A MEGA-MUSICAL TALE OF TWO CITIES AIRED ROUND THE WORLD : LIVE AID COUNTDOWN IN CITY OF BROTHERLY CHAOS

The globally broadcast Live Aid extravaganza is being staged today in London and Philadelphia. It’s a fund-raising tale of two cities--offering the best of times for millions of rock fans to fight the worst of times for millions of starving Africans. Calendar reports today on preparations for the concerts both on stage and off.

On the eve of today’s Live Aid concerts, Russia was in, but China was out.

And Poland was paying about $20 a minute to feed Africa’s matchstick millions in exchange for the rights to carry the televised daylong satellite feed of Live Aid, the biggest rock extravaganza since Woodstock in 1969.

Along with 90,000 fans who have plunked down $35 and more per ticket to see Live Aid live at John F. Kennedy Stadium here, broadcasters in at least 60 nations--with possibly 40 more by show time today--had anted up contributions to this rock megabenefit.

Even the conservatives among the organizers here were talking about clearing the hoped-for $50-million mark in profits and contributions. San Francisco rock impresario Bill Graham, producing the concert here, predicted that sales of the $13 Live Aid T-shirts should raise $500,000 alone.

Despite the absence of the People’s Republic of China in the Live Aid media circus, described as “organized chaos” by a chorus of production personnel, co-producer Hal Uplinger was sticking Friday to his contention that at least part of the anti-famine pop music crusade would be seen by a potential audience of 1.5 billion.

“The only ones who weren’t in as of today (Friday) were Albania, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Romania and China,” said Uplinger, a vice president of Worldwide Sports & Entertainment of Marina del Rey, which is producing and marketing the big show.

(Soviet participation had been in doubt. On Wednesday, a spokesman in Moscow said Soviet state television wouldn’t air the Live Aid show. Two days later, there was an unexplained change of heart.

(The Soviet Union agreed to air the daylong program live and even contribute, via satellite, its top rock group, Autograph, according to Richard Lukens, Worldwide’s international sales representative, who negotiated the agreement.)

“Now that the Soviet Union has agreed to take it, the other Iron Curtain countries should fall in line and it’s a good possibility this will be the top broadcast of all time,” Uplinger said.

Not all countries are taking the scheduled 16 hours of rock live, Lukens said by phone from Marina del Rey. He said some are airing only a portion, while others, including Mexico, will record the concerts on tape for a later broadcast.

After the end of today’s rock spectacular, Lukens said, Worldwide will put together a four-hour program of taped Live Aid highlights and provide it to the United States Information Agency for release to any country requesting it.

Despite Russia’s sudden decision to air Live Aid, a Soviet contingent here was still struggling Friday to get press credentials to cover the event as a news story for print and broadcast outlets. Theirs was not a solitary struggle.

Bureaucratic bedlam to rival the red tape of a Kremlin nightmare reigned supreme. Soviet broadcast technicians were hitting the same roadblocks trying to get official access to the high-security stadium as everyone else.

Nobody, not even the executives running the show, could get things done.

“My own people can’t get credentials and we’re producing the show,” Uplinger complained.

Such are the vagaries of getting things done in a rock-’n’-roll boomtown.

In just two days, a miniature makeshift city--complete with its own commissary and a tent version of Beverly Center’s Hard Rock Cafe--has risen behind the 100-foot-high Live Aid stage here.

Thirty-seven broadcast trucks and mobile homes are crowded together in a hodgepodge of cables and video-audio feed lines. The electronic spaghetti trails link Worldwide, ABC (the exclusive TV-radio network carrying the U.S. broadcasts with its own army of 95 technicians) and nearly 1,000 other media organization representatives from the U.S. and overseas.

And that’s just backstage.

The performers are doing their thing on a stage that “is a football field long, with a revolving stage in the middle so that one act can get ready while another one’s on,” said Vince Scarza, who is co-directing the big broadcast with executive director Tony Verna.

“This stage is 2 1/2 times larger that the (Jacksons’) ‘Victory Tour’ stage they had here last year,” Scarza said.

Until today, the Jacksons’ 350-ton stage had held the record as the largest outdoor concert stage ever built.

Rising in rainbow colors at the end of the horseshoe-shaped stadium, the Live Aid stage also features three huge video screens where fans will see the simultaneous Live Aid concert going on today at London’s Wembley Stadium, as well as edited videos from a similar superstar concert held late Friday in Australia.

Tina Turner and Mick Jagger were scheduled to take to the boards here Friday night for the only live sound and camera check that 15 camera crews would be able to make before Joan Baez kicked off the Philadelphia portion of the 22-act program (at 6:04 a.m. today,Los Angeles time).

Unlike the situation in London, there wasn’t much concern here about the possibility of bad weather, despite a Friday forecast of a 30% chance of rain on tonight’s portion of the concert at JFK Stadium.

Like London, the big preconcert rumor here late Friday was that Julian Lennon, son of the late John Lennon, might join the three surviving Beatles on stage in London. The rumor was denied in London but persisted nonetheless, both there and here.

One rumor confirmed Friday was that “We Are the World” co-author Lionel Richie would join the Philadelphia roster near the end of the program.

Uncertainty is the name of the game, noted Uplinger. “It’s changing by the hour. It’s live. Anything can happen.”