ROCK AID ARMENIA: THE EARTHQUAKE VIDEO

On December 7th, 1988 there was shocking world news from Armenia, "At 11:41 a.m. local time a magnitude 6.9 earthquake shook northwestern Armenia and was followed four minutes later by a magnitude 5.8 aftershock. Swarms of aftershocks, some as large as magnitude 5.0, continued for months in the area around Spitak. Direct economic losses were put at $14.2 billion (U.S.) at the United Nations official exchange rate. Twenty-five thousand were killed and 15,000 were injured by the earthquake. In addition 517,000 people were made homeless." In 1989, some of the greatest musicians of the world came together to raise money for Armenia's earthquake victims with The Earthquake Album and a video entitled Rock Aid Armenia.

This video contains 16 tracks by 15 different bands, ranging from ELP (abridged version of Fanfare For The Common Man featuring Keith Emerson on the super Yamaha GX-1 synthesizer but after two minutes this song ends), Bon Jovi, Asia, Foreigner and Gary Moore (biting solo and on drums the late Cozy Powell) to Black Sabbath (video clip with dark Medieval atmosphere and fiery guitar solo), Genesis (great live version of Mama), Led Zeppelin (exciting early live footage with Jimmy Page on coloured Fender Telecaster and violin bow), Rush (Spirit Of The Radio from Exit Stage Left live album), Pink Floyd (One Slip live) and a splendid Trevor Rabin-Yes line-up performance during I've Seen All Good People: Trevor first on an acoustic Ovation guitar, then with powerful electric guitarwork and Chris Squire looks like Sting with his modern hair-cut! The final song is a rendition of the Deep Purple 'classic' Smoke On The Water, the Rock Aid Armenia studio- session band featured an awesome list of musicians: Jon Lord (Deep Purple and Whitesnake),Ritchie Blackmore (Deep Purple and Rainbow), Paul Rodgers (Bad Company and later Queen), Chris Squire (Yes), Brian May and Roger Taylor (both Queen), Dave Gilmour (Pink Floyd), Bryan Adams, Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden), Keith Emerson (Emerson Lake and Palmer), Ian Gillan (Deep Purple & Jesus Christ Superstar), John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath), Alex Lifeson (Rush), Brian May (Queen) and Adrian Smith (Iron Maiden). It's great to see all those rock legend playing so inspired and enthousiastically, the one moment Keith Emerson on organ, the other moment David Gilmour on guitar or Chris Squire on bass, amazing!

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