Michael Hutchence

On January 28th, 1985 Australia's top musicians gathered together for the East African Tragedy Appeal Concert. This concert was the first in a series of famine aid related events that eventually led up to the Live Aid concert.

The event was held at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne, Australia to around 30,000 people.  The idea of the concert was to have many 'super groups' form, so artists from one band would join another band.  The main songwriters Michael Hutchence & Andrew Farriss represented INXS at the concert.

Here is the guest book signed by Michael Hutchence, and other artists from the day.

Guests included singers and members of bands from the following artists: Broderick Smith, Chris Wilson, Larry Groves, Mental as Anything, Mondo Rock, INXS, Midnight Oil, Divinyls, Eddie Raynor, Beargarden, Little River Band, Midge Ure, Pseudo Echo, Kids In The Kitchen, Real Life, I’m Talking, Goanna, Australian Crawl, DD Smash, The Models, Mi Sex, Black Sorrows, Split Enz, Stephen Cummings, Joe Camilleri, Dave Dobbyn, Jon English, EuroGliders, John Farnham, Dear Enemy, Dr. Feelgood, Vanetta Fields, Rene Geyer, Hoodoo Gurus, Pink Pinks, Craig Harnath, Ghostwriters, Icehouse,  Sharon O’Neill, John Schumann, AC/DC, Strange Tenants, and the Uncanny X-Men.

The event was broadcast on television in the form of a telethon simulcast on radio around Australia.

Midge Ure was a guest singer of a song written by Brian Canham and James Leigh of Pseudo Echo.  Sam Sejavka from Beargarden / The Ears (who Michael Hutchence's Dogs in Space' character is based on) also performed on the song. 

The song titled "Can we Get Together" was to be Australia's contribution to the famine effort like 'We Are The World' or 'Do They Know It's Christmas'. Unfortunately the song, which was sung at this event by Brian Canham and Midge Ure, was recorded in the studio but was never released.

After the event, Midge Ure flew back to London. He later met up with Bob Geldof to discuss the possibility of a similar event.  Then 6 months later Live Aid was held.

The EAT concert raised around $1 million dollars which was paid to the Red Cross.