Kampuchea Revisited

Concerts for the People of Kampuchea was a series of concerts organized by Paul McCartney at the request of the UN and their children’s organization Unicef. Originally, Kurt Waldheim approached Paul to ask for a Beatles reunion concert in aid of the victims of war-thorn Cambodia, a country which recently had changed the international spelling of their name to Kampuchea. The idea of a Beatles reunion didn’t appeal to Paul and the others, but Paul organized a series of concerts at the Hammersmith Odeon in London featuring Queen, The Clash, The Pretenders, The Who, Elvis Costello, Wings and others in aid of the charity.
Wings had just completed their 1979 UK Tour, and were going to tour Japan in January 1980. Paul was arrested with cannabis at the airport in Japan and put in jail, the tour was cancelled, the band disbanded and thus the Kampuchea concert was to become Wings’ final performance.
Rumours were ripe during the night of the Wings performance that George, Ringo and John was to appear alongside Paul, speculations that compere Billy Connolly did nothing to qualm. But it was never to be.
The event was recorded and filmed, and an album with highlights was released in 1981. It was never released as a CD. A bootleg LP with an audience recording of the full Wings concert appeared as “Cold Turkey for Kampuchea”. The TV-film was also just compiled of highlights, and was shown on TV in various countries worldwide. The contents of the film varied from country to country. It was never released on video cassette or DVD. Apparantly, japanese television has recently re-broadcast the film – and the inevitable bootleg DVD has appeared.

The full Wings concert had this setlist:

1. Got To Get You Into My Life (included in japanese re-broadcast)
2. Getting Closer
3. Every Night (included in japanese re-broadcast)
4. Again And Again And Again
5. I’ve Had Enough
6. No Words
7. Cook Of The House
8. Old Siam Sir
9. Maybe I’m Amazed
10. The Fool on the Hill
11. Hot As Sun
12. Spin It On
13. Twenty Flight Rock
14. Go Now
15. Arrow Through Me
16. Coming Up (included in japanese re-broadcast)
17. Goodnight Tonight
18. Yesterday
19. Mull of Kintyre
20. Band On The Run

Wings also appeared as part of the All-star band “Rockestra”, who performed:

1. Rockestra Theme
2. Let It Be (included in japanese re-broadcast)
3. Lucille (included in japanese re-broadcast)
4. Rockestra Theme (again) (included in japanese re-broadcast)

Not included on the japanese re-broadcast was Getting Closer and Arrow Through Me, who both appeared as snippets in a rare early eighties british broadcast.