& Dire Straits Eric Clapton - Nelson Mandela Benefit Concert 1988

The Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute took place on 11 June 1988 at Wembley Stadium, London, and was broadcast across 67 countries to a worldwide audience of 600 million people. Mandela was still an imprisoned anti-apartheid revolutionary at the time of the concert, but the event is considered a pivotal step leading to the eventual release of Mandela, in February 1990, following 27 years of incarceration.
Unlike the Live Aid concert a few years earlier, the 1988 concert was not primarily a fundraiser (even though it made £5million) but an event intended to raise the awareness worldwide of the injustice occurring under the apartheid regime in South Africa at the time. Most pertinently, it was staged to highlight the lengthy imprisonment of Nelson Mandela and other senior ANC members, who had been arrested and held for attempting to change the system almost in the country 30 years before.
The concert featured performances from a host of top artists of the day including Simple Minds, Sting, Tracey Chapman, Stevie Wonder and numerous others. One of the finest performances however, came from Dire Straits who had recently split up but were persuaded to reform for the event, bringing in Eric Clapton on guitar and backing vocals Performing a wonderful set made up of band classics alongside a stunning version of Clapton’s ‘Wonderful Tonight’, Dire Straits would never again play such a genuinely touching yet dynamic live set.