Live Aid Had a Hooters Problem

The Hooters in a 1985 promotional image, the same year they played at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia for Live Aid

This story is part of our continuing coverage in honor of Live Aid Week in Philadelphia. Check back daily for more Live Aid fun.

In July 1985, Philly band the Hooters was red-hot. Their first album, Amore, was released independently in 1983. It was a success as far as independently released albums went in those days, at least locally. Then, two members of the Hooters were tapped to work on Cyndi Lauper’s debut album. And after that, Columbia Records signed the Hooters. This led to the release of Nervous Night in May 1985.

You know Nervous Night. The album featured the hits “And We Danced,” “Day by Day,” and “All You Zombies.” WMMR DJ Pierre Robert, then in his fourth year at the station, loved the Hooters. He couldn’t get enough of them. And other local stations quickly caught on as well. The band also started enjoying airtime elsewhere in the country. They even had a video on MTV, back when MTV was the place to be. By the time Live Aid rolled around, they had sold more than 300,000 copies of Nervous Night in eight weeks.

So it wasn’t exactly a huge surprise when the Hooters turned up on Live Aid’s Philly lineup as the opening band, to be introduced by Chevy Chase and Joe Piscopo and with a short set that featured “And We Danced” and “All You Zombies.” They were officially hometown heroes.

But one important Live Aid figure was far from thrilled with the inclusion of the Hooters in the Live Aid lineup. Actually, you could say the most important figure: Bob Geldof, who dreamed up Live Aid in the first place. “Who the fuck are the Hooters?” Geldof demanded when he saw the proposed Live Aid schedule. Geldof didn’t want the Hooters to have anything to do with his festival. And make no mistake — this was very much Bob Geldof’s festival.

That said, Geldof needed Live Aid to work in Philly while he was in London. He wasn’t going anywhere near JFK Stadium. So he relied on local connectors, bigwigs and power players, including Electric Factory Concerts mogul Larry Magid, to keep things running smoothly. And it so happened that the manager for the Hooters was tight with Magid, and Magid went to bat for the band.

Bob Geldof in London for Live Aid (Getty Images)

In the end, the Hooters cemented their spot on the bill and performed a seamless set for much of the world – the vast majority of which had never heard of the Hooters – to hear and see. It was the “exposure gig” of the millennium, as far as the Hooters were concerned.

Not only did the Hooters get to perform, they also had the last laugh. The Hooters are, as they say, big in Germany. They are touring there now, in fact. In 2004, the band was playing some gigs in Germany. And guess who opened for them? Yep, Bob Geldof. “We, uh, did not give him a good dressing room,” Hooters singer and guitarist Eric Bazilian later told a journalist, laughing.