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46664 Concert Honouring Nelson Mandela At 90
46664, Nelson Mandela's AIDs charity, arranged a
90th birthday celebration concert in Hyde Park, London, for the 27th June 2008. It was also Nelson Mandela's
last public appearance before (his real) retirement.
Artists were invited to appear at the event, and Simple Minds promptly accepted, having been major contributors
to the two previous Mandela events (the 70th Birthday Tribute for which
Mandela Day was written and the
Freedom Concert of 1990).
Only Jim,
Charlie and
Mel appeared as the event
used its own backing musicians. Mandela Day was an absolute prerequisite
and the band spiced it up by enlisting the Soweto Gospel Choir as backing singers. And, of course,
the other track had to be Don't You (Forget About Me).
"Of course we are excited now that the day is near and we are so lucky to be a part of something
that really means a lot to us. I always said that on looking back we felt that our participation in
the Mandela Freedom concerts was among our personal career highlights, and that writing Mandela Day - a
beautiful song - one of our best ever impulsive ideas."
"Listening again to it today some twenty years after the event, somehow it has never sounded so good!" - Jim
JL: Funny you should mention salmon but did you give Nelson Mandela any tips about salmon?
JK: We were talking about meeting Nelson Mandela who Simple Minds had the great pleasure of playing concerts for, and we wrote
a song about him. But when we eventually met him, hearing we were from Scotland, he immediately said
"Oh! I love Scotland. I love salmon fishing. What can you tell me about salmon fishing?" [Laughs] Which coming from a housing estate in Glasgow... had I
been born three centuries earlier, I probably could've told him a lot about salmon fishing. But, no, I couldn't give the president any advice that day.
Jim Kerr and Janice Long
The Long Walk
BBC Radio 2
12th July 2018
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