional web of Led Zeppelin interpersonal relationships.”

A surprise encounter

While his second performance perhaps did not go quite as Collins had hoped, Live Aid raised more than US$100 million for famine relief. His transatlantic flight also included a very famous fellow passenger.

“When I got on Concorde, Cher was on it,” Collins recalled in the CNN original series Live Aid: When Rock ’n’ Roll Took On the World.

Cher asked Collins what he was up to.

“There’s a live gig in London today and in Philadelphia,” Collins said he told Cher. “She said, ‘Oh, could you get me on it?’”

Hours later, Cher joined a star-studded group of artists on stage to close out Live Aid with a performance of We Are the World.

Mission accomplished.

By Lisa Respers France, CNN