40 years ago, stars lined up for Live Aid — so why didn’t Culture Club play?

Forty years ago Sunday — July 13, 1985 — the all-star Live Aid charity concerts took place in London and Philadelphia. Bob Geldof, who put together the charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas” to raise money for African famine relief, organized Live Aid to raise even more money for the cause. Many of the acts featured on the single performed that day, including Sting, U2 and Duran Duran, but one glaring omission was Culture Club.

“We were the first band to be asked to do it, because of the nature of the band,” Culture Club bass player Mikey Craig tells ABC Audio. “Because the band was multiracial, and it had to do with a charity for Africa. And we were the biggest band in the world at the time.”

So why didn’t they play? Singer Boy George has said he doubted his ability to perform at the time, and Craig acknowledges he was probably right. 

“Yeah, the performance probably wouldn’t have been good enough, because George, at the time, unbeknown to all of us, was not in a good place mentally,” Craig says. “I mean, he was probably using [heroin] at the time. And I think that was why he kept saying, ‘Yes, we’ll do it. No, we won’t do it. Yes, we’ll do it. No, we won’t do it,’ until Bob Geldof just kind of gave up on us completely.”

Craig says missing Live Aid was one of his biggest career regrets.

“I very much wanted to be a part of anything that was helping somebody in the world,” he tells ABC Audio. “So it resonated heavily with me when we could not do it. And yeah, it was tremendously sad for me, but at the same time, I have to remember that George probably wasn’t in a great place himself.”