
And so the musicians descended on Kinshasa without the hook of the big fight to keep the media interested. Instead, Levine says, it was “like a big house party” where any notions of prima-donna status were left firmly in the States and the artists simply got on with performing one of the greatest concerts of all time.Exhausted and exhilarated in equal measure, Levine walked away at the end of it vowing to never attempt anything similar again. He instead turned his hand to producing (“Everything was easy after that,” he says), enjoying a long and distinguished career with artists including Simply Red and Jamie Cullum. But those heady days in Kinshasa refuse to go away quietly. “We never dreamed the film would be coming out 35 years later,” he says. “I’m glad that I’m still around to see it.”