Live Aid (1985)

On 25 November 1984, 36 British recording artists gathered at a studio in Notting Hill, London, to donate their time and talent to a song written by Bob Geldof (Boomtown Rats) and Midge Ure (Ultravox) to raise money for the relief of famine in Ethiopia.

The result was the historic Do They Know It’s Christmas?, performed by Geldof and Ure with Bananarama, the Boomtown Rats, Phil Collins, Culture Club, Duran Duran, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Heaven 17, Kool & The Gang, Annie Lennox, Marilyn, George Michael, Spandau Ballet, Status Quo, Sting, U2, Ultravox, Paul Weller and Paul Young – a group of singers collectively known as Band Aid.

The single went straight to #1 in the UK and became the biggest-selling single ever. Meanwhile, the single was certified gold in the US, where it inspired a similar fund-raising recording, We Are The World, by a consortium of entertainers calling themselves USA For Africa.

In March 1985, as Bob Geldof and Midge Ure accepted their Novello Award for Do They Know It’s Christmas?, the first shipment of food and medicine paid for by Band Aid arrived in Ethiopia.

In total, Band Aid had raised £8 million for the famine relief program. Inspired by the British effort, USA For Africa and Canada’s Northern Lights added more to the pile. But Geldof wanted more.

On 13 July, at one minute past noon, the biggest pop event ever staged over a one-day period kicked off with a set by Status Quo at Wembley Stadium in London. Wembley linked up successfully at 5 pm with the John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia in the US, and the two arenas became the most famous venues on the face of the planet.

61 of rock’s biggest acts performed in those two giant outdoor stadiums for sixteen hours in front of a live audience of 162,000 (90,000 in Philadelphia and 72,000 in London) and broadcast to an estimated 1.9 billion TV viewers in 150 countries across the world.

Only the most popular and populist acts were invited to appear so that more people would watch and pledge money. And so there was no place on the bill for cult bands such as New Order, The Smiths, or Julian Cope.

The Kinks offered to play but were deemed “not famous enough”, while Stevie Wonder refused to play, believing there weren’t enough African-American artists on the bill and saying “I am not going to be the token black on the show”.

But there was room for Paul Young, Elton John and (after much coaxing) Queen.

The Who, very grudgingly, re-formed, so too did Led Zeppelin, who split up five years earlier after the death of drummer John Bonham. Paul McCartney made his first public appearance in over six years.

David Bowie, a young Madonna, the Thompson Twins and a palpably confused Bob Dylan (who wanted to highlight the plight of American farmers more than he did Africa) all joined in.

With a little assistance from Concorde, Phil Collins played at both Wembley and Philadelphia (loving the former’s scruffy camaraderie, loathing the latter’s inappropriate glitz). And Status Quo, who had recently split up, got back together and opened the event, kicking off with Rockin’ All Over The World.

The Wembley line-up also included Adam Ant, Elvis Costello, U2, BB King, The Pretenders, Spandau Ballet, Bryan Ferry, Paul Weller, Alison Moyet, Ultravox, Howard Jones and Nik Kershaw. Geldof even performed with The Boomtown Rats (even though he had vowed he wouldn’t sing).

On the US stage,  Tina Turner performed a duet with Mick Jagger, Black Sabbath re-formed with frontman Ozzy Osbourne, and Neil Young, Tom Petty, The Cars and Bryan Adams were part of the staggering list of performers.

Icons of the sixties (Dylan, Joan Baez and The Beach Boys) shared dressing rooms and stages with arena kings of the seventies (Queen, Zep and The Who) and pinup darlings of the eighties (Spandau Ballet and the Thompson Twins).

The acts were given exactly 15 minutes apiece to perform. Everyone left their ego at the dressing room door and threw themselves into the spirit of the event, while Geldof harangued viewers into getting off their butts and phoning in with promises of cash – inadvertently screaming obscenities on live TV.

In the US, the phone system broke down momentarily when 700,000 calls hit the pledge line simultaneously. By the day’s midpoint, more than $20 million had been promised through telephone pledges.

To be under Wembley’s blue skies that day you felt overwhelmed, empowered and humbled by waves of colliding emotions – rage and sadness for the pitiful victims of the Ethiopian famine alternating with enormous pride and excitement at the sight of rock’s biggest names seizing the initiative, doing what their governments singularly failed to do.

Memories flood back of the helicopters flying in and out with their famous passengers, the first lump-in-the-throat glimpse of the Live Aid logo standing tall on either side of the stage, the deafening cheers as Concorde roared overhead carrying Phil Collins to his second performance of the day in Philadelphia, and the heart-stopping finale with Geldof held aloft by Paul McCartney and Pete Townshend before the mass singalong of Do They Know It’s Christmas (Feed The World).

Live Aid set a lead that others quickly followed (including Comic Relief, Artists Against Apartheid, Sports Aid and Farm Aid). And the man who started the whole charity thing off was dubbed Sir Bob Geldof, Knight of the British Empire, in the Queen’s Birthday honours list in June 1986.

In 1992, having raised a total of $144,124,694, the original Band Aid Trust was closed down, and Geldof issued a statement which read, in part;

“It seems so long ago that we asked for your help. Seven years . . . you can count them now in trees and dams and fields and cows and camels and trucks and schools and health clinics, medicines, tents, blankets, clothes, toys, ships, planes, tools, wheat, sorghum, beans, research grants, workshops . . .

I once said that we would be more powerful in memory than in reality. Now we are that memory”.

The line-up

• 12:00 – Status Quo (Wembley) – The Quo kick off the Wembley show with the very apt Rockin’ All Over The World.
• 12:19 – The Style Council (Wembley) – The sun is shining, the crowd is roaring, but Paul Weller still isn’t smiling.
• 12:44 – Boomtown Rats (Wembley) – “This is the best day of my life,” yells Bob Geldof, who has to cope with a dodgy microphone.
• 13:00 – Adam Ant (Wembley) – “The world is watching. Let’s feed it,” is Adam’s heartfelt plea before he leaps around the stage.
• 13:16 – Ultravox (Wembley) – Band Aid co-writer Midge Ure gets his moment in the sun in some seriously large sunglasses.
• 13:47 – Spandau Ballet (Wembley) – Gary Kemp falls over, but singer Tony Hadley keeps his cool in the sweltering heat.
• 14:02 – Joan Baez (JFK) – The Philadelphia show is launched by the folk singer renowned for her role as a civil rights activist.
• 14:07 – Elvis Costello (Wembley) – Costello leads a rousing singalong of The Beatles‘ classic All You Need Is Love.
• 14:10 – The Hooters (JFK) – No, we’d never heard of them either, but Live Aid gave them worldwide recognition.
• 14:22 – Nik Kershaw (Wembley) – The sun didn’t go down on Nik, but he must have got his hairstyle tips from A Flock of Seagulls.
• 14:32 – The Four Tops (JFK) – The legendary soul men had Philadelphia dancing with three of their many classics.
• 14:35 – Billy Ocean (JFK) – A perspiring Billy is obviously shocked at the sight of more than 90,000 people in a stadium.
• 14:52 – Black Sabbath (JFK) – The Prince of Darkness behaves himself and resists the temptation to feast on bats.
• 14:55 – Sade (Wembley) – The crooner of sophisticated ballads is knocked off her stride as she’s upstaged by a streaker.
• 15:12 – Run DMC (JKF) – The sole hip-hop act of the day. The masters do their stuff and get the American show into full swing.
• 15:18 – Sting & Phil Collins (Wembley) – Phil joins his pal before jetting off on Concorde to perform across the Atlantic.
• 15:27 – Rick Springfield (JFK) – Rick shows great modesty by declaring, “you can change the world with music”.
• 15:47 – REO Speedwagon (JFK) – Non-metal fans reach for the earplugs. Maybe some of the metal fans did too.
• 15:50 – Howard Jones (Wembley) – Another one having a bad hair day. Time perhaps to join the toilet queue.
• 16:07 – Bryan Ferry (Wembley) – Four hours into the show and Ferry’s energetic set livens everyone up.
• 16:07 – Crosby, Stills & Nash (JFK) – . . . while across the pond, something a lot more mellow is on offer.
• 16:26 – Judas Priest (JFK) – Now for something completely different. Rob Halford and co getting very sweaty in leathers.
• 16:38 – Paul Young & Alison Moyet (Wembley) – Young does a solo number before being joined by the former Yazoo songstress.
• 17:02 – Bryan Adams (JFK) – Wembley links up to Philadelphia as the Canadian rocker struts his stuff during a 16-minute set.
• 17:20 – U2 (Wembley) – Bono gets jiggy with a girl from the crowd, causing U2 to have to drop a song from their allocated set.
• 17:40 – The Beach Boys (JFK) – The legends give everybody “Good Vibrations” and have everyone smiling.
• 18:00 – Dire Straits (Wembley) – Sting‘s back again, but it’s money for nothing and headbands for free.
• 18:26 – George Thorogood & The Destroyers (JFK) – Rhythm and blues classics with help from Bo Diddley and Albert Collins.
• 18:44 – Queen (Wembley) – An awesome six songs in 17 minutes from Freddie and the boys brings the house down.
• 19:02 – David Bowie & Mick Jagger (Video) – Bowie and Jagger’s planned intercontinental duet is ditched in favour of a video.
• 19:07 – Simple Minds (JFK) – Jim Kerr and co rock the stadium in Philadelphia.
• 19:22 – David Bowie (Wembley) – The Thin White Duke brings some style to the proceedings and dedicates Heroes to the crowd.
• 19:41 – The Pretenders (JFK) – Chrissie Hynde follows spouse Jim Kerr onto the US stage for an eight-minute set.
• 20:00 – The Who (Wembley) – A legendary reformation, even if Pete Townshend does fall over while doing the splits in mid-air.
• 20:20 – Santana & Pat Metheny (JFK) – Another of the day’s impromptu jam sessions.
• 20:50 – Elton John, Kiki Dee & Wham! (Wembley) – Elton sings on his own before duetting with Kiki and his good pal George Michael.
• 20:57 – Ashford & Simpson (JFK) – Teddy Pendergrass sings publicly for the first time since a car crash three years earlier.
• 21:30 – Madonna (JFK) – The pop queen performs Into The Groove, Holiday, and Love Makes The World Go Round.
• 21:48 – Freddie Mercury & Brian May (Wembley) – Freddie and Brian return to the stage to sing Is This The World We Created?
• 21:51 – Paul McCartney (Wembley) – Macca gets a deafening cheer despite his microphone letting him down.
• 21:54 – Finale (Wembley) – All the big guns emerge as the Band Aid song brings the Wembley show to a rousing finish.
• 22:14 – Tom Petty (JFK) – . . . but there is still six hours to go for the Philadelphia crowd and viewers watching at home.
• 22:30 – Kenny Loggins (JFK) – Kenny gets Footloose on stage.
• 22:49 – The Cars (JFK) – They look like they got dressed in the dark, but Drive provides a poignant encore.
• 23:07 – Neil Young (JFK) – The legend manages to calm things down a little as the show enters the final phase.
• 23:43 – Power Station (JFK) – The least super supergroup ever, including two of Duran Duran‘s Taylors and Robert Palmer. Nuff said.
• 00:21 – Thompson Twins (JFK) – Madonna gives the Twins some much-needed support as a backing singer.
• 00:39 – Eric Clapton (JFK) – one of the line-up’s elder statesmen shows the youngsters how it should be done.
• 01:04 – Phil Collins (JFK) – He’s made it. The continent-hopper kicks off his second stint of the day after arriving in the US on Concorde.
• 01:13 – Led Zeppelin (JFK) – Collins stays on stage to help out rock legends Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones.
• 01:47 – Duran Duran (JFK) – Yes, these guys were once big in the USA. Le Bon could even get away with wearing a tennis headband.
• 02:15 – Patti LaBelle (JFK) – Hey sister, go sister! Patti opts for a low-key stage outfit and whips the crowd into a frenzy.
• 02:50 – Hall & Oates (JFK) – Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffin from The Temptations join the blue-eyed soulsters for their set.
• 03:15 – Mick Jagger & Tina Turner (JFK) – The big-lipped duo almost manage to swallow the poor audience.
• 03:39 – Bob Dylan (JFK) – Dylan delivers three of his classics with a little help from Ronnie Wood and Keith Richards.
• 03:55 – Finale (JFK) – Lionel Ritchie leads the We Are The World singalong – the last song of a very very long show.

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