The Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute was a popular-music concert staged on 11 June 1988 at Wembley Stadium, London, and broadcast to 67 countries and an audience of 600 million.
[4] The Birthday Tribute was regarded by many, including the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) and the African National Congress (ANC), as raising worldwide consciousness of the imprisonment of ANC leader Mandela and others by the South African apartheid government and forcing the regime to release Nelson Mandela earlier than would otherwise have happened.
The second event, Nelson Mandela: An International Tribute for a Free South Africa, was, like the first, conceived to be shown on television across the world and was broadcast from Wembley Stadium to more than 60 countries on 16 April 1990.
The first concert, according to Robin Denselow, music critic and presenter of the BBC broadcast, writing in 1989,[9] was the "biggest and most spectacular pop-political event of all time, a more political version of Live Aid with the aim of raising consciousness rather than just money."
Dammers did not phone back until June 1987, although in the summer of 1986 he had organised a free anti-apartheid concert, Freedom Beat, in London's Clapham Common attended by 200,000 people.
But Terry and his senior officials firmly resisted Hollingsworth's proposal, insisting on three conditions, based on the policies of the African National Congress.
But a positive birthday tribute would conform to the broadcasters' entertainment mandate and there would be a good chance they would show the full day's event.
On the other hand, he quickly won the approval of Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, the AAM president and a former priest in southern Africa.
By the time that the Anti-Apartheid Movement had agreed to support the concert, Hollingsworth had booked Wembley Stadium for the following June and had approached several artists in addition to Simple Minds.
Hollingsworth signed up other big names, albeit on a provisional basis, put them in touch with one another and finally they all, including Dire Straits, agreed to perform.
The list included: George Michael, Dire Straits,[13] Whitney Houston, UB40,[14] Aswad,[15] Sly and Robbie, Bee Gees, Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela.
The announcement of the list made it easier to bring in further artists, including Eurythmics who had earlier refused three times, but other big names also.
A week after the first bill was announced, Simple Minds threatened to quit, arguing that there was not enough grit in it: Whitney Houston, for instance, should not be there.
Hollingsworth argued that there was plenty of grit but that Whitney Houston was needed to broaden the audience to include people who were not so likely to know about Mandela and apartheid.
The singer was associated with human rights issues, partly as a result of his song They Dance Alone about the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and was at the height of his popularity.
Sting's manager Miles Copeland, however, refused even to put the proposition to the singer because he would be on a world tour at the time and the Wembley concert would not fit in.
But the event was being organised not as a live concert but as a television show and that, according to Hollingsworth, meant a top act at the beginning when "the largest audience tunes in to see how it's going to be".
Before the concert, 24 Conservative MPs put down a House of Commons motion, criticising the BBC for giving "publicity to a movement that encourages the African National Congress in its terrorist activities".
Further, the artists’ contracts – which in many cases were signed backstage at Wembley – laid down that no proceeds from the income of the event should go "towards the purchase of or in any other connection with armaments".
The reasoning was that, first, the concert would look like a television show without awkward gaps encouraging audiences to switch off; and, second, broadcasters would be less likely to impose their own narrative on the event.
Whitney Houston, who was contracted to make advertisements for Coca-Cola, did her act in front of a black backdrop instead of the usual picture of Nelson Mandela.
After the event, the producer – in charge of his own editing team for the US broadcast – took out a full-page advertisement in a US trade magazine thanking American artists for participating in his show.
The principle – aimed at ensuring that broadcasters would, first, buy the television rights and, second, continue to show the proceedings – was more or less followed.
Early on, the organisers stopped an insistent Reverend Jesse Jackson, the African-American Civil Rights leader, from going on stage to make a speech.
Stevie Wonder landed in the United Kingdom on the Saturday morning of the concert and went straight to Wembley Stadium, where a room was prepared for him and his band to warm up.
He was about to walk up the ramp to the stage when it was discovered that the hard disc of his synclavier, carrying all 25 minutes of synthesised music for his act, was missing.
Following Salt-N-Pepa's performance, there was no announcement, no sound from the main stage until, out of the darkness, came the opening lines of "I Just Called to Say I Love You" and a huge roar from the audience.
The songs included: The initial funding for Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute came from Hollingsworth and, specifically, from the money that he had put into the production company, Elephant House, set up with television producer Neville Bolt.
The estimated audience for the Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute of 600 million in 67 countries was arguably an underestimate in that several broadcasters in Africa were given a free licence.
Australian comedy act The Doug Anthony Allstars were meant to perform, but a part of the set collapsed and they were unable to.