Joe Cocker on the Princes Trust evening in 1988.

The Prince's Trust is a charity founded by then Prince Charles, the British crown prince. (He is now King Charles III) as I write this in 2024.) There have been a bunch of benefit concerts for the charity, each with many stars participating. Here's another one.

These Prince's Trust concerts have happened in a very irregular pace. I've already posted benefit concerts from 1982, 1986, and 1987. This one is from 1988. There were more from 1989 and 1990, so it started to seem like an annual thing. However, I think the next one after that took place in 1996. There have been at least five more since then, although I may well be missing some.

This one was similar to the previous two in similar ways. The concert started with some newer acts, like T'Pau and Wet Wet Wet, and they played more songs than one might expect, given the stature of the other acts in the concert. Both T'Pau and Wet Wet Wet actually played four songs each, according to setlists, but I only have two from T'Pau and three from Wet Wet Wet. I can't say I'm lamenting the missing songs, since I don't think one could compare them with nearly all of the acts that came later. Rick Astley and Black were a couple other acts that appeared early, and played the one big hit each of them was known for.

After that, there were many of the same "usual suspects" who played in previous Prince's Trust concerts, such as Phil Collins, Elton John, Howard Jones, Mark Knoplfer, and Eric Clapton. But there were some first timers too, like Leonard Cohen, the Bee Gees, Peter Gabriel, and Joe Cocker. It's frustrating to me that you have someone like Peter Gabriel, whose most recent album at the time, "So," had sold five million copies in the U.S. alone, only getting to play one song. But it is what it is, I guess.

I don't know the exact details, but I believe that many of the big stars backed each other towards the end of the concert, as was the case in previous years. Because people pay extra close attention to Eric Clapton's guitar playing, I was able to find out that once he took the stage with track 26 ("Behind the Mask"), he stayed on stage for the rest of the concert, including playing guitar on songs sung by Knoplfer, John, and Cocker.

Similarly, I was able to determine that Brian May of Queen didn't sing lead vocals on any songs, but he played lead guitar on a bunch of them: tracks 6, 8, 10, 16, 19, 24, 26, and 35. John Deacon, the bassist for Queen, also apparently played on some songs.

Currently, I'm only able to find a few songs from the 1989 and 1990 concerts. If anyone has the full concerts, please let me know. I may try to post the 1996 concert, but I'm probably missing about half of that one.