Live Aid
Live Aid was a monumental benefit concert held on July 13, 1985, aimed at raising funds for famine relief in Ethiopia. Inspired by the devastation depicted in a BBC report, musician Bob Geldof, along with Midge Ure, organized this unprecedented event after the success of the charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" by Band Aid. The concert featured simultaneous performances at Wembley Stadium in London and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, showcasing a remarkable lineup of over 70 artists, including legendary names like Queen, U2, and David Bowie. The event attracted an estimated 162,000 attendees and was broadcast to around 1.5 billion viewers across approximately 100 countries, making it one of the largest global broadcasts ever. Live Aid raised over $245 million through ticket sales and donations, significantly impacting the perception of charitable concerts. It not only spotlighted the ongoing crisis in Ethiopia but also propelled several artists to international stardom. This groundbreaking event set a precedent for future benefit concerts and continues to be a significant reference point in the history of humanitarian efforts through music.
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Live Aid
The Event Two synchronized benefit concerts
Date July 13, 1985
Places Wembley Stadium, London, England, and John F. Kennedy Stadium, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Live Aid was a fundraising event staged by many of the defining musical icons of the 1980’s. It raised hundreds of millions of dollars for Ethiopian famine relief, and it demonstrated the extent to which musical artists were willing to exercise their financial power for humanitarian causes.
On October 23, 1984, rock star Bob Geldof watched British Broadcasting Company (BBC) correspondent Michael Buerk’s special report about a famine gripping Ethiopia. Geldof was so saddened by the plight of these starving millions that he decided to do something about it. With his friend Midge Ure from the band Ultravox, he wrote “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and quickly assembled an ad hoc supergroup, Band Aid, to record the song and donate its proceeds to Ethiopian relief. Band Aid consisted of forty-four musicians, including Phil Collins, Bono, Sting, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Jody Watley, Boy George, and various members of Ultravox, Spandau Ballet, Kool and the Gang, Bananarama, Duran Duran, Status Quo, Big Country, and the Boomtown Rats. “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was released on December 3, 1984, and instantly hit number one on the British pop charts.
About the same time, inspired by Geldof, a similar project came to fruition in America. Harry Belafonte, Ken Kragen, Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, and Quincy Jones assembled USA for Africa to record Jackson and Richie’s “We Are the World.” Among the American supergroup’s forty-five musicians were Geldof, Stevie Wonder, Paul Simon, Kenny Rogers, Tina Turner, Billy Joel, Diana Ross, Dionne Warwick, Bruce Springsteen, Cyndi Lauper, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Bette Midler, Waylon Jennings, Smokey Robinson, and George Michael. Released on March 7, 1985, “We Are the World” was number one for four weeks in April and May.
Determined to push the fundraising as far as possible, Geldof, Ure, and Harvey Goldsmith conceived and organized Live Aid, an unprecedentedly huge, transatlantic, all-star musical collaboration. They booked Wembley Stadium in London and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia for overlapping and nearly simultaneous concerts. Each stadium erected giant video screens, so its fans could see all the acts in the other city as well as those in their own. Besides the live acts performing in the two major venues, the concerts included real-time video transmissions of live performances around the world. Among them were performances by INXS in Melbourne, Australia; B. B. King in The Hague, the Netherlands; Yu Rock Mission in Belgrade, Yugoslavia; Autograph in Moscow; Udo Lindenberg in Cologne, West Germany; and Cliff Richard at the BBC studio in London.
London
Prince Charles and Princess Diana introduced the Wembley portion of the concert at noon, Greenwich mean time (GMT). Various British deejays served as masters of ceremonies. Seventy-two thousand people attended. Status Quo opened, followed by Style Council, the Boomtown Rats (Geldof’s own band), Adam Ant, Ultravox, and Spandau Ballet. That much of the card took two hours, with some sets as short as four minutes. Thereafter, London and Philadelphia alternated, so fans experienced a continuous stream of music. Subsequent acts on the British stage included Elvis Costello, Nik Kershaw, Sade, Sting, Phil Collins, Howard Jones, Bryan Ferry, Paul Young, Alison Moyet, U2, Dire Straits, Queen, David Bowie, the Who, Elton John, Kiki Dee, George Michael, Andrew Ridgeley, and Paul McCartney. The London show ended at 10:00 p.m., GMT.
Philadelphia
Comedians Chevy Chase and Joe Piscopo, actorJack Nicholson, and impresario Bill Graham introduced the acts for ninety thousand fans in Philadelphia. The show began at 8:00 a.m., Eastern Daylight Time (EDT; 2:00 p.m. GMT), with Bernard Watson, Joan Baez, and the Hooters. Additional performers included the Four Tops, Billy Ocean, Black Sabbath, Run-D.M.C., Rick Springfield, REO Speedwagon, Judas Priest, Bryan Adams, the Beach Boys, George Thorogood and the Destroyers, Bo Diddley, Albert Collins, Simple Minds, the Pretenders, Santana, Pat Metheny, Ashford and Simpson, Teddy Pendergrass, Kool and the Gang, Madonna, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Kenny Loggins, the Cars, Power Station, Thompson Twins, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins (the only star to perform live in both stadiums), Duran Duran, Patti LaBelle, Hall and Oates, Eddie Kendricks, David Ruffin, Mick Jagger, Tina Turner, Bob Dylan, Ron Wood, and Keith Richards. Highlights included sets by Crosby, Stills, and Nash; Neil Young; and all four together. Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones reunited as Led Zeppelin, with Phil Collins and Tony Thompson substituting on drums for the late John Bonham. The Philadelphia show ended at 10:00 p.m., EDT. The combined length of both shows was sixteen hours.
Impact
Besides the 162,000 people who attended the live concerts, about 1.5 billion people in about one hundred countries either watched on television or heard on radio the live feeds from the BBC, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), MTV, or their affiliates. Through sales of tickets, albums, CDs, videos, DVDs, and promotional merchandise, as well as donations, Live Aid raised over $245 million. Musically, only Queen’s, U2’s, and a few other performances were outstanding. Live Aid provided the exposure that made superstars of U2 and its lead singer, Bono. Geldof and U2’s home country, Ireland, contributed the highest per capita rate of donations. Geldof continued organizing gigantic benefit concerts, although Live Aid remained the model and set the standard for all his subsequent efforts.
Bibliography
Blundy, David, and Paul Vallely. With Geldof in Africa: Confronting the Famine Crisis. London: Times Books, 1985. Minimally informative fundraising material by two London Times reporters.
D’Acierno, John David. “Saving Africa: Press Issues and Media Coverage of Live Aid, Band Aid, and USA for Africa from 1984-1986.” M.A. thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 1989. Looks at the charity concerts from a sociological perspective.
Geldof, Bob. www.bobgeldof.info/Charity/liveaid .html. The Live Aid organizer’s own Web site provides detailed and authoritative information, both directly and through proven links.
Geldof, Bob, with Paul Vallely. Is That It? New York: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986. Sensationalist autobiography of the then-thirty-five-year-old Geldof, telling how his self-destructive adolescent rebellion culminated in his spiritual rebirth as a man with a vision to help the world.
Hillmore, Peter. Live Aid: World Wide Concert Book. Parsippany, N.J.: Unicorn, 1985. Contains interviews with performers, an introduction by Geldof, and many illustrations.