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 and was fortunate enough to have been there for the duration of the concert. I'd kept the original 'flyer' from the event as well as a newspaper clipping.
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| The promotional 'flyer' from 1986 |
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| 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
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.
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| 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:
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| Rolling Stones Magazine 1986 |
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| 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. It was a chance find rather than something I was looking for at the time. It was possible to pick up lots of VHS bargains and it encouraged me to build a collection of my favourite films.
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 over 50 years old. I have vivid memories of the event and it does feel strange to think all those young 'trendy' people who were all around me are probably now in their 60's.
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 march but perhaps mostly interested in the free concert.
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.
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| 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. I believe he closed the event, even though I had thought Big Audio Dynamite was the last performance - just shows how your memory doesn't always reflect reality.
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| Comparison between screencap and VHS cover sleeve with the microphone stand edited out |
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| A screenshot of Billy Bragg performing at the concert |
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| A 1986 press review of the concert by music journalist Robin Denselow |
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| A press cutting I took from 1986. Unfortunately I didn't keep the whole article. |
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| 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!
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| Sting performing at the event |
Here's a reasonable quality scan I took of my VHS tape cover insert. Good enough to reproduce a box anyway.
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
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