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On 13 July 1985, at noon in London and 7am in Philadelphia, Live Aid – one of the biggest music events of all time – kicked off, with television cameras broadcasting it around the world. Organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, the concerts aimed to raise further funds for the famine in Ethiopia after the success of the 1984 charity single Do They Know It’s Christmas?.
Concerts were held simultaneously at London’s Wembley Stadium and John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia featuring some of the biggest names in music, with the shows raising a staggering £40 million (over £100 million in today’s money) for famine relief on the day.
Here we take you back to that balmy summer’s day 40 years ago …
With concert tickets averaging over £100 these days – and that’s just for one artist – fans heading to the Wembley gig paid just £5, plus a £20 charity donation. Concert goers in Philadelphia paid $35 for their entry, with a small section of $50 seats available.
The demand was huge, and organisers could have sold out both stadiums over and over. In the end, 72,000 lucky people bagged a place at Wembley, with 90,000 enjoying the show in Philadelphia.
After the huge success of Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas?, which stayed at number one for five weeks and raised £8 million, Geldof and Ure wanted to do more. So when Boy George came up with the idea for a big concert, Geldof ran with it.
He soon had some of the biggest names signed up, with Live Aid production manager Andy Zweck revealing: “Bob had to play some tricks to get artists involved. He had to call Elton [John] and say Queen are in and [David] Bowie’s in, and of course they weren’t. Then he’d call Bowie and say Elton and Queen are in. It was a game of bluff.”
Thanks to modern technology and military satellites, Live Aid became one of the biggest events ever watched on TV, with an estimated 1.9 billion viewers tuning in across 150 countries. It was broadcast on the BBC in the UK and ABC in America.
Geldof always maintained he never wanted it to be shown again, promising artists it was a one-off event, but in 2005 a DVD was released to mark the 20th anniversary.
Anyone who was anyone was asked to play at Live Aid and while some 1980s superstars were missing due to prior commitments – Michael Jackson, Prince and Bruce Springsteen to name a few – it was arguably the biggest event the music world has ever seen. After the Coldstream Guards gave the Royal Salute, Status Quo opened the Wembley show with Rockin’ All Over the World.
They were followed by the likes of David Bowie, Sting, Paul Young and Elton John. In Philadelphia, Bernard Watson took to the stage first, with other performers including Billy Ocean, Madonna, Hall & Oates and Mick Jagger. Both shows ended with a group performance of a charity single: London had Do They Know It’s Christmas?; in America it was We are the World.
The only artist to perform at both shows was Phil Collins. He first sang in London around 3pm before boarding a helicopter out of Wembley to Heathrow Airport, from where he flew across the Atlantic on Concorde. After taking another helicopter from JFK airport in New York to the stadium in Philadelphia, he performed on stage in the US at 8pm.
He sang Against All Odds in both countries. Recalling his first performance, Collins later said: “ lt was so hot I made a terrible mistake on Against All Odds on the piano. I thought, ‘Oh God, what a good start for the day this is.’”
Undoubtedly the most memorable set of Live Aid came from Queen, who took to the stage at 7pm for what has been described as the greatest live gig of all time. With his trademark ‘ay-oh’ call and response, frontman Freddie Mercury had the audience eating out of his hands.
According to promoter Harvey Goldsmith, Geldof hadn’t wanted Queen to perform as “they’ve had their day”. However, Goldsmith managed to persuade him as he knew Freddie would be the perfect pick-me-up for the audience if they had started to lull after a long day.
He said: “Queen had rehearsed for a week and when they went on, Freddie smelt blood. He went for the throat and delivered like nobody else could deliver. And the rest of the band lifted themselves up too – and you lift yourself up even more when it’s your hometown.”
It’s no surprise that at the height of summer, the sun shone in America and concert goers had to endure temperatures of over 35C° with little shade. The warm weather is never guaranteed in London but there was not a cloud in the sky that day and at one point the crowd had to be hosed down to cool off.
Thankfully for a suited Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana, the royal box was in the shade.
About seven hours into the show, Geldof, disappointed with only raising about £1.2 million up to that point, rushed up to the BBC TV presentation box to beg viewers to donate. While it has now gone down in folklore that he shouted, “give us ya f*****g money”, he actually said: “Take the money out of your pocket. Don’t go to the pub tonight please, stay in and give us the money. There are people dying now so give me the money. And here’s the numbers.”
When the interviewer then mentioned the postal address for donations, Geldof replied: “F**k the address, let’s get the numbers.” All in all, the concerts raised £40 million, with the largest donation coming from Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, then the son of the ruler of Dubai, who donated £1 million in a phone conversation with Geldof.
The last solo performer at Wembley was Beatles legend Sir Paul McCartney who opened his set with Let It Be. However, when he began singing, nobody in the stadium could hear anything as his microphone wasn’t working. He continued singing for two minutes before it was fixed, by which time he had been then joined on stage by David Bowie, Bob Geldof, Alison Moyet and Pete Townshend.
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