live aid essay

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• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum - Library and Archives - Live Aid, 1985
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Live Aid , benefit concert held simultaneously at Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia on July 13, 1985. Organized by Boomtown Rats front man Bob Geldof and Ultravox vocalist Midge Ure, the event drew an estimated 1.5 billion television viewers and raised millions of dollars for famine relief in Ethiopia.

Years of drought , civil war , and failed attempts at government control of the grain market in the early 1980s led to a catastrophic famine that threatened hundreds of thousands of lives in Ethiopia. After seeing a television news report on the subject in 1984, Geldof wrote the lyrics for “ Do They Know It’s Christmas? ” Ure crafted the melody of the song, and Geldof recruited some of the biggest names in the British new wave scene to contribute vocals. The single, recorded in November 1984 and marketed under the name Band Aid , sold over three million copies and inspired similar all-star benefit projects. Most notable among these was Quincy Jones ’s USA for Africa, which hinged on the recording of “ We Are the World ” in January 1985. The success of Band Aid and USA for Africa inspired Geldof and Ure to stage a fund-raising event that was described as a “global jukebox,” collecting dozens of acts for a marathon 16-hour live music event.

Oz for Africa, a benefit held in Sydney , was to have been part of the Live Aid simulcast, but time zone differences proved impossible to reconcile . Footage from Oz for Africa, along with recorded performances from more than a half dozen cities around the world, was ultimately woven into the main satellite broadcast. This signal was carried by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) in the United Kingdom and the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) in the United States , with a separate feed for the American cable television channel MTV . To ensure continuity in the broadcast, artists were given no more than 20 minutes of stage time, and equipment needs were kept to an absolute minimum.

With less than a month of preparation time, Geldof secured the services of an impressive array of artists. Groups reuniting for the event included the Who , Black Sabbath , and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young . Moreover, the surviving members of Led Zeppelin reconvened in Philadelphia, supported by Phil Collins on drums . Collins, who had performed at Wembley earlier in the day, had crossed the Atlantic on the Concorde to become the only artist to appear on both Live Aid stages.

Perhaps the most noteworthy performances of the day belonged to a pair of arena rock giants— U2 and Queen —with each excelling in its respective idiom . U2 devoted 12 minutes of its allotted time to its anthem “Bad,” and lead singer Bono spent much of that time directly interacting with the Wembley crowd. An hour and a half later, lead singer Freddie Mercury powered through a condensed set of Queen’s greatest hits, displaying a combination of superb vocal range, multi-instrumental mastery, and remarkable stage presence. The concert closed with renditions of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” (in London) and “We Are the World” (in Philadelphia).

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Remembering Live Aid - The Day The Music Changed The World

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On this day in history on July 13, 1985, the Live Aid concert events were held in Philadelphia and London. Billed as the Global Jukebox, Live Aid served as an international fundraising platform designed to raise money and bring some relief to those suffering in Africa from the Ethiopian famine. The concerts took place simultaneously in London, England at Wembley Stadium and in Philadelphia at John F. Kennedy Stadium (now the site of the Wells Fargo Center ). Orchestrated by Boomtown Rats lead singer Bob Geldof, the legendary promoter Bill Graham, as well as Larry Magid and Allen Spivak of Electric Factory Concerts in Philadelphia, the Live Aid concerts were star studded affairs with some of the biggest musical acts in the world. It is estimated that the concerts were watched by almost 2 billion people worldwide in 110 countries, and raised approximately $127 million for famine relief.

Performers in Philadelphia for Live Aid included The Hooters, Black Sabbath, Run-D.M.C., Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Beach Boys, Madonna, Tom Petty, Neil Young, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Led Zeppelin, Patti LaBelle, Hall & Oates, Mick Jagger, Tina Turner, and Bob Dylan. Stars such as Jack Nicholson and Chevy Chase also helped to emcee the event. An incredible 100,000 people packed into Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium for Live Aid and 72,000 attended the Wembley concert. Tickets for this once in a lifetime event cost $35.00. 

Live Aid was conceived by Bob Geldof on May 1, 1985, and it was planned and executed in just 10 weeks. According to the Smithsonian Magazine , 

"The sister concerts were shown live in 110 countries to an estimated 2 billion viewers. Using 13 satellites and 22 transponders, it was the most ambitious international satellite television venture that had ever been attempted and it remains one of the largest television broadcasts of all time."

MTV's concert coverage broadcast kicked off just before 7AM ET in Philadelphia with VJ's Martha Quinn, Mark Goodman (formerly of WMMR-FM), Alan Hunter and Nina Blackwood.

Good Morning Children of the 80's - This is Your Woodstock

Joan Baez, the singer who is best known for her peace ballads of the 1960s, was the official opening act of Live Aid in Philadelphia, " Good morning, children of the 80's. This is your Woodstock, and it's long overdue! " Following that opening, Baez sang Amazing Grace.

And Live Aid Philadelphia was underway.

Live Aid was one of the biggest global television events of all time. An estimated 1.9 billion people across the world tuned in for the concert broadcast, and it was estimated that the TV telecast reached more than 500 million of the world's approximate 600 million TV sets, including in the Soviet Union (now Russia) and China (which was unprecedented at the time in the 1980s).

One of the quintessential chart topping rockers of the 1980s was Bryan Adams who played his "Summer of '69" anthem and even changed one of the final verses to the Summer of '85 in tribute to the Live Aid concert in 1985. 

Below you can see the landscape of the Philly stadium complex in 1985 including Veterans' Stadium, the former home of the Philadelphia Phillies and Philadelphia Eagles , as well as the Spectrum, the former home of the Philadelphia Flyers and Philadelphia 76ers . None of those stadiums still exist.

Live Aid's official opening act was a local favorite, The Hooters, who had just released their debut album on Columbia Records entitled Nervous Night. Even though the BBC TV announcer got the venue wrong and said that The Hooters were playing at Wembley, Joe Piscopo and Chevy Chase got it right when they introduced The Hooters on ABC TV. The Hooters were honored to have been the official opening act for Live Aid in Philly (see below for related story on Bernard Watson, aka David Weinstein, who preceded The Hooters at Live Aid). Along with The Hooters, Philly's own Patti LaBelle and Hall & Oates also played at Live Aid.

Although Crosby, Stills & Nash (CSN) came of age in the late 1960s and early 1970s, CSN rocked Philly with "Teach Your Children."

Meanwhile in at Wembley Stadium, Queen performed Bohemian Rhapsody at Live Aid in London.

One of the top female artists of the 1980s was Madonna and she wowed the crowd with "Holiday."

As day turned into evening in Philadelphia, Phil Collins took the stage at JFK Stadium to sing "In The Air Tonight." Phil Collins' presence in Philadelphia was really unique since just hours earlier in the day, Phil had performed at Live Aid at Wembley Stadium in London. Immediately after his London performance, Phil hopped aboard the British Airways' Concorde supersonic jet and flew from London to JFK Airport in New York, where he then took a helicopter to Philly. Phil Collins was the ultimate jet setter back in the go-go 80s.

Mick Jagger and Tina Turner paired up for an amazing performance of State of Shock.

Philadelphia's own Patti LaBelle brought the house down late at night with her rendition of John Lennon's timeless classic, Imagine.

Live Aid's Finale in Philadelphia was an amazing once in a lifetime collection of all of the musical artists who performed at JFK Stadium throughout the day singing "We Are World" in front of 100,000 people.

The Weather - Hazy, Hot & Humid

The National Weather Service had forecasted that it was going to be sunny, hot and humid with temperatures approaching 90 degrees in Philadelphia on July 13, 1985. The Philadelphia Fire Department had set up open air showers on the field, and also sprayed fire hoses into the crowd in an attempt to cool down the sweltering audience.

When looking at the videos of some of the performances, the field of JFK Stadium looked like a beach with many in shorts and bathing suits.

JFK Stadium Performances - Artists & Set Lists

• Bernard Watson (aka David Weinstein, see his fascinating story below): “All I Really Want to Do”, “Interview” (8:51AM);
• Joan Baez (introduced by Jack Nicholson): “Amazing Grace”/”We Are the World” (9:02AM);
• The Hooters:  “And We Danced”, “All You Zombies” (9:12AM);
• The Four Tops:  “Shake Me, Wake Me (When It’s Over)”, “Bernadette”, “It’s The Same Old Song”, “Reach Out I’ll Be There”, “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)” (9:33AM);
• Billy Ocean:  “Caribbean Queen”, “Loverboy” (9:45AM);
• Black Sabbath (introduced by Chevy Chase): “Children of the Grave”, “Iron Man”, “Paranoid” (JFK 9:52AM);
• Run-D.M.C. : “Jam Master Jay”, “King Of Rock” (10:12AM);
• Rick Springfield:  “Love Somebody”, “State of the Heart”, “Human Touch” (10:30AM);
• REO Speedwagon:  “Can’t Fight This Feeling”, “Roll With The Changes” (10:47AM);
• Crosby, Stills and Nash:  “Southern Cross”, “Teach Your Children”, “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” (11:15AM);
• Judas Priest:  “Living After Midnight”, “The Green Manalishi (With The Two-Pronged Crown)”, “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin'” (11:26);
• Bryan Adams (introduced by Jack Nicholson): “Kids Wanna Rock”, “Summer Of ’69”, “Tears Are Not Enough”, “Cuts Like a Knife” (12:02PM);
• The Beach Boys (introduced by Marilyn McCoo): “California Girls”, “Help Me, Rhonda”, “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”, “Good Vibrations”, “Surfin’ USA” (12:40PM);
• George Thorogood and the Destroyers : “Who Do You Love” (with Bo Diddley), “The Sky Is Crying”, “Madison Blues” (with Albert Collins) (1:26PM);
• Simple Minds:  “Ghost Dancing”, “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”, “Promised You A Miracle” (2:07PM);
• The Pretenders:  “Time The Avenger”, “Message Of Love”, “Stop Your Sobbing”, “Back On The Chain Gang”, “Middle of the Road” (2:41PM);
• Santana and Pat Metheny:  “Brotherhood”, “Primera Invasion”, “Open Invitation”, “By The Pool”/”Right Now” (3:21PM);
• Ashford & Simpson:  “Solid”, “Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)” (with Teddy Pendergrass) (3:57PM);
• Madonna (introduced by Bette Midler): “Holiday”, “Into The Groove”, “Love Makes The World Go Round” (4:27PM);
• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (introduced by Don Johnson): “American Girl”, “The Waiting”, “Rebels”, “Refugee” (5:14PM);
• Kenny Loggins:  “Footloose” (5:30PM);
• The Cars: “You Might Think”, “Drive”, “Just What I Needed”, “Heartbeat City” (5:49PM);
• Neil Young: “Sugar Mountain”, “The Needle and the Damage Done”, “Helpless”, “Nothing Is Perfect”, “Powderfinger” (6:07PM);
• The Power Station: “Murderess”, “Get It On” (6:43PM);
• The Thompson Twins: “Hold Me Now”, “Revolution” (with Madonna, Steve Stevens and Nile Rodgers) (7:21PM);
• Eric Clapton (with Phil Collins) : “White Room”, “She’s Waiting”, “Layla” (7:39PM);
• Phil Collins (after having flown the Concorde from the UK to USA) – “Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)”, “In The Air Tonight” (8:04PM);
• Led Zeppelin Reunion: (with Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, Tony Thompson, Paul Martinez, and Phil Collins) – “Rock and Roll”, “Whole Lotta Love”, “Stairway To Heaven” (8:13PM);
• Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young:  “Only Love Can Break Your Heart”, “Daylight Again”/”Find The Cost of Freedom” (8:40PM);
• Duran Duran:  “A View to a Kill”, “Union Of The Snake”, “Save A Prayer”, “The Reflex” (8:50PM);
• Patti LaBelle:  “New Attitude”, “Imagine”, “Forever Young”, “Stir It Up”, “Over The Rainbow”, “Why Can’t I Get It Over” (9:20PM);
• Hall & Oates:  “Out Of Touch”, “Maneater”, “Get Ready” (with Eddie Kendricks), “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg” (with David Ruffin), “The Way You Do The Things You Do”, “My Girl” (with Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffin) (9:50PM);
• Mick Jagger (with Hall & Oates / Eddie Kendricks / David Ruffin):  “Lonely At The Top”, “Just Another Night”, “Miss You”, “State Of Shock”/”It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll (But I Like It)” (with Tina Turner) (10:15PM);
• Bob Dylan, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood:  “Ballad of Hollis Brown”, “When the Ship Comes In”, Blowin’ In The Wind” (10:39PM),
• Finale: USA for Africa (led by Lionel Richie): “We Are the World” (10:55PM)

Insider Information

The four seasons hotel & the palace hotel - artists central.

There were so many chart-topping artists who came to Philadelphia at the same time that there were not enough Presidential Suites to satisfy the demand. The former Four Seasons (now The Logan Hotel ) and Palace Hotel (now the Embassy Suites ) on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway were the epicenter of pre-Live Aid festivities for the rock stars. The Four Seasons and the Palace were the two go to hotels for the artists. Hundreds of fans stood on the sidewalks around the hotels which were right across the street from each other on 18th Street, just to try to catch a glimpse of the arriving rock stars, including Mick Jagger and many others.

Live Aid's Rotating Stage: Maximizing the Music

Because there were so many artists, and each act was allocated only about 15-30 minutes on stage, time was of the essence, and the reason behind Live Aid's cool circular rotating stage. Even though the stage and scaffolding were enormous, artists performed on a rather small semi-circle portion of the stage. When one act finished its set, the stage would be manually rotated, and another band would be ready to begin jamming almost immediately on their semi-circle portion of the stage. That is why you will notice that there were these white room screen dividers right behind each artist who was performing which blocked the set-up of the next band to go on thereafter.

Keith Haring Artwork

Backstage at Live Aid, Keith Haring, the visual artist who had created artwork for Live Aid, drew original pieces of art for some of his famous and not so famous fans. These original Harings were drawn on paper and menus at the Hard Rock Cafe which was set-up in a tent backstage providing hospitality to the artists, their support staffs, and VIPs.

Hard Rock Cafe Live Aid - Love All, Serve All Backstage

Years before the Hard Rock Cafe in Philadelphia had opened at 12th & Market Streets, and when Hard Rock was a cool and experiential destination, the Hard Rock Cafe opened a special backstage restaurant at Live Aid, and it served many famous stars, guests and VIPs throughout the day long concert event.

The pop-up Hard Rock was also decorated with many Gold and Platinum albums as well as other music memorabilia, some from the artists performing at Live Aid, in order to give it an authentic Hard Rock flavor. 

A Chance of a Lifetime for Bernard Watson (aka David Weinstein) 

Most 18 year olds who graduated from high school in 1985 (like me) simply wanted to just go experience Live Aid in person. Bernard Watson from Miami wanted to play at Live Aid! So Watson drove to Philly, camped out in JFK Stadium's parking lot for 2 weeks, and relentlessly pursued Live Aid promoter, Bob Geldof, to play at Live Aid. He auditioned in the parking lot, and his persistence paid off when Geldof invited Watson to be the unofficial opening act of Live Aid in Philadelphia, even though Watson had never played for an audience larger than 800 people at his high school in Miami. This 1985 news story is fascinating, including how Watson broke a guitar string, dropped his guitar pick, and had his voice crack. But Watson was unfazed, humble and grateful... the show must go on and it did!

A Life Saving Kidney Transplant for Steve Fallon

Live Aid was all about humanitarian assistance on a global scale, but that took on new and personal meaning at Live Aid for concert-goer Steve Fallon. On the morning of the concert (in an era long before cell phones), Chevy Chase interrupted Live Aid and appealed to the 100,000 in attendance for Steve Fallon to make his way towards the balloon on the left side of the stage. As fate would have it, Steve's father had miraculously received a call from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston that they had obtained a kidney that matched Fallon's blood type. Time was of the essence to respond and for Fallon to be in Boston to receive the life saving transplant. So, Fallon's father frantically called the concert promoter, Electric Factory Concerts (on a landline), and alerted them of the situation. Fortunately Fallon heard this appeal from Chase, and he made his way to the balloon.  Fallon received a police escort to Philadelphia International Airport to make a 12:45PM flight, and after arriving in Boston at 2PM, he was whisked away to Mass General for his life saving kidney transplant that same day.

Broadcast Battles

On July 9, 1985, The Los Angeles Times published an article entitled " ABC-Westwood War: A Report from the Front ". Just days before the legendary Live Aid was set to take place, litigation was filed by Westwood One Radio Networks against ABC Radio in Los Angeles. ABC, including ABC Radio, had recently been acquired by Capital Cities Communications in March 1985, and ABC Radio held the exclusive U.S. radio rights to the Live Aid concerts in Philadelphia and London. However, Westwood One argued that it held the exclusive radio broadcast rights to nine artists appearing in Live Aid, and that ABC radio should be prohibited from broadcasting performances by those artists. The artists named by Westwood One were Tina Turner, Elton John, the Pretenders, REO Speedwagon, Rick Springfield, Bryan Adams, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the Hooters, and Hall & Oates. The L.A. Times also reported that on July 8, 1985, Norm Pattiz, President of Westwood One, speculated that matter would be settled out of court.

To that end, on July 14, 1985, in an article entitled " Radio Wars ", Mr. Pattiz reflected,

"What it was was a case where the producer sold a broadcast package that included broadcast rights owned by Westwood One. Our position from the beginning was to find a solution that allowed the artists to be broadcast for a worthwhile cause, without putting ourselves in the position of abrogating our rights and responsibilities to our affiliate stations, advertisers and shareholders."

Chevy Camaro IROC-Z28s Autographed Backstage by Live Aid Artists

At Live Aid in Philadelphia, General Motors and MTV teamed up to promote the 1985 Camaro IROC-Z28 as part of the famous Live Aid Concert, and in Philadelphia, there were two identical IROC-Zs displayed backstage for the artists to autograph.  Really!

About 100 artists and celebrities autographed the Camaros including Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Rick Springfield, Don Johnson, Patti LaBelle, Duran Duran, The Beach Boys, The Four Tops, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and a few appropriately (ironically) named artists, R.E.O. Speedwagon, two members of the Cars and Chevy Chase.

After Live Aid, Chevrolet had these unique cars clear coated so the signatures would be preserved. Then Chevrolet set up a "Drive-Aid Signature Car" tour including more concerts and the GM Auto Show circuit, and one went to the GM Heritage Collection Center.

One of the Camaros for the Cause was awarded through a sweepstakes that was held at the Drive Aid concert in 1986, which was a sister concert and part of the Live Aid effort. A-25-year old computer programmer from Connecticut won the sweepstakes drawing for the IROC Camaro signature car, but he sold it thereafter.

There was so many signatures...

“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make”

6ABC's Action News in Philadelphia (WPVI-TV) reported live JFK Stadium and with live aerial footage from Chopper 6 over JFK Stadium as Live Aid concluded, and the 100,000 fans were exiting the venue shortly after 11PM ET.

MTV's Mark Goodman officially ended MTV's 17+ hour Live Aid concert coverage broadcast with MTV VJs and crew from an empty JFK Stadium in Philadelphia after the 100,000 concertgoers had departed.

Bob Geldof's Tribute

"Please remember this day all of your lives. It's important. Remember the day you wanted to help. Remember the bands and crews who did it. The professionals who made it an extraordinary technological feat. Remember the dying who were allowed to live. Remember the day you die, there is someone alive in Africa 'cos one day you watched a pop concert. Remember your tears and your joy. Remember the love. Remember that on that day for once in our bloody lives WE WON. Remember the dying goes on and remember so that as time passes you can tell others 'it's possible I know.' What a day, what a lovely day!"

-- Bob Geldof, July 1985

Art Imitating Life and Life Imitating Art

Following the October 2018 theatrical release of the biographical motion picture about Queen and Freddie Mercury entitled “Bohemian Rhapsody”, The New York Times published an article " When Queen Took 'Bohemian Rhapsody' to Live Aid " and reflected -- "Queen's famous set at the behemoth charity concert Live Aid plays a central role in the Freddie Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody.” This can be seen in the trailer for “Bohemian Rhapsody”, and shows how Live Aid has continued to influence future generations given the popularity of that movie which gross about $904 Million in 2018 at the box office.

Sponsorships

Wide World Sports and Entertainment, along with Rockbill, sold various sponsorships for the Live Aid concert events. The main sponsors were Kodak, Chevy, American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) and Pepsi. According to The New York Times , sponsorships were sold for $750,000 each (cash and in-kind), and in addition to signage (6'x12') at the concerts, the sponsors also received 12, :30 commercials on MTV and 125 independent TV stations across the United States.

Coca-Cola purchased a separate sponsorship for $360,000 from ABC Radio Network for its 18 hours of live concert broadcast coverage from 6AM-12Midnight. However, Coca-Cola only aired 9 minutes of radio commercials throughout the entire day, even though they were entitled to receive many more commercials. Ironically, just days before Live Aid, The New York Times reported that "Coca-Cola, which was to have been the major advertiser on the ABC-TV Network's three hour prime-time [TV] coverage of the highly publicized Live Aid telethon of rock stars Saturday, withdrew its involvement yesterday [July 9, 1985]." The New York Times continued, "It is understood that the reason for Coke's withdrawal is the existence of signs for competitive products in the Wembley Stadium in London..." In 1985, event sponsorship was really coming of age and was not nearly as sophisticated as it is today, and to that end, this fascinating video featuring Bob Geldof discussed how he got Coke and Pepsi to co-sponsor different parts of Live Aid.

Looking Back

Christmas 2004 - 20 years after Band Aid, and the Live Aid 10-hour, 4-disc DVD boxed set was released. In the brochure was a poignant tribute,

"Technologically it is hard to now comprehend what a feat it was to broadcast the first absolutely live all day multi-artist concert to the whole world. In 1985 there were no mobile phones and barely any fax machines. The laboriously punched ticker tape of the telex was the standard form of written international communication. In many countries international phone calls still had to be booked, sometimes hours in advance through the operator. Computers were outside the experience of most ordinary people. The email was a future dream. Yet simultaneous concerts on two continents were coordinated. Global television schedules were cleared. Concorde was put on standby. Even the Space Shuttle astronauts were lined up to make a contribution. Twenty years on Live Aid remains unrivaled. Even now. And the new ways of thinking and behaving it pioneered -- in broadcasting, political lobbying and fundraising -- have become taken for granted as our norms. It was without understanding itself to be, the first inkling that we now live in a globalised world. Its lingua franca [common language] was pop music. And its distinctive message was the need for change. Music, culture and politics became one."

Promotional Announcements

In advance of the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia, John DeBella from WWMR's Morning Zoo recorded various TV ads on WTAF-TV 29 (today Fox 29).

Author's Note by Jon Bari, President of The Constitutional Walking Tour

When I was a senior in high school in Spring 1985, I started my internship at WMMR-FM in Philadelphia. I fell in love with radio, and it was an amazing journey in which I learned about the industry from the ground up: programming, music, promotion, research and sales. I was so fortunate to get that coveted internship at the Home of Rock and Roll, 93.3 W-M-M-R, PHI-LA-DEL-PHI-A! Little did I know it at the time, but I was in for a life changing experience. One of the many highlights that I had was the opportunity to not only attend Live Aid, but also be backstage at Live Aid - the day music changed the world. I wish that I would have saved my original Keith Haring sketch he had made for me and others that day. When I started my freshman year in college in September 1985 and I would tell people I was from Philadelphia, the first question that I was asked was whether I had attended Live Aid. In this article, I have tried to capture many of my fond memories of that once in a lifetime experience that took place in an era long before the Internet and everyone had mobile phones and social media. Looking back, Live Aid was surreal and transformative in so many respects. In addition to continuing to intern at WMMR while I was in college, I also worked as a College Representative for Capitol Records and EMI. After college, I worked in sales and promotions at other Philadelphia radio stations including Eagle 106 (WEGX-FM) and Q102 (WIOQ-FM), before going to business school and becoming part of the launch team for Comcast PC Connect/Comcast @Home, which today is better known as Xfinity Internet.

That day that rocked the world: the chaotic story of Status Quo's Live Aid

Live Aid in 1985 was perhaps the greatest rock festival of all, and Status Quo were there to open it

"It’s twelve o’clock in London; it’s seven o’clock in Philadelphia. This is Live Aid."

With this introduction by Richard Skinner still ringing in his ears, Tommy Vance made his own announcement: "And now, to start off sixteen hours of Live Aid, would you welcome, Status Quo!" 

There was only one song the Quo could start with: Rockin’ All Over The World . It epitomised what the event was all about. It epitomised what Quo were all about. Within seconds the crowd was clapping and singing along raucously. Quo rocked on with Caroline and Don’t Waste My Time before saluting the crowd and walking off, just over 12 minutes later. 

It was one of the shortest shows they’d ever played but it was probably the most significant. While Live Aid famously boosted the careers of several bands, most notably Queen and U2, it literally rescued Status Quo who scarcely existed as a group at that time. In fact, they had to be dragooned into playing the concert at all. 

They were also somewhat miffed when they were first asked to open the show. It smacked of being bottom of the bill until they realised that it wasn’t that kind of show at all. In the event, being the first band to appear at Live Aid provided a publicity boost for Quo that no media campaign, however well planned and executed, could possibly have achieved.

After a slow, almost disbelieving start, interest in Live Aid took off at the beginning of July 1985 as the big names began to commit to the event – gradually at first and then in a flood: Paul McCartney , David Bowie , Led Zeppelin , Bob Dylan , Madonna, Mick Jagger , Elton John . 

The BBC had announced that it would be screening the whole 10-hour show at Wembley and then crossing over to Philadelphia for another five hours – unprecedented coverage for a rock concert. All over Britain, millions of people organised their day around the telethon, cramming their Saturday chores into the morning and then settling down in front of the TV later on. 

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It was a hot, sunny July day and as noon approached a palpable sense of expectancy gripped everyone, like waiting for the kick-off at the cup final. And then suddenly it was up and rockin’. All over the world. In America, countless kids who wouldn’t normally have clambered from their pits before 11am at the earliest set their alarms for seven, six and even five o’clock in the morning (in California) and staggered blearily to the TV set to be greeted by Quo’s bonhomie boogie. 

A little early to be rockin’, maybe. But hey, rockin’ all over the world? I mean, these guys really are... It got better for Quo. Throughout the day the Live Aid concert was the main news item on just about every TV and radio station across the planet. And all of them mentioned four salient facts: Live Aid, Bob Geldof, Wembley Stadium and Status Quo. 

By the end of the day, Quo’s place in history was assured. Who was the opening act at Live Aid? It’s been a staple poser of pub quizzes ever since. Too bad then that Rick Parfitt and Francis Rossi can only remember this momentous show through a haze of alcohol and cocaine, a popular rock’n’roll cocktail for the band back in the 80s. 

“That whole period is a bit of a blur, frankly,” admitted Rossi. “I mean, I was pretty much out of it most of the time.”

In 1984, Quo had made their intentions clear with their ‘End Of The Road’ tour. After 20 years of touring they were removing themselves from the road to become just a recording band. Except that they weren’t even that. For a start, Alan Lancaster was now living in Australia. 

“There was a lot of conflict within the band, particularly between Francis and Alan,” Parfitt confessed nearly 20 years later. “Feelings were running very high. I was trying to sit on the fence and coax them along but it had got to the point where it stopped being fun and just became a job.” 

However, that hadn’t stopped Rick and Francis from partying on at every opportunity. And they were certainly in party-on mood for the recording of the Band Aid single, Do They Know It’s Christmas . 

“We got a call from our manager saying: ‘Do you want to do this thing?’” remembered Parfitt. “And we knew Bob [Geldof] so we turned up. And there were all these 80s bands there. It was all a bit peculiar. But there was so much coke around, it was outrageous.” 

“I’m not even sure I’d been to bed that night,” added Parfitt. “In those days it was still pretty rock’n’roll. You didn’t really pay too much attention to what you had to do the following day. If there were a few people around and the chance to get out of it, then you went for it!” 

Rick and Francis may have looked somewhat incongruous among the 80s superstar haircuts milling around, but their little corner of the corridor soon became a popular place to hang out and they were getting on famously with everybody... except for Boy George acolyte Marilyn. 

“Marilyn kept going in and out of the loo, but it was the girls’ loo,” Rossi chuckled. “And I got a bit fed up with it and said, ‘Look, why don’t you go into the men’s loo and sit down?’.” 

“I think he was a little confused,” added Parfitt. “Things got a little more confused later when a toilet door came off its hinges in unexplained circumstances.” Francis claimed amnesia at this point, while Rick had a vague memory of a boot being applied to a door but says he doesn’t know whose boot. It’s also unclear what part a roll of gaffer tape may have played in the incident. But when the repair bill showed up at Quo’s office later it was apparently paid without question. By the time it was their turn to put down their vocals on the single Rick had already peaked. 

“I blew it in a big way because I got completely shit-faced and ended up not being able to sing my part,” he admitted. “I tried, and under normal circumstances I would have been able to do it. But I was so out of my tree I couldn’t deal with it. So we kind of glossed over it and Francis sang his bit and then he sang my bit as well.” 

Nevertheless, Rick was still able to claim a prime position when it came to the team photo. 

“Rick was very good at that,” chuckled Rossi. “There was everybody jockeying for position in the photo and Rick elbowed himself in next to Sting.” 

Rick’s even had the triple platinum disc up in his hall to prove it. “I’m very proud of it,” he said, “although I’m not sure I deserve it!”

Spending a day partying with the stars for Band Aid was one thing, but when Geldof asked them to play the Live Aid concert a few months later they had serious doubts. 

“We told him, ‘We’re not really together as a band,’” Rossi recalled. “We said, ‘We’re under-rehearsed. We’re not going to be very good’. And Bob said, ‘It doesn’t matter a fuck what you sound like as long as you’re there’, which I thought was a bit too honest, but that’s Bob for you. He said that if he could get one or two of the older bands to commit then that would kick it all off. Because at that point he couldn’t get anyone to donate their services free of charge: Wembley, the police, British Telecom. 

"And I must admit my first thought was that this guy was trying to feather his own nest. Obviously I regret that now because it became clear very quickly that he really did believe in it and he went with it and made everyone else aware of it.” 

“Of course, nobody knew the impact it would have at the beginning,” Rossi continued, “but even then I was aware that most of big business just kept its head down and thought, ‘We’ll let these rock’n’roll dickheads do this and it will go away’. And it did. And that annoyed me. 

"I mean, there was this British Airways TV advertisement that they’d spent £2 million on, just to tell us they were the world’s favourite airline. And I was thinking, ‘Who gives a shit?’ How often do you book a flight and say, ‘I want to travel on this airline?’. They could have done themselves a lot more favours by giving that money to Live Aid. 

“And the oil companies, they could have donated their budget for that one day’s global advertising – all that stupid bollocks about how ‘our petrol makes your car go faster’ – and we could have raised twice as much. But they didn’t rise to it. And I find that a bit sad,” he concluded with a shrug.

Having agreed to appear, the Quo machine was cranked back into action. Alan Lancaster was contacted Down Under and he agreed to come over for the show. Meanwhile, other big names were now signing up as the event gathered momentum. Gradually a running order began to take shape. It was at that point that Rockin’ All Over The World started to manoeuvre Quo into pole position. 

“I remember a discussion at which they wanted us either at the beginning or at the end,” recalled Rossi. “There was also an idea that we might play Rockin’ All Over The World with Paul McCartney. But our manager was aware of all the jockeying for position that could go on with this kind of mass bill – other managers saying, ‘My artist is not going on before so and so’ and all that stuff.” 

What swung it was TV’s involvement. Once the BBC decided to televise Live Aid – and offer it to the rest of the world – the show took on another dimension. Mike Appleton, the producer of The Old Grey Whistle Test and the man in charge of organising the BBC’s coverage, had no doubts what he wanted to open up with. 

“I wanted to start the whole thing with Rockin’ All Over The World ,” he said. “With Status Quo as the opening act, it was the obvious song to start with. Not very subtle maybe, but it was exactly what the show was about. I think there was some resistance early on because I’m not sure that Quo wanted to go on first. And we were trying to pin down a running order. I think I was part of the forces of persuasion.” 

Not that the band needed much persuading once the nature of the show became clear. 

“I thought it was one of the best spots – to open the whole thing up,” said Parfitt. “It was something very special. Bob had already said that he wanted us at the beginning and we said, ‘Yeah, fine’. We didn’t want to be in the middle with McCartney and Queen because I think we would have been swallowed up.” 

As soon as that decision was settled, Quo started reaping the benefit. With large chunks of the bill still being finalised, the BBC was looking for songs and names to promote the event. Some idea of the speed with which the whole thing came together can be seen from the cover of that week’s Radio Times which called it ‘The Global Juke-Box’ because the title ‘Live Aid’ hadn’t been confirmed by the time the magazine went to press. So the news that the show now had an opening act and an opening song was manna from heaven for the publicity-hungry BBC.

As July 13 drew ever closer, Francis and Rick found themselves doing interviews with TV, radio and newspapers, taking some of the burden off Bob Geldof. There was also a perfunctory rehearsal and a sound check. 

“If we’d been fully aware of the significance of it I’d have made sure we did a proper rehearsal,” said Rossi. “But the feeling was, ‘We’re only going to be doing ten minutes so we can just knock that off’. And as far as I was concerned the band wasn’t going to be doing much any more, so who cares?” 

On Saturday morning, the band gathered at a pub in Battersea before being helicoptered to Wembley Stadium. Looking out of the window as they came in to land, “you could see the crowd and the stadium was already packed. They were ready and waiting to go,” recalled Rossi. 

“It was unbelievable,” added Parfitt. “We came towards the stadium at a couple of thousand feet, I guess, and then circled around. It was just fantastic to see all those people there.” 

Backstage a strict schedule had been devised, giving each act use of a dressing room for 20 minutes before and after their spot before they were gently herded back towards the Hard Rock Café where everyone was hanging out. “What was amazing was that everyone went along with it,” said Parfitt. “We all knew that there were a lot of big acts there and a lot of egos flying about – or there could have been! But everyone knuckled down and got into the spirit of it. There were no silly games going on about wanting bigger dressing rooms or complaining about the flowers or whatever. It was just, get changed, do your job and get off.” 

But even a hardened road act such as Quo realised that this was no ordinary gig as they made their way to the side of the stage a couple of minutes before noon. 

“The atmosphere in the stadium was quite different to anything I’d ever experienced before,” Parfitt remembered. “The sun was shining and you could not have wished for a more vibrant setting. I remember the Royal Guards or whoever on stage playing the national anthem. And then the announcement from Tommy Vance...”

“I will never forget the feeling as we walked out on to that stage – it was just magical,” he continued. “It was real hairs-standing-up-on-the-back-of-the-neck stuff. When you walk out and you’ve got 80,000-odd people stretching into the distance, and then you become aware of the hundreds of cameras in front of you, and you start to take it all in... it was just breathtaking.” 

“I think what was different about this audience,” Rossi said, “was that they weren’t just an audience that had come to see you. They felt they were a part of the whole event. Which they were. So there was this added euphoria in the place.” 

“And then you realise,” said Parfitt, reliving the moment, “after you’ve been on for about five minutes, ‘Hang on, the whole world is watching this, literally billions of people’. And I’ll tell you what, it pulls you up for a second and you try not to miss a beat. You try not to fuck up.” 

Watching Quo from the Royal Box was the man at the centre of it all, Bob Geldof, in the company of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. As he later recalled in his autobiography, Is That It? : “The noise of the crowd was incredible. As we came out it turned into a deafening roar. Half a dozen trumpeters and trombonists from a Guards regiment played a few bars of ‘God Save The Queen’, then Status Quo came out and went straight into Rockin’ All Over The World . It was a marvellous opening. 

“Quo were well into it when Charles turned round and shouted in my ear, ‘We’re having a party at the Palace next week. I don’t think it will be like this, unfortunately’. ‘Who is it?’ ‘Bach and Handel.’ By the second number he was tapping his brogues spasmodically. ‘I think I’ve seen these chaps before.’ ‘Yes, they’re Status Quo. They did a Prince’s Trust for you.’ ‘That’s right. Birmingham, wasn’t it?’ 

“‘Did you ever like pop music as a kid?’ I quizzed the boogieing Prince. ‘Well, I did actually. It’s strange, because when I was younger people say I had an almost natural sense of rhythm,’ he said, clapping his hands, hopelessly out of time. ‘I’m going to have to go now because we’re on next,’ I said. ‘Yes, we’ll have to go soon,’ said the Prince. ‘We’re having lunch with my mother.’” 

Almost before they’d got into their stride – Francis reckons they never did: “We were dreadful” – Quo were off and the Style Council were being hustled on to the other side of the stage. There was the obligatory instant post-match photo and interview that neither of them can remember, then it was back to the dressing room and swiftly out to the Hard Rock Café where they could relax while everybody else was still in various states of preparation.

I think you can guess what’s coming next. In fact the band are already ahead of you. The rest of the day is a blur, although for some reason David Bowie keeps cropping up in what fragments of memory survive. 

“Bob said, ‘OK, go off and do whatever you want, and be back here for the finale’,” recalled Parfitt. “So I jumped back on the helicopter – with David Bowie, funnily enough – and flew back to Battersea, which was near where I lived at the time. And my wife and I just disappeared into the local pub where it was all, ‘Hello, Parfitt. Just been watching you on the telly. What are you having?’. And we watched the show there and got completely shit-faced until it was time to go back.”

Francis decided to stay backstage at the stadium, but the result was the same. “It was the coke era back then. I don’t think anyone I knew wasn’t doing coke. And I was drinking as well. We were sitting on a table up at the back. And I remember everybody had these huge great mobiles at the time. And none of them worked. There was no reception. That was funny. 

“And I remember looking over at Elvis Costello . My son has always been a fan. But [Elvis] obviously hated me. I was going, ‘Hi’ and he was just blanking me. And I thought, ‘Well, fine’. We were very unfashionable. Always have been. 

“The other strange thing was that I’d seen David Bowie earlier in the day and I saw him again late in the evening when we were all discussing what to do for the finale. And he looked immaculate. So I said, ‘How do you do that?’, and he leaned over and said, very conspiratorially, ‘Ah, ha’. And I’ve never figured out quite what he meant by that. Everyone else had been sitting in the same clothes all day and looking the worse for drink. But he just looked so good. 

“Ever since then I’ve always been aware of how I look. David Bowie did that to me, the bastard! 

“Finally,” he added, “we were all gathered behind the stage, waiting to go on and I was sitting on this table with Steve Van Zandt and David Bowie. Suddenly the lights went out for some reason and this table collapsed. And we all had to scramble up and get out on stage for the finale. That’s all I remember.” 

By now, Rick was in an even worse state. “When I got back there I was totally gone. I had my missus with me as well and I said, ‘You’ve got to come on stage’, and she was saying, ‘No, no!’. I said, ‘Come on, nobody will mind’, so there we are, the pair of us over by Elton who’s tinkling the ivories, standing there with huge grins on our faces.” 

It took a day or so for the magnitude of the concert to sink in. It took a while longer for Francis and Rick to realise how invigorated they’d been by playing live again and decide to revive Quo as a proper band. It took a lot of hassles and a new line-up to put that into practice. But when they finally emerged, Quo found that Live Aid had transformed their reputation, and they were now able to bask in their status as the elder statesmen of rock. Household names, no less. 

“When I think back now to that first conversation with Geldof,” said Parfitt. “Us saying, ‘We can’t do it. We won’t be good enough’, and Bob saying ‘Just be there. Just do it’. If we’d said no we’d have looked back forever and thought, ‘My God, we should have done that’. I’m so pleased we mustered ourselves for that day. It was an honour." 

Hugh Fielder has been writing about music for 47 years. Actually 58 if you include the essay he wrote about the Rolling Stones in exchange for taking time off school to see them at the Ipswich Gaumont in 1964. He was news editor of Sounds magazine from 1975 to 1992 and editor of Tower Records Top magazine from 1992 to 2001. Since then he has been freelance. He has interviewed the great, the good and the not so good and written books about some of them. His favourite possession is a piece of columnar basalt he brought back from Iceland.

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Live Aid & The 20 Minutes That Changed The World

“I won’t be a rock star. I will be a legend”   – Freddie Mercury

Freddie Mercury broke down the barrier between the artist and the audience. Not just a singer or an artist, Freddie Mercury was a performer. He adored his audience as much as they idolised him. But, by 1985 Queen his band had become public enemy number one. Unlike what is documented in the Bohemian Rhapsody   movie, Queen had not broken up. The truth was, the band took the controversial move to play Sun City in South Africa in October 1984. At that time both the United Nations had asked for a boycott from the entertainment industry, and the British Musicians Union had banned any of it’s members from playing there. All this centred on the movement against apartheid, which was systemic in South Aftrica between the 1940’s until 1994. Queen’s decision to play the country at this time almost derailed their career. When the band eventually came off The Works 48-date-tour in May 1985, things were at a low, again unlike the movies representation, and they needed something to win back the public. 

As sources state, Mercury was already aware he was in the grips of a disease which would end his life a short six years later. Then again, the year after Queen would storm Wembley again, have a number one album in – A Kind Of Magic and reach the heights not seen since the seventies. On the 9th of August, 1986, Queen played their final concert at Knebworth, they had rebuilt what had lay in ruin.

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It was one of the most incredible concerts ever. These photos tell the story of the events, held in London and Philadelphia in 1985.

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Live Aid was one of the most incredible concerts ever, with some of the photos becoming iconic documents of the rock era. Held on July 13, 1985, the event took place in London at Wembley Stadium and Philadelphia at John F. Kennedy Stadium. The two concerts, organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, were held to raise awareness (and funds) to address a horrific famine in Ethiopia.

Following the two star-studded charity singles “ Do They Know It’s Christmas? ” and “ We Are the World ,” Live Aid had massive artists gracing the stage in both the UK and the US. It was Queen , however, that stole the show, with an indelible performance immortalized in the 2018 film Bohemian Rhapsody .

In these Live Aid photos, we present just a few of the highlights and behind-the-scenes shots from one of the biggest musical events of the 80s.

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The London concert kicked off the day’s festivities. The official count for attendees was 72,000.

Photo: FG/Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images

One of the more underrated aspects of the event was the logistics of getting more than 75 high-profile acts on stage (and off) in a timely manner. Early plans to attempt a live intercontinental duet between Mick Jagger and David Bowie were eventually scrapped.

Photo: Phil Dent/Redferns

Despite the logistical difficulties, star-studded collaborations happened at both concert sites. In London, the biggest planned moment was undoubtedly the appearance of Paul McCartney .

Photo: by Phil Dent/Redferns

But there was plenty more star power throughout the day…

George Michael and Elton John; Photo: FG/Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images

Sade; Photo: FG/Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images

And, of course, there was the iconic appearance by Queen , which has since gone down in history of one of the greatest rock live performances of all-time.

The US Concert

The concert in Philadelphia started a few hours after the London edition. In fact, the time difference allowed Phil Collins to unbelievably play in both cities on the same day. (He flew over the Atlantic in the Concorde to make it happen.) The below photos from the US Live Aid concert are just a few of the groups that played.

The Four Tops; Photo: Ebet Roberts/Redferns

Led Zeppelin; Photo: Ebet Roberts/Redferns

Madonna; Photo: Vinnie Zuffante/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

In the end, more than 89,000 fans attended the concert in the US, with millions more watching both events around the world on television.

Photo: Ebet Roberts/Redferns

Judith Peddle

July 16, 2022 at 1:37 pm

I remember staying up half the night and recording four hours on a beta tape. Then getting up in the early hours to change tapes. Amazing concert and such a great effort by all involved.

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The Legacy of Live Aid, 30 Years Later

The 1985 all-star benefit concert gave rise to the trend of high-profile, celebrity-endorsed charitable efforts, and changed the nature of fundraising in the process.

On July 13, 1985, Africa became a brand. The image of a starving Ethiopian girl named Birhan Woldu flickered across TV screens as Paul McCartney, David Bowie, and Madonna played beneath a “Feed the World” banner on stages in London and Philadelphia. Live Aid, as the event was known, was attended by almost 175,000 people at both venues, and raised an initial $80 million in aid for the victims of a horrific famine. But the 16-hour, transcontinental broadcast was more than just a benefit performance: It was a marketing exercise that distilled the African continent’s complex history into a logo seen by more than a billion television viewers—roughly one-fourth of the planet’s population at the time.

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If, on that day, Africa’s symbolism to the world became an empty silhouette welded to the neck of a guitar , then the continent also became a star. Never before had it featured so prominently in the worldwide media spotlight, nor had music fans been urged on such a massive scale to help others. The concert raised questions about the efficacy of celebrities advocating for foreign aid, but it also undoubtedly changed the nature of fundraising by introducing the factor of high visibility thanks to celebrity philanthropists. Today, 30 years later, as famous figures continue to wield influence on social media to promote charities, Live Aid’s legacy continues to be felt in fundraising efforts and movement-building around causes.

One of the major charity events to debut in the U.S. this year was Red Nose Day, a comedy telethon that benefits efforts to fight global poverty. In the lead-up to the inaugural airing of the TV special in May, Walgreens sold more than $7 million worth of recyclable noses alone. That’s a drop in the ocean, however, compared with the £1+ billion the tomato-shaped noses have brought in from British telethons over the past 30 years for the charity Comic Relief, which launched the same year as Live Aid. These red noses are a reminder of how ubiquitous the act of charitable giving to Africa has become since 1985: Currently, on the consumer ratings site Charity Navigator , nine of the “Top Ten Most Followed Charities” provide direct funding to programs on the African continent.

There would be no red noses without Live Aid, at least according to the filmmaker Richard Curtis ( Four Weddings and a Funeral , Love Actually ), who co-founded Comic Relief and Red Nose Day in the 1980s after being inspired by Live Aid’s organizer Bob Geldof. “I remember watching [the ensemble] Band Aid and Live Aid and feeling like I should be involved, then I ended up in Ethiopia for three weeks,” he says. “This was when the famine was still very bad, and I saw terrible things—really close up—which changed my life completely. It led to a lifelong commitment to end extreme poverty.”

The term “extreme poverty” didn’t exist before Live Aid; it was coined in 1995 when the UN defined it as a base measurement ( equivalent to an income of less than $1.25 per day ) used in the research that led to the creation of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 . The origins of the phrase are inextricable from the graphic pictures of Ethiopian famine victims shown on BBC television in the fall of 1984 . The images of starving children in one of the poorest places on earth moved Geldof (the lead singer of the Boomtown Rats) and Midge Ure (Ultravox) to write the charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” and assemble an all-star group to record it that November. After accompanying the first shipment of aid to Ethiopia funded by the sale of the song in the spring of 1985, Geldof returned home to London, determined to do more, which led to the birth of Live Aid.

A lot has changed in the last 30 years, and the results in Ethiopia are mixed: The concert’s poster child Woldu grew into a healthy adult but resents being used as a symbol of Western aid . Ethiopia has become one of the fastest-growing economies on the continent , although the country’s regime has been rightly criticized for government control of market sectors and human-rights violations. This month, on the anniversary of Live Aid, the UN is hosting a development conference in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa to discuss new global goals to be instituted this fall. The country’s situation has improved but more work lies ahead.

Aid is still a complicated topic, yet progress on the continent is real: The Brookings Institute reports that the share of Africans living in extreme poverty fell from 60 percent in 1996 to 47 percent in 2011 and is expected to fall to 24 percent by 2030. The credit for these achievements belongs to African countries themselves, but Live Aid’s acolytes—including actors, musicians, doctors, aid workers, faith-based grassroots organizations, and average citizens—have played a supporting role by lobbying governments to invest in programs that help fight the root causes of poverty and save lives from preventable diseases such as AIDS and malaria.

In the years following Live Aid, the Band Aid Trust (set up to handle donations from the sale of music and video/DVD licenses) continued to distribute funds to an array of charities working on the continent of Africa. Criticisms of Live Aid's money trail, including reports about funders suspected of using monies to purchase weapons in the 1980s, have made philanthropists, governments and charities who work in Africa acutely aware of the impact of corruption on the donation chain. Today, aid groups such as Oxfam have joined the International Aid Transparency Initiative , which helps organizations assess transparency and provide data resources to donors.

UNICEF and Amnesty International both held charity concerts in the 1970s (including George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh), but Live Aid was the first to harness the powers of mass media and peer-to-peer persuasion to bring the world together around a targeted cause. After the initial event, the concert’s impact spread via the “Six Degrees of Geldof”—a web of celebrities and influencers who evangelized about Africa within their networks, eventually getting the word to billionaire philanthropists and world leaders.

If Live Aid had never happened, would Richard Branson have swum with Desmond Tutu while discussing world peace? Would Ted Turner have funded mosquito net initiatives , or Bill and Melinda Gates committed their wealth to provide vaccinations and contraceptives , or Jimmy Carter spent his post-presidency trying to eradicate tropical diseases in countries like Nigeria ? Would George W. Bush have enacted PEPFAR (the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), a massive government initiative to fight AIDS/HIV around the world? Would David Cameron have devoted unprecedented amounts of money to the UK's foreign assistance budget ? It's also easy to question whether the African schools, water wells and AIDS-awareness campaigns of Oprah , Brad Pitt , Matt Damon , Will.i.am , Annie Lennox , and Alicia Keys would exist today if Live Aid hadn’t set the precedent for celebrity focus on the continent.

Rock stars influencing the policies of world leaders might not have been possible before Live Aid, but an interconnected world in which African countries experience major economic growth might have become a reality even without celebrity concerts. “We didn’t need Bono or Geldof to alleviate tragedies in Africa,” says William Easterly, a professor of economics at New York University. “Without the legacy of Live Aid, the West's view would be less condescending and more Africa-centric. As it is, our patronizing attitudes perpetuate the idea that we are the source of hope.”

If a song had the power to make 1980s music fans feel like they could help “feed the world,” it wasn’t because they perceived themselves as colonialists, but rather as activists, says Coldplay’s Chris Martin, who was 8 years old when Live Aid aired on the BBC in the summer of 1985. “I remember it,” Martin says. “It made my generation feel like caring for the world was part of the remit. Rock and roll doesn't have to be detached from society.” After Band Aid and Live Aid transformed the purchase of records and concert tickets into meaningful charitable contributions, music became the advocacy tool of choice. “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” inspired other records such as USA for Africa's "We Are the World” for famine relief; Steven Van Zandt’s “Sun City” in protest of South African apartheid; and a Dionne Warwick remake of the Burt Bacharach ballad, “That’s What Friends Are For” for AIDS research.

At Live Aid, regular songs became anthems as they assumed the gravitas of the day. Howard Jones’s “Hide and Seek;” U2’s 12-minute version of “Bad;” and the gospel overtones of Teddy Pendergrass singing, “Reach Out and Touch (Somebody’s Hand)” added to the show's groundswell. “It was like dropping a pebble in a pond, and the ripples were huge,” says the co-organizer, Ure. “The average guy on the street felt connected to making a difference. Live Aid wasn’t [the artists’ baby], it belonged to the fans. They created the momentum by putting their hands in their pockets, buying the record, and by being at the concerts."

Elizabeth McLaughlin was 23 when she attended the London show and stood within feet of the stage. She remembers the moment the sun fell below the rim of Wembley Stadium and the audience clapped in unison to Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga.” “People were crying a lot,” she says. “The combination of the images on the screens and the messages coming from the artists reminded us why we were there. We knew we had to do more.” McLaughlin credits Live Aid for influencing her to leave a career as stockbroker and later become a country director for CARE . “Whatever came out of Live Aid—millions of pounds and dollars, that’s great. But what really happened at the concert is that a new generation was born, a generation meant to be aware of what’s going on around us.”

Live 8, a Live Aid sequel, was staged in 2005 before the G8 summit and “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” has been re-recorded three times, including in 1989, 2004, and last year, when a version was made to benefit Ebola relief in West Africa. Thanks in part to young fans of the band One Direction, which participated in 2014’s “Band Aid 30” recording, the song went to number one on the U.K. charts, even if its message didn't fly with Millennials.

Ironically, Live Aid may have been to blame for the backlash: Today’s viral videos, online charity ads, and point-of-purchase donations are direct descendants of the marketing tactics used in the promotion of the original Band Aid record and the Live Aid concerts.  Since 1985, joining causes has become as important as donating to them, and Millennials like to do both. In a 2014 report by the Case Foundation , 87 percent of Millennials who participated in a charitable-giving and corporate-volunteering survey contributed to charity the previous year, but 97 percent responded that they prefer to use their individual skills to help a cause.

“Millennials want the work to get done, and they want a piece of the action,” says 29-year-old Luvuyo Mandela, a South African activist who is the great-grandson of Nelson Mandela. Mandela says he feels that young Africans are largely uninterested in who takes credit for progress in reducing poverty or eliminating AIDS, regardless of whether they believe Africa wants or needs unsolicited aid from other continents. Whereas the Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers took on Live Aid’s mantle of “saving the world” with their armchairs, pocketbooks and telethons, Mandela believes his generation wants to be “the entrepreneurs that make lasting change happen through actions in everyday life.” In the wake of Invisible Children’s quick-burn viral campaign calling for the capture of the Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, Millennials may be more skeptical about blindly joining new causes.

Hugh Evans, a 32-year-old Australian, said he believes that charity concerts are no longer staged for impoverished people they aim to help but “for the advocates who attend them.” The annual Global Citizen Festival he initiated four years ago brings 60,000 fans to New York’s Central Park every September to hear from performers like Stevie Wonder and Foo Fighters and leaders such as the World Bank president Jim Yong Kim and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. For these concertgoers, who earn their entrance into the event by signing online petitions or posting charity content on social media, music is the mouthpiece, but not the motivator.

The deliberate planning that went into this year’s festival shows how far things have come since 30 years ago. Unlike the chaotic Live Aid press conference held in June 1985 to announce a lineup of artists Bob Geldof had scribbled on a sheet of paper, Evans’s affair uses the latest technology. Curtis has developed a short animated film to screen, and no images of poor children are shown. Instead, Beyoncé, this year's festival headliner, makes a guest appearance via video. But the end goal—improving living conditions for people global scale—remains the same.

Evans is too young to know how it felt to watch 70 musical acts play Live Aid on a hot July Saturday three decades ago. Yet, perhaps because of that concert, he and other advocates like him grew up believing that every person, rock star or not, has the ability to affect change, however slowly. If future generations live in a world where there’s less need to remember why Live Aid was held on July 13, 1985, then the concert’s legacy will surely be complete.

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Live Aid 1985

A Landmark in British Heritage and Global Philanthropy.

Introduction

Contribution to british heritage, legacy of live aid, success and impact.

• Live Aid en.wikipedia.org

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Live Aid 1985: The Day the World Rocked

By Michael Goldberg

Michael Goldberg

I t was superstar heaven. Keith Richards was laughing and talking with Jimmy Page . A bodyguard handed Bob Dylan a beer. Across the room Jack Nicholson and Neil Young chatted. Andy Taylor, guitarist for Duran Duran and the Power Station, took a hit off a joint and screamed out, “Don,” then gave ‘Miami Vice’ star Don Johnson a hug. “We gonna get high!”

At one a.m. the party inside the second-floor suite of the the Palace Hotel in Philadelphia was still going strong. Live Aid — the concert that was being called the Eighties Woodstock — was now history. More than 1.5 billion people from all around the world had watched on television as over sixty pop stars performed on stages in London and Philadelphia. As much as $40 million had been raised for the starving people in drought-stricken Africa. Now it was time to cool out.

Yet the communal spirit that had been in evidence at Wembley Stadium, in London, and John F. Kennedy Stadium, in Philadelphia, was alive at this low-key party for the stars. There was a warm feeling of camaraderie as celebrities sat next to each other on a sofa, shared a chair, enjoyed a good laugh. The biggest names in rock — some known for their arrogance, others for their egotism — had at least for this day (and the following night and morning) cut the pretentiousness and one-upmanship.

Gathered together at one end of the room – drinking, chatting, carrying on – were Dylan, Richards, Page, Ron Wood, Stephen Stills and former Temptations Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffin. Dylan wore black leather pants and, over his bare chest, a black leather vest; an earring hung from his left ear, and a woman wearing a blond wig hung on to his right arm. “Fun? No, we couldn’t hear anything,” Dylan said of his performance with Wood and Richards. Still, it was easy to see that he was enjoying himself. “We had fun rehearsing.”

Duran Duran keyboardist Nick Rhodes and his wife, sheathed in black leather, surveyed the scene. Over by the bar someone said to Andy Taylor, “Andy, having a good time?”

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“He’s drunk,” said Taylor’s wife.

Keith Richards stepped out onto the patio, where he was asked what it was like playing with Dylan. “Well, it’s not the first time,” he said.

“It is the first time you’ve played together in public, though.”

“Yeah, first time before a paying audience. Course we didn’t get paid.” He laughed, then added, obviously joking, “Would have been better if we’d gotten paid.”

At 3:44 a.m., following dinner with Tina Turner and Chevy Chase in Tina’s suite, Mick Jagger came downstairs and made his entrance. Why did he choose to perform? “To raise a lot of money,” said Jagger. “That was the main thing — draw attention to the hunger in the world. Down the line, people can appreciate what can be done by an event of this magnitude. It was really a relatively nice, well-meaning event.” Then he walked, with jerky steps, across the patio, taking a seat next to Nick Rhodes. The old guard and the new, having some fun together.

100 Greatest Singers of All Time: Mick Jagger

Geldof’s Dream

N othing’s impossible.”

Those two words were all Bob Geldof — the leader of the Boomtown Rats and the man responsible for the all-star British benefit single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” — needed to hear. Harvey Goldsmith, the top promoter in England, was willing to help make his dream come true.

“Bob said this should be the definitive statement for the music business,” said the thirty-nine-year-old Goldsmith, recalling his March meeting with Geldof. “He said we ought to do a show in England and one in America as well. The idea was to do a worldwide television hookup and raise money with a telethon. We just talked about it, and he asked, ‘Is it possible?'” Goldsmith paused a moment, then added with British understatement, “And that’s when the nightmare started.”

Goldsmith quickly secured Wembley Stadium — a 72,000-capacity outdoor sports arena seven miles from the center of London — for July 13th, 1985. Meanwhile, Bill Graham , whom Geldof had enlisted as the American promoter, landed JFK Stadium in Philadelphia.

As it happened, the City of Brotherly Love was in need of a better image, after the bombing of the MOVE headquarters in West Philadelphia had left 11 people dead and 250 homeless. “We did have that unfortunate incident,” said Larry Magid, a Philadelphia-based promoter who, along with partner Allen Spivak, helped Graham over the next few weeks. “And if this can help ease things up, great.”

The Global Jukebox

M ichael C. Mitchell had a goal without precedent: a televised, intercontinental extravaganza, with a worldwide viewership of over 1.5 billion people — almost twice the audience of the 1984 Summer Olympics. And he had a deadline without precedent: in ten weeks he had to produce a broadcast that would normally take two years to organize.

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Mitchell, the head of Worldwide Sports and Entertainment, not only produced the U.S. Live Aid concert but also set up the international telethon, sold broadcast rights around the world and oversaw all finances. Like Goldsmith and Graham and most of the other top Live Aid personnel, Mitchell, 39, donated his services.

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Live Aid: The Complicated History of the World's Biggest Charity Concert

Pop music didn’t suddenly discover altruism in the 1980s. The idea of the star-studded charity concert dates at least as far back as 1971, which is when former Beatle George Harrison organized The Concert for Bangladesh, a benefit for refugees in the former East Pakistan. But do-gooder musicians took it to the next level in the '80s—the decade of “We Are the World,” Farm Aid, Band Aid , and of course, Live Aid.

Live Aid, which took place on July 13, 1985 for a global audience of 1.9 billion people, was a massive, bicontinental pop concert created to raise money for Ethiopian famine relief. It was the brainchild of Bob Geldof, leader of the Irish new wave band The Boomtown Rats. Geldof was spurred to philanthropic action after seeing a BBC report in October 1984 that featured footage of starving children. His first thought was to make a charity single.

Geldof enlisted his buddy Midge Ure, the frontman of the band Ultravox, to help him write and record “ Do They Know It’s Christmas ” just a few weeks later. The single, which was released on December 3, 1984, was credited to Band Aid—an amalgamation of the day’s biggest pop stars, including George Michael , Boy George, and Bono. It reached No. 1 on the UK charts and raised more than $28 million for the cause. But that wasn’t enough for Geldof. At least not if the Band Aid organization was going to buy a fleet of trucks to move food and supplies to Ethiopians in need, as Geldof hoped. So he took the next logical step and planned a concert.

Setting the Stage

Much has been said and written about Live Aid over the last 35 years. To some, it was a beautiful moment of idealism and compassion. Others question the motives and effectiveness of a bunch of wealthy celebrities—most of them white—trying to swoop in and save Africa.

To measure the success of Live Aid, one needs to consider three different things: numerical data, entertainment value, and overall impact. By the first of these metrics, sheer numbers, Live Aid was an overwhelming triumph. Geldof and company secured both Wembley Stadium in London and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia to host the concert on two continents. Using industry connections, persuasion, and a little bit of trickery, Geldof was able to book more than 50 of the music industry's biggest names, including Queen , David Bowie , Elton John , Paul McCartney , The Who, Bob Dylan , U2, and Madonna.

“He had to call Elton and say 'Queen are in and Bowie's in,' and of course they weren't,” production manager Andy Zweck told The Guardian of Geldof’s tactics. “Then he’d call Bowie and say 'Elton and Queen are in.' It was a game of bluff.”

With the help of producer Michael C. Mitchell , Live Aid sold broadcast rights to 150 countries, at least 22 of which aired telethons. Both MTV and ABC carried the feed in the United States, the latter in the form of a primetime special hosted by Dick Clark. All told, Live Aid raised approximately $140 million.

A Musical Twofer

Of course, Live Aid wasn’t just about fundraising. It also had to be a great show—or else why would people bother to watch it in the first place? As it happened, the day was filled with memorable performances on both sides of the Atlantic. The consensus pick for Live Aid MVP is Queen, whose 21-minute Wembley set included “ Bohemian Rhapsody ,” “We Will Rock You,” and “We are the Champions.” Mercury "strutted and preened, carrying his microphone on a metal pole that he treated as a vaudevillian’s cane, an air guitar, and, of course, a phallus," The New York Times wrote of Mercury's performance. "He was a rock star playing a rock star, leather-lunged and imperious but also grinning to let everyone share the joke ... For 21 minutes, Freddie Mercury undeniably made the world his stadium." In 2005, Queen’s Live Aid set was voted the greatest rock gig in history by a panel of music industry experts.

Less than two hours before Queen hit the stage, U2 wowed Wembley with a performance that cemented their status as future stadium kings. During their 11-minute rendition of “ Bad ,” Bono plucked a 15-year-old fan named Kal Khalique from the crowd and slow-danced with her as if no one else was watching. Of course, U2 knew everyone was watching, and while Khalique has claimed that Bono saved her from being crushed, the mulletted rocker may have engineered the moment for TV cameras. Either way, it worked.

Live Aid was also a big day for Run-DMC, and hip-hop in general. In 1985, pop radio stations were still reluctant to play this new form of music, and the Queens rappers undoubtedly raised some eyebrows as they took the stage in Philly with no band—just DJ Jam Master Jay behind two turntables. “We got a whole lot of rock groups backstage tonight, but D wants y’all to know one thing," Joseph “Run” Simmons told the crowd, just before launching into “ King of Rock .” Run-DMC later boasted about their Live Aid win on 1986’s “My Adidas,” rapping, “Stepped on stage, at Live Aid, all the people gave, and the poor got paid!”

One man who literally went the distance for the cause was Phil Collins. The Genesis frontman and chart-dominating solo artist performed with Sting at 3:15 p.m. in London, then jumped on the Concorde and flew to Philly to play his own set and serve as drummer for Eric Clapton and a reunited Led Zeppelin. Most people agree that the Zeppelin set was a total disaster—the band was under-rehearsed and out of tune. But decades later, Collins’s ocean-hopping stunt is what people remember. “I was in England this afternoon,” Collins told the Philly crowd. “Funny old world, innit?”

Other highlights included Madonna getting into the groove , Mick Jagger turning up the heat with Tina Turner, and Elton John and George Michael dueting on “ Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me .” Bob Dylan planted the seeds for another charity concert, Farm Aid, when he took a moment during his performance with Keith Richards and Ron Wood of The Rolling Stones to suggest that some of the money be used to help struggling American farmers.

The Diversity Divide

In all, the shows offered a good mix of Baby Boomer favorites (Dylan, Neil Young, Paul McCartney) and hip younger acts (Elvis Costello, The Style Council, Adam Ant, Thompson Twins). But Live Aid did have a diversity problem.

About a month before the show, legendary concert promoter Bill Graham said that “every major Black artist on the Billboard 200 chart and R&B chart” had been approached. Many artists, including Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, and Prince , had simply declined to perform. But others, including Dionne Warwick, said they’d never been invited. As the concert date grew closer, Live Aid organizers scrambled to add more Black artists, including The Four Tops, Tina Turner, and Patti LaBelle.

“After the concert, we were lambasted for not having enough Black artists on the bill. It became this anti-colonial diatribe, ‘You whites, telling us poor Black guys what to do,’” Midge Ure told the  Independent . “It was unfair but it happened.”

The lasting impact of Live Aid remains a far greater source of controversy. In 1986, SPIN ran a story titled “ Live Aid: The Terrible Truth ” which claimed that food and aid money were bolstering the government of dictator Lt. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam, the man most responsible for Ethiopia’s suffering. According to SPIN , Mengistu used food to lure people into camps that allowed his regime to forcefully relocate hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians. Mengistu reportedly also used Western aid to purchase arms from the Soviets to use in his fight against rebels.

In a 2005 piece for The Guardian , David Rieff paraphrased Ethiopia expert Alex de Waal and wrote that Live Aid cut the famine death toll by “between a quarter and a half.” “The problem is that it may have contributed to as many deaths,” Rieff added.

Geldof has always defended Live Aid’s use of funds. “I said as early as January 1985, I will shake hands with the devil on my left and on my right to get to the people we are meant to help,” he said in response to the SPIN exposé. Geldof later said that Live Aid was “almost perfect in what it achieved.” He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1986 in recognition of his work in helping Africa's starving population.

The Live Aid Legacy

One thing Live Aid definitely did was put Ethiopia on Americans' and Europeans' radars. It also created a new template for high-profile musical benefits. Farm Aid launched in 1985; three years later, in 1988, Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Peter Gabriel, and others crossed the globe as part of the Human Rights Now! tour on behalf of Amnesty International. There was The Concert for New York City after 9/11 and The SARS Benefit Concert in 2003. In 2005, Geldof revisited the Live Aid model with Live 8 , a series of concerts aimed at convincing the G8 leaders to forgive debt for African nations and enact fairer trade laws.

In 2007, Al Gore helped to organize Live Earth, which was essentially Live Aid for climate change . Geldof was critical of the event, which he said lacked “a final goal.” “I would only organize this if I could go on stage and announce concrete environmental measures from the American presidential candidates, Congress, or major corporations,” Geldof said.

Geldof made headlines again in March 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic , when he helped pop singer Rita Ora design an emblem to promote the WHO and UN’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund. In an interview with the Toronto Sun , Geldof gave Ora most of the credit for the logo. The man who mobilized the world for a single cause 35 years earlier also seemed less convinced that human beings—musicians or otherwise—were any match for humanity itself.

“The Achilles heel of humanity is its hubris,” Geldof said. “We think that we can dominate everything but nature just comes along and wipes us out.

“What’s positive is that people understand how fragile we are and they also understand the bravery of all the people who are working to help ... But that will fade over a very short period when we go back to the same old, same old. It’s simply a function of globalization and that’s not going anywhere.”

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The legacy of Live Aid: The day rock and roll changed the world

On this day, 30 years ago, Prince Charles and Princess Diana kicked off Live Aid , the worldwide rock concert organized by Irish rocker Bob Geldof to raise money for African famine relief. Taking in place in both London and Philadelphia, the record-breaking charity event was televised in 110 countries, 40 of which held a telethon during the broadcast.

Prompted to action by his travel to Ethopia, Geldof first organized Band Aid – a charity super group comprised of the UK’s top artists – to record “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”, a chart-topping single that raised $10 million in donations.

A US ensemble followed suit soon after with the smash hit “We Are the World” featuring Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder and Lionel Ritchie.  The American single raised $44 million for famine relief.  Buoyed by the success of the record sales, Geldof proposed the idea of the global concert Live Aid to raise both awareness and funds.

The legacy of Live Aid is astounding.  Organized in just 10 weeks and featuring 75 musical acts, the 16-hour super concert raised over $127 million. Moreover,  the publicity it generated encouraged Western nations to make available enough surplus grain to end the 1985 famine in Ethiopia and Sudan.  Over 1.5 billion people tuned in to watch the concert in an era before the internet, email or Twitter.

But this musical marathon wasn’t just important for the year 1985. It led to many more charity concerts, and more importantly, inspired the next generation of political activists, including ONE co-founder Bono, who also founded  DATA ,  EDUN , and  Product Red .

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When Queen Took ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ to Live Aid

Freddie Mercury’s set in July 1985 is often called one of the greatest live performances of all time. What made those 21 minutes so memorable?

Credit... Peter Still/Redferns, via Getty Images

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Queen’s famous set at the behemoth charity concert Live Aid plays a central role in the Freddie Mercury biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody.” What made it so memorable on July 13, 1985, and does it still hold up? Here’s a breakdown of the music, the moves and that subversive studded armband.

How did Queen end up at Live Aid?

Bob Geldof had to convince Freddie Mercury to join the star-studded Live Aid lineup. “Fred, why wouldn’t you do it?,” he reportedly said. “The entire stage was built for you, practically. Darling, the world.”

Live Aid, which took place simultaneously at Wembley Stadium in London and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia on July 13, 1985, was the most ambitious rock concert of its era. Geldof, the rocker behind Band Aid and the hit 1984 charity single “ Do They Know It’s Christmas? ,” wanted to raise more money for famine relief in Ethiopia. The result was a 16-hour concert featuring more than 50 sets from the biggest pop and rock acts of the era, including Madonna, David Bowie and U2.

Geldof approached Mercury through Spike Edney, a former member of Geldof’s own band, the Boomtown Rats, who had recently joined Queen to play keyboards during the group’s live shows. Queen was noncommittal, but not because, as the movie “ Bohemian Rhapsody ” suggests, they had split from Mercury for several years. The group was exhausted after a spring 1985 tour of New Zealand, Australia and Japan. And Mercury had recently cast doubt on the band’s future by releasing a solo album, “Mr. Bad Guy,” to a lukewarm reception.

Once Queen was convinced of the show's epic scale, they agreed not to close the concert, but to play at 6:41 p.m. And they took the show more seriously than many of their peers, rehearsing for three solid days.

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Queen performs at Live Aid in London in 1985. (Neal Preston)

33 years later, Queen’s Live Aid performance is still pure magic

By Holly Thomas

It’s been more than 33 years since Queen, spearheaded by their electric front man Freddie Mercury, charged onto the stage of the 1985 Live Aid concert and performed the set often lauded as the greatest live gig of all time.

The release of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” the Queen biopic starring Rami Malek as Mercury, has provoked a swell of nostalgia and emotion around that moment in musical history. In the spirit of the unabashedly uncool band itself, I’d like to add my voice to the chorus.

Queen frontman Freddie Mercury performs at the Live Aid show. (Neil Leifer/Sports Illustrated/Getty Images)

First, a confession: I wasn’t even alive when Queen played Live Aid. I was born three years later in 1988, three years before Mercury died of bronchial pneumonia resulting from AIDS.

My first proper introduction came when I was about seven, when someone had left the TV on at home. There was a documentary about Queen, whose thumping, chanty music I had recently identified as “more entertaining than the Beatles” on car journeys. I sat down. By the time the program reached the Live Aid concert, I was hooked. By the end of that segment I was in love with Mercury, and when half an hour later I learned that he was dead, I was heartbroken.

Fans cheer during Queen’s performance. The charity event was raising money for Ethiopia, which was in the midst of famine. (Norbert Foersterling/DPA/ZUMA Press)

Confronted with everything in such quick succession, the tragedy and speed of his death a few years later seemed only to amplify the potency of Mercury’s most glorious performance. It felt as though having been allotted his finite portion of life, he had spent it in lavish, outrageous bursts, sharing delightedly with that crowd on July 13, 1985.

Since then, I have watched the set many times, its exuberance and energy undiminished over the 23 years since that first viewing. This is a far from exhaustive account of why, for me, it remains magical.

Mercury performs at Live Aid with Queen’s lead guitarist, Brian May. (Popperfoto/Getty Images)

Queen didn’t open or close the Live Aid show. They performed just before 7pm, uncharacteristically in daylight, bookended by gigantic acts like U2, Elton John and David Bowie.

Past their peak and reeling from the catastrophe of a misadvised run of shows in apartheid South Africa the previous year, Queen was not expected to shine. Mercury, in particular, had been the focus of disparaging coverage and rumors in the press, where speculation over his sexuality had arguably choked the band’s attempts to break into the American market.

Mercury was in peak form at the show. (Georges De Keerle/Getty Images)

May plays for the crowd at Wembley Stadium. (Tony Mottram/UPPA/ZUMA Wire)

Amid an atmosphere charged with pessimism, Mercury danced out on stage and welcomed the crowd like his dearest friend. By the time he sat down at the piano and hit the first few notes of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” he was the absolute master of the stadium.

Over the next 21 minutes, his audience, and the 1.9 billion people watching on TV around the world, fell in love with him. His humor, his hyper-masculine yet fantastically camp energy and that phenomenal four octave voice were irresistible.

During the Live Aid show, Queen played many of its greatest hits. (LFI/Avalon/ZUMA Press)

Mercury was a brilliant sight. He had stripped his look to the bare essentials — white tight jeans, trademark moustache, a white tank top showing off his chest and arms, a studded band hugging his right bicep. The whole group, absent their flamboyant 1970s costumes and set paraphernalia, proved they didn’t need them. There was no distraction from the performance.

Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon, his fellow bandmates, executed their role — that of Mercury’s foil — magnanimously. As a modest May mused years later: “The rest of us played okay, but Freddie was out there and took it to another level.”

Mercury is seen backstage at the Live Aid concert. On the left is his boyfriend, Jim Hutton. (Dave Hogan/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Mercury was indeed a born ringmaster. There was no alienating affectation, no wallowing in sentiment. Where other bands might have been complacent, Queen swept through a distilled serving of their greatest and most bombastic hits to date, well-rehearsed over several days beforehand, with a swagger that never milked anything at the expense of the audience.

The only pause came at the end of “Radio Ga Ga,” which Mercury performed at the edge of the stage, pumping his sawn-off mic at the crowd. For just over 30 seconds, he led them in a vocal improvisation, which was later christened “the note heard around the world.” He carried the audience, his winks and nods making the triumph a shared one, blown kisses and thrusting hips an assurance that he was as turned on by everyone as everyone was by him.

Mercury, at center in the red shirt, is joined by George Michael, Bono, Paul McCartney and others during the Live Aid show at Wembley Stadium. (Georges De Keerle/Getty Images)

Queen consciously wrote their songs as vehicles for theatrics, and that day, it set them apart. They closed their set with “We Are The Champions,” an anthem built to amplify with the size of its audience. Mercury, having flown across the stage for the entire show, returned to the piano for the start of the song, echoing the set’s opening, but then came back to the crowd for the climax. He took nothing for granted, his remarkable vocals flawless till the end, even as he basked in his indisputable victory at the edge of the stage.

The brilliance of that set didn’t only reverberate around the world that summer. It has rippled through every viewing thereafter. For a man whose death is so focal in the history of HIV/AIDS, Mercury remains undefined by it. He greeted the world on his own terms and did whatever he loved, as and when he chose to. His spectacular performance at Live Aid, which not only resurrected Queen, but established them as one of the most successful acts of all time, is just one part of his generous legacy. It deserves to be enjoyed for many years yet.

Holly Thomas is a British writer and editor based in London. She tweets at @HolstaT. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. View more opinion articles on CNN.

Photo editors: Brett Roegiers and William Lanzoni

Live Aid the musical: what really happens when celebrities get behind humanitarian causes

Reader in Journalism, City, University of London

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Just For One Day , the Old Vic’s new musical about Live Aid , recreates the story behind the history-making concert in a spectacle full of iconic 1980s rock anthems.

The script may feel a bit clunky, but as it’s performed in front of enthusiastic audiences largely made up of people old enough to remember that warm July day in 1985, this is unlikely to be a sticking point.

Rocks star Bob Geldof and the sometimes forgotten Midge Ure gathered together the biggest music acts of the time and persuaded them to play for free in concurrent concerts, one at London’s Wembley arena and one at the JFK stadium in Philadelphia. The idea was to raise money to help feed millions of starving people in northern Ethiopia which was being ravaged by drought and famine.

Those acts included David Bowie, Madonna, Bob Dylan, Queen, The Pretenders, Sade, U2, Diana Ross, Paul McCartney, Elton John and The Who, to name just a few. As the concerts beamed out to 150 countries around the globe, the money poured in, eventually raising US$140m (£114m).

Rather like Live Aid itself, the reviews for Just For One Day have been decidedly mixed. While the Telegraph enthused that “even the most hardened cynic will admire this rip-roaring retread”, and the Daily Express saw it as a “celebration and reminder of what human beings can achieve”, a rather withering Guardian review concludes it “piles homily on cliché in a production in thrall to white saviour stereotypes”. City AM goes one step further by slamming the production as “shockingly tone-deaf”.

But the fact remains that Live Aid was a global media spectacle . The event followed the success of Geldof’s Band Aid December 1984 single, Do They Know It’s Christmas?, recorded by a collective of largely British musical stars to raise money for Ethiopia.

It showed charities just how much celebrity involvement could raise the profile of particular disasters and causes – and it showed celebrities how charity work could boost their own profiles. What many in the third sector have ruminated over ever since are the benefits and problems this kind of celebrity association brings with it.

In the immediate aftermath of Live Aid, Geldof was lauded by left-wing thinkers such as Martin Jacques and Stuart Hall, who regarded it as a serious blow to what they saw as the prevailing Thatcherite ideology of selfishness.

But this was disputed, particularly by economics academic Robert Allen, who said that what Live Aid and its successors had created was in fact “ the first truly effective version of Consumer Aid ” – creating a product tailored to a specific consumer.

For those caught up in crises which capture a rock star’s attention, the effect can be astonishing. As the humanitarian Jan Egeland summed up not long after the 2004 tsunami, disaster victims can find themselves “in a kind of humanitarian sweepstake in which … every night 99% of them lose, and 1% win”.

Double-edged sword of celebrity activism

But what are the drawbacks of media coverage? In Just For One Day there are several scenes where tabloid hacks push Geldof to go to Ethiopia, or be pictured with a starving child.

This is the kind of imagery that critics of celebrity activism such as Tanja Mueller point out is “instrumental in establishing a … culture of humanitarianism in which moral responsibility towards impoverished parts of an imagined Africa is based on pity rather than the demand for justice”.

And while the present-day Gen Z character of Jemma in the musical describes Live Aid as “old white guys taking a day off from snorting cocaine to help Africa”, this criticism isn’t new.

In 1986, the anarchist punk band Chumbawumba released an album satirising rock stars’ charitable involvement called Pictures of Starving Children Sell Records . After 2005’s Live 8 concerts , an HMV music chart revealed that some of the bands taking part experienced a 1300% boost in album sales .

Yet scholars such as Andrew F. Cooper have been more positive about the idea of the celebrity activist, seeing them as bringing their chosen causes into a broader public domain and having access to key circles of power – what he calls the “Bono-isation” of diplomacy . Jubilee 2000, Live 8 and Live Earth all focused more on political change than fundraising.

But does using celebrities really help charities day to day? A survey of 2000 people found that while 95% of people could recognise five or more charities, two thirds could not name a single celebrity attached to them.

So why do charities, politicians and celebrities continue to work together? Perhaps because politicians like being around celebrities, and believe that they express populist sentiment. After all, the most constant double act in Just For One Day is not Geldof and any of the pop stars or even aid workers in Ethiopia, but Margaret Thatcher, with whom he shares several duets.

Changing the ‘pity’ approach

Things have changed since Live Aid albeit slowly. After criticisms around Comic Relief and the idea of “poverty tourism” that fed into notions of the “white saviour”, the BBC pledged to change the way it does celebrity appeals.

Many charities work hard with their celebrity advocates to ensure they know what they are talking about, unlike past cringeworthy efforts notably skewered in the Guardian’s Secret Diary of an Aid Worker .

And so where does this leave the Old Vic’s new musical? Well, if you’re someone who was at Live Aid or remembers watching it, it will undoubtedly conjure up all those feelings of excitement and being part of something bigger than yourself – the idea that we could be heroes.

If you’re part of the aid sector, the sense of ambivalence will probably remain: was it all just for one day?

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Live aid revisited: Long-term impacts of the 1984 Ethiopian famine on children

• Journal of the European Economic Association 12(4)

• University of Oxford

• Lancaster University

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