On July 13th, 1985, a charity music event took place on two different continents that was the brainchild of Ireland’s Bob Geldof. On its 40th anniversary, John Scally goes behind the scenes of Live Aid.

 

It all started with an Irish man.

Live Aid was described as ‘The Day Rock and Roll Changed the World’. The date was 13th July, 1985. However, the story began almost a year earlier. One evening Bob Geldof was watching Michael Buerk’s news report in 1984 about the horrific famine in Africa. So moved was he by what he saw that he felt compelled to do something to stop the suffering. As lead singer with the Boomtown Rats he and Midge Ure of Ultravox got together and wrote the song Do They Know It’s Christmas to raise money for the crisis. They then roped in a host of other stars to record the song under the name of Band Aid. Released on 7th December, 1984, the record became the UK’s biggest selling single of the time and raised £8m.

In the aftermath of the spectacular success of Band Aid, Geldof visited Ethiopia to observe the distribution of aid and realised that if the Band Aid organisation owned its own fleet of trucks to transport vital supplies, they would be much better able to have a more direct impact on the famine. This caused him to come up with a plan for a concert.
Incredibly, in just ten weeks the project of Live Aid was assembled. What made the achievement all the more remarkable was that Geldof did all of this in the days before email and mobile phones.

It was billed as ‘The Global Jukebox’ and hosted jointly by Britain and the USA. Live Aid became the biggest live rock event ever, featuring an amazing line-up of rock stars. Spanning two continents, the concerts were broadcast direct from Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia. There were also contributions from countries including Japan, Australia, Holland, Yugoslavia, Russia and Germany. The whole event featured 16 hours of live music and was watched by over 1.5 billion people worldwide. The final total raised exceeded all hopes and amounted to over £110m.

The concert began at midday in London with a triumphant entrance by Prince Charles and Princess Diana. Then Status Quo took to the stage to launch proceedings with Rocking All Over The World. Each musical act was given seventeen minutes for their set and they performed for free.

The artists who performed at Wembley included the Style Council; Adam Ant; Ultravox; Spandau Ballet; Elvis Costello; Nik Kershaw; Sade; Bryan Ferry; Paul Young (also with Alison Moyet); Dire Straits (also with Sting) Queen; David Bowie; The Who; Elton John and Paul McCartney.

The artists who performed in Philadelphia included: REO Speedwagon; Crosby, Stills and Nash; Judas Priest; Bryan Adams; the Beach Boys; Mick Jagger (also with Tina Turner); Bob Dylan; Keith Richards and Ron Wood.

Phil Collins famously performed at both concerts. After playing Against All Odds and In The Air Tonight, plus a duet with Sting, at Wembley he flew across the Atlantic by Concorde to play the same songs in Philadelphia later the same day.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own