It was 9 a.m. on Saturday, July 13, 1985 and I was watching my cathode ray tube television, tuned to the opening acts of Live Aid at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. At the time, I lived only half an hour south of where the concert was being held, and the broadcast provoked a range of emotions. While I wanted to be watching the event in the venue, I was glad I wasn’t in the 95° F heat. I also wasn’t willing to spring for the expensive ticket or sit through a number of acts I didn’t want to see. So I contented myself with watching it on the TV.

As the performances started, I was also a bit irritated that the event bookers felt the need to schedule Joan Baez (who had played Woodstock in 1969) as some sort of feelgood connection with that event. Her time slot of 9 a.m. was the rock and roll crack of dawn, and she was trying to lead the unresponsive audience through an a cappella version of “Amazing Grace” when I shouted out loud to my TV, “Get her off the stage!”

Thankfully, she only performed two songs, and to my complete surprise, local Philly act The Hooters jumped onstage right after her 10-minute performance. I had heard rumors that they might play, but I didn’t think their booking agents had the clout to get them into such an international event. I was clearly wrong, and being in a local band at that time, I was green with envy.

Suddenly, my phone rang. It was the lead singer of the band I was in. I figured he wanted to talk to me and critique the Live Aid performers, but instead he told me something that would change my plans for the day. He told me that “Benny,” a band member we had kicked out of the band several months before had connected with a female hanger-on named Linda who claimed to be connected with MTV and was trying to assure us she could get us a record deal. Both of these people were persona non grata to us, so I was wondering why we were talking about them.

“Benny & Linda made friends with the maître d’ at the Four Seasons hotel last night. That’s where all of the performers are staying for Live Aid. He says he can get us in the backdoor and we can hang out with them,” my friend said.

This didn’t sound like a sure thing or even that great of an idea, but I found myself in a car headed to Philly about an hour later.

I was in my early 20s and was putting any career ideas on pause while I took a shot at playing in a band and getting a record deal. I had graduated college with a teaching degree and had tried teaching in public high schools for about a year but decided to stop because I hated it and my appearance was not helping things. My hair was an unnatural shade of orange, and I didn’t look much older than the students I was trying to teach. This caused the other teachers to mistake me for a student and the students to think they could get away with murder. During classes, kids would tell me I looked like Sting or someone in Duran Duran, and this usually caused some classroom disruptions that the other teachers weren’t too happy to hear about.

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The members of my band met Benny & Linda at Linda’s apartment in Center City Philly later that afternoon. Benny gave us the lowdown about what had happened the night before and the fact that he was now practically best friends with the Four Seasons maître d’.

“All we’ve gotta do is go there and call him on the phone to let us in. His shift starts around 5 p.m.”

To pass the time, we drank a few beers and turned on the TV to watch the afternoon bands play at Live Aid. At that point, I was really glad I wasn’t in the sweltering heat being shot by water cannons to cool off. I was sitting in air-conditioned comfort, enjoying adult beverages.

After a few hours, Benny made a call to his new best friend and then reported to us that it was time to go to the Four Seasons. We all crammed into a car, found a parking garage and walked to the front of the hotel. It was completely stark at the entrance we were instructed to go to, but there was a phone with no keypad hanging on the outside cement wall. Benny picked it up and started talking to his friend. “He’ll be here in a few minutes,” he said after hanging up.

As we waited to get in, a limo pulled up to the front of the building, and out walked Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin. He and one of his assistants were standing about 30 yards away from us, and because Benny was already pretty liquored up, he decided it would be a great idea to intrude into Robert Plant’s existence.

He turned to him, still standing about 30 yards away, extended both of his hands and shouted, “Bob!”

Plant was in mid conversation with his assistant, looked up to see Benny, and then went right back to what he was doing. All of us stood there mortified, except for Benny who seemed unfazed by the self-inflicted humiliation.

Within minutes, Benny’s maître d’ friend opened the door, poked his head out, and then burst into smiles and laughter as he spotted and hugged both Benny and Linda. We all snuck in the door and made our way into the main lobby of the hotel. Benny’s friend told us to wait there, which we had no problem doing.

Almost immediately, I ran into Andy King of The Hooters, who said hello to me with an expression on his face that betrayed the question, “what the hell are YOU doing here?” We had met a few years before, and he had actually jammed with some of the members of my band and me while he was in Jack of Diamonds and just before he became the bass player for The Hooters. He told me a little bit about their 9 a.m. set and what it was like to play in front of so many people.

It was honestly hard to keep my attention on him because as I turned to my right I saw performers Billy Ocean, Ozzy Osbourne and his wife Sharon, as well as Judas Priest guitarists Glenn Tipton and K. K. Downing.

Andy and I finished our conversation, and I walked down the entryway steps to where I saw an open door leading into a little side room. When I stepped into the room to investigate, I literally bumped into Keith Richards who was talking to Bob Dylan. I was in the middle of noticing Richards’ pewter skull earrings when a handler grabbed me by the arm and said, “You’re not allowed to be here!”

So I went back out into the main entry way with the rest of my friends. We ordered a few drinks, and after awhile I found the bathroom. While at the urinal, I looked to my right to see Black Sabbath bassist Geezer Butler occupying the stall next to me. When we both finished up and then met again at the sink to wash our hands, he gave me the obligatory “what’s up” nod.

I rejoined my friends in the main entryway just as our maître d’ friend was starting to herd us into the restaurant area. I was surprised to see he had prepared a private banquet room for us. Up to this point, I fully expected Benny’s promises and expectations to be full of air, but things were starting to happen for real. The maître d’ opened the double doors to our own room to reveal a 20 foot-long banquet table, fully set. I looked to my left to see Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin seated with the rest of the peasants about 10 yards from us out in the main dining area. Benny was drunk and loud and attracting attention, so at one point both Plant and Page looked up at us to see what was going on. How was this happening?

We were seated in our dining area and Benny ran to the double doors, stuck his head out, facing the main dining area and said in an intentionally-crazed voice, “Welcome to the pleasure dome!” as he slowly closed the doors to the rest of the diners. I began to wonder how long it would be before we were kicked out.

But things settled down, menus were passed around and a waitress came to take our drink orders. Being completely broke, I took a quick look at the menu and realized I could only afford beverages, and I mentioned this out loud. Benny drunkenly waved his hand and told everyone the meal was on him.

So we ordered and ordered. In the middle of one of our courses, a middle-aged woman opened the double doors to our room and peeked inside to greet us.

“Hello. My daughter is a huge Duran Duran fan, and she would just kill me if I didn’t get one of your autographs. Someone told me that Duran Duran was in here.”

As if scripted, everyone turned to me. It was a running joke that all of the kids I’d been teaching thought I looked like a member of the band, so without anyone saying a word, the woman walked over to me and gave me three match books and a pen. I signed them all “Simon Le Bon,” and then she left smiling. As soon as she closed the doors, the room erupted in laughter.

More food came, the drinks flowed, and Benny got louder. I realized that if I wanted to keep from getting kicked out, I had to distance myself from him. After he signed for the check, the other band members and I separated from him and spilled out into the main dining area. We found that most of the rock stars had left, apparently to be shuttled to their performances at JFK.

It was beginning to get dark and one of the members of our band had heard that Mick Jagger and some of the members of actual Duran Duran were throwing a private party across the street at the Embassy Suites hotel. We went to the front door and looked out into the chaos that had now formed in front of the Four Seasons. Several hundred people had gathered in the street and sidewalk to take photos as limousines came and went from the hotel. Unfortunately, the two limos we saw pull up had non-famous people get out of them. But it was hilarious to see the doors open, photo flashes furiously punctuating the night to only see someone who looked like an accountant emerge from the car.

One of the members of our band said, “Let’s give them a show,” and he put on his sunglasses and motioned for the other band member and myself to do the same. We did and as we walked out into the chaos, it was like walking into a red carpet situation… except that we were brown-carpet type people. Flashes blinded us and young girls screamed. We looked at each other and laughed and headed across the street to the Embassy Suites where we were summarily told to leave. They knew we weren’t famous.

So we went back to the Four Seasons and managed to sneak back into the main lobby. The problem was, no one of any note was there. Someone in our group had heard there was a pool in the hotel so we all piled in the elevator and hit the “pool” button. At this point we had all had too much to drink. Someone thought it would be a good idea for us all to jump up and down in the elevator as it was moving. I think that someone was me, but as we all did this, the elevator got stuck and we had to pull the alarm.

After only a minute or two, the elevator restarted and the doors opened at the next floor. Like a scene from a movie, the doors slowly pulled back to reveal a single person standing there — Joan Baez. We all recognized her and she began hugging each of us and saying, “This was YOUR Woodstock!” She was so sweet.

As she gave me a hug, I lied and said, “Your set this morning was great!” She turned to me as if psychic, looked me in the eyes and said, “You didn’t really like my set, did you?” I sort of laughed and slunk away. How did she know?!

We spilled out of the elevator — leaving it all to Joan Baez — and we followed the smell of chlorine to the pool area. We were able to order drinks and actually sit at tables in this area. As we sat down, Rob Halford, lead singer from Judas Priest, and a young, waifish-looking boy of about 19 asked if they could join us. Rob sat right next to me and chatted me up about his performance that day. I asked him what he was working on next and he told me about a project that all of the metal bands had put together as their contribution to Live Aid, appropriately called Hear ‘n Aid. At first I thought he was joking, but as he talked about working out details with Ronnie James Dio, I realized it was a real project. Halford was so nice and down to earth, and as I got drunker, I wondered why he was hanging out with us and his sidekick who didn’t look at all heavy metal. It would take years for me to discover that Halford is gay and that I was probably being hit on, but I was too naive and drunk to notice.

Halford said goodbye to us and we all agreed that it was time to go. We took the elevator back to the lobby and I made sure there was no sign of Joan Baez before we tumbled back out into the streets of Philadelphia. The crowd in front of the hotel had thinned at this point and no one took notice of us anymore. The show was over.

Years later, I would start a magazine with some friends and ultimately interview Bob Geldof who conceived of and created the entire Live Aid concept that included recordings and simulcast concerts in the U.S., England, Australia, Austria, Netherlands, Yugoslavia, Soviet Union, Japan and West Germany. At the time of the interview in 1993 he was feeling pretty jaded about the whole experience and complained it was distracting people from the newer music he was creating. Here’s the interview>>>

The Live Aid project ultimately raised $127 million for famine relief for African nations, and Geldof was knighted for his efforts. My band never did get a record deal and we broke up a few years later. Not long after, I auditioned for and got the position of playing lead guitar in Robert Hazard & the Heroes, a band that DID have a record deal and eventual national fame. Here are the details to that saga>>>