Artists Against Apartheid Concert Clapham Common 1986

 

It was a fine summer's day on 28 June 1986 when Clapham Common hosted a free music concert in support of the Anti Apartheid movement of that time. 

I was a teenager back then and was fortunate enough to have been there for the duration of the concert. 

The promotional 'flyer' from 1986

Reverse side of the promotional 'flyer'

 

A few years later a VHS tape of the event was produced. I believe there was also a laser disc version and a 2012 DVD release in Brazil. 

Unfortunately a number of artists didn't give permission to appear in the VHS video release. 

Here's the full list of artists who performed at the event. Those with a star * did not appear in the VHS release. This includes the infamous Boy George performance. After a mediocre performance by Boy George, speculation was rife in the media that he was struggling with drug addiction. As far as I'm aware his performance has never been released and probably never will be. I can only assume that the footage of the artists not included in the VHS still exists in storage somewhere.

I'm pretty sure that the 'set list' in the Video isn't the same as it was at the concert. Unless my memory is wrong, I thought that Big Audio Dynamite were the very last performance and not Peter Gabriel. BAD certainly got the audience fired up!

• Big Audio Dynamite
• Billy Bragg
• Boy George*
• David Grant*
• Elvis Costello
• Gary Kemp*
• Gil Scott‐Heron
• Helen Terry*
• Hugh Masekela
• Maxi Priest
• Peter Gabriel
• Princess
• Roddy Frame*
• Sade
• Sir Coxsone Sound*
• Sting
• The Communards*
• The Style Council
  

Embed from Getty Images 

A photograph of Boy George taken just a few weeks before he performed at the event. 

Remarkably, there's an audio recording of Boy George's performance from the Clapham Common event available below. It includes a rare photograph of Boy George as he appeared on stage at Clapham Common. You can see he’s wearing the same jacket he was wearing in the photograph above. The Rolling Stone Magazine published an article in 1986 which explains why his face was pasted in white during his appearance.

 

A rare snapshot of Boy George performing at Clapham Common

 

I've since found this very rare short clip of George singing at the event:

 

Rolling Stones Magazine 1986

 

An extract from the Rolling Stones article on Boy George

The full Rolling Stone Magazine article about Boy George can be seen here.

 

I purchased a copy of the VHS tape on sale at a Virgin store, probably a few years after it's 1988 release, for £12.80. I think it was a chance find rather than something I was looking for at the time. It seems expensive for back then but I think a typical price for a new VHS tape was £15. 

Since then, it's become one of those rather obscure videos which are quite hard to find. The fact is that nearly everyone who was at that concert would now be in their 50's or older.

Apparently there were in the region of 250,000 people at the event. 

No doubt there were others like myself, who weren't involved in the preceding demonstration but were really only there for the free concert, rather than any political standpoint. Of course it was a good cause, but we were more interested in seeing some top artists performing for free. 

Whilst I can recall most of the artists, I've no memory whatsoever of The Communards or Gary Kemp even being there. Perhaps if they were included in the VHS it would have jogged my memory. I think the artist with the greatest reaction was Big Audio Dynamite, who you can see from the video, really got the audience fired up. 

More recently I finally tracked down my VHS copy of the concert having been sitting in my sisters attic for a good 10 years. After a long and frustrating process I finally captured it digitally. It's available in it's original full length version at the bottom of this page for anyone who's interested. I've added a scan of the box sleeve as well.

Freedom Beat VHS tape released in the UK 1988

 

After reviewing the video myself, I found the moment from Peter Gabriel's performance which was used for the VHS cover art. The cover photograph was edited to remove the microphone stand. In fact, it looks like they 'touched up' the whole photo to make it look a bit sharper and lighter for the cover sleeve. I can see why they decided to use that particular shot from the video, but I'm sure there must have been better photographs taken that could have been used.

Comparison between screencap and VHS cover sleeve with the microphone stand edited out

 

A screenshot of Billy Bragg performing at the concert

A 1986 press review of the concert by music journalist Robin Denselow

A press cutting I took from 1986. Unfortunately I didn't keep the whole article.

An extract from

Broadcasting the End of Apartheid: Live Television and the Birth of the New South Africa

If you were also one of the 250,000 people there, please feel free to comment and share your memories!

 

Sting performing at the event

 

Here's a reasonable quality scan I took of my VHS tape cover insert.

Here's my download link for the full video in .mv4 format. I've condensed the file down to 1.39 GB to make sharing easier, but the quality is still quite good.

Click on this link to download: Freedom Beat VHS

Select the 'standard download' option and it should work fine - tested Feb 2024

My mouldy VHS tape - Clean and digitalise

I’d been searching for one of my old VHS tapes for several years since moving house. Turns out it was in my sister's loft for the best part of 10 years. I had long planned to convert it to digital format for future preservation and convenience. 

I've found out the hard way that certain things like VHS cassettes must be stored in room temperature - common sense really. A typical house roof space is exposed to the full range of temperature extremes. Even though it remains dry, it's like storing something outside, which you would never do for items you wanted to keep. Same thing goes for an unheated garden shed or car garage. Still, most of us have done it when storage space is limited. If you do need to then it should be in an airtight container as the minimum. Silica gel sachets to avoid moisture are also a good idea.

I was so pleased and relieved to find it after such a long time. However, when I opened the case, I was shocked to find white mold sitting on the tape.

Mold on the VHS tape

 

Cleaning

I quickly turned to Google for a solution. It soon became clear this was a problem which needed a careful and considered approach. I found a few YouTube videos which suggested using a video recorder, removing the case and running fast forward while holding cotton wool or microfiber cloth against the tape as it went round. 

Other forums warned against cleaning due to the risk of inhaling toxic mold. I decided to set up the video player on my balcony wearing cotton gloves and good quality face mask, for most of the time anyway. 

What I thought would be a fairly straightforward process ended up taking lots of time.

The first issue was that the video recorder kept ejecting the tape. It did the same with other tapes I tried too. I started to worry the machine was faulty. However, after replacing the cover and connecting it to the TV it worked fine. That was a relief but frustrating as I couldn’t use it to clean the video tape as shown on YouTube. 

Instead I decided to dismantle the VHS cassette itself. Taking it apart wasn’t too difficult but putting it back together was rather more fiddly. Anyway, I was able to squeeze a dry cotton bud under the clear plastic reel cover and wipe away most of the white mold sitting on the tape. In fact it’s better to do that first so the mold doesn’t spread inside the case when using the cleaning method shown in most YouTube videos. These videos show cleaning using a video player first and then taking the tape apart. Doing it the other way around makes more sense though.

By the time I did play the old VHS there was virtually no mold dust to be seen so hopefully no harm done to me or the video player.

I played the video on the television and found the quality was surprisingly good. Having successfully cleaned the tape, I was ready to digitalise it. This proved to be more difficult than I envisaged. 

 

VHS tape with cover removed

 

When dissembling, remember where the tape goes

 

It was easier to clean with the reel removed

I gently wiped the top of the tape with a dry cotton ear stick

VHS tape after cleaning

Digitalise 

What you need:

• VHS tape
• VHS player
• Capture device e.g. USB 'dongle'
• Software to record
• Correct drivers

I had an old VHS to digital ‘dongle’ capture device which I planned to use. However, this was about 15 years old and I couldn’t find the software CD needed to install the drivers. Eventually I managed to find drivers for a similar device online and that worked. I was able to use PowerDirector 15 to capture the video. Having captured the video in decent quality, I realised there was no audio. Of course the capture process is in ‘real time’ so takes as long as the video takes to play. This is why I never managed to copy many whole VHS tapes when I had my desktop computer because it takes so long. 

After spending many hours trying to find a fix, it became apparent this was a hardware issue. For audio input the dongle video capture device used a 3.5 inch phone jack. This was fine years ago when I had a desktop computer with lots of input/output sockets but not my laptop. I didn’t realise that laptops don’t have such audio inputs. The phone jack will only support headphones or microphone so cannot be used as an input for audio capture. One step forward and two steps backward. 

Realising there was no viable solution, I went ahead and purchased a new VHS dongle capture device which uses a USB connector instead of the old phone jack. Some of these seem to be very cheap but I opted for something a bit more expensive. Whilst I often relish the challenge of doing something very cheaply or for no cost which is very satisfying, it can be very time consuming and frustrating. Sometimes there isn’t an easy fix and you just have to pay the money.

The software which came with the new USB device did not work. Each time the video playback would get stuck and only show half a frame. 

I returned to PowerDirector 15 but that still didn't work with audio despite spending a considerable amount of time trying different options. 

I then turned to OBS Studio which worked, producing good quality video and audio.

Sharing on Youtube

This turned out to be yet another learning curve for me. I've never posted any large files such as 4GB on YouTube before. Initially, I didn't want to risk reducing the quality by condensing the size down. 

The first issue I encountered was with YouTube copyrite permission. Perhaps I was naive in thinking a somewhat obscure 34 year old VHS tape recording of a music event would be fine. The first version of the video I uploaded was 3.72GB and took about 1 hour. YouTube then flagged up three artists with copywrite. It then gave me just three options which were to mute, trim or replace. For the first artist I decided to go for the option which mutes the singing and somehow retaining the other audio. Anyway, that was a mistake as it took at least 12 hours processing, which I couldn't cancel. 

After that I decided to edit the video myself using PowerDirector 15 to mute the artists in question. This took a while and I also had an aspect ration problem. Yes, you can select 4:3 ratio but each time I went to the 'produce' stage for rendering it added a thick black border on all sides, not just top and bottom as expected. Eventually, I worked out what the problem was. The preview window in the editing mode is having a wider black border than visible. What you must do is select the video from the movie board view. In the preview window you will see a selection box. Whilst retaining the aspect by selecting a corning and dragging, make the picture overlap the visible preview window border. You should do this before editing. If you have already split the video into components, each selection will need to have the same visual 'key attributes' added. 

Rendering with PowerDirector - black border on all sides even when 4:3 aspect has been used in editing

Use the selection handles in the preview window

Drag the corner handles in the preview view window beyond the visible black borders

 

 

To save time uploading to YouTube, decided to condense the file using Handbrake which took the file size down from 3.72GB to 605MB without a noticeable reduction in quality. 

I now had an edited video which was a reasonable 605mb ready to upload to YouTube once more. 

This time the upload to YouTube was about 25 minutes. 

YouTube then flagged up about 5 instances of copyrite this time relating to the melody. Again, I was given the same three options. By this point I cancelled the whole process and deleted the file. It became apparent that by the time I edited the video further, there would be almost no music left in the whole video. Whilst I understand the copyrite issue, it's such a shame that I'm not able to share this historical musical event. 

This was a rather disappointing outcome after the amount of effort I'd put into digitalising this old VHS.

After this experience I doubt I'll attempt to upload anything similar to YouTube in future. On the plus side, I now had a decent digital copy to preserve it and make it accessible for future.