Music event of the 80s: 40 years “Live Aid” – two concerts for the whole world

Anyone who saw “Live Aid” remembers today that they have spent a lot of time before television on a summer day. Perhaps also from having recorded the music with a cassette recorder. The two mega concerts, which took place in London and Philadelphia on July 13, 1985, wrote music history – and were groundbreaking for the global commitment of pop stars.

Nowadays, it is normal for musicians to work for non -profit projects and charm concerts are organized for charitable purposes. When the Irish musician Bob Geldof had the idea of organizing a huge concert 40 years ago to collect money for Africa, he first had to convince many skeptics.

It started with a Christmas carol

The foundation stone for “Live Aid” was laid one year in advance. A TV report on the famine in Ethiopia prompted Geldof to do so with ultravox frontman Midge Ure the charity single “Do they know it’s Christmas?” To write and let trendy pop stars sing under the name Band Aid for a good cause. The success of the Christmas single inspired the duo to expand its charity.

“This song is the red thread that runs through everything, but we didn’t understand that at the beginning,” said Geldof in the interview of the German Press Agency. The song had made awareness. “It was the scream that went around the world. Everyone saw it, all over the world. And everyone copied band AID. So I simply brought everything together and made it” live aid “.”

But it wasn’t that easy. Because the decision fell relatively spontaneously in April 1985 and wanted to use the moment in April 1985, the Irish and his team had just under twelve weeks to set up the gigantic event.

Just twelve weeks of preparation

To have a concert on two continents and – long before the Internet was – to broadcast on TV worldwide via satellite was a real challenge. There were various transmission formats. And the broadcaster such as BBC, MTV and ABC had to be convinced to provide several hours of their broadcast time free of charge.

In addition, Geldof had to persuade the biggest pop and rock stars to perform in the middle of the concert and festival summer without a fee. As far as possible, the musician surrounded the management and called many superstars personally to get them on board. He had good arguments not only with a view to the charitable purpose, but also in relation to publicity.

“Honestly,” said Queen drummer Roger Taylor in the BBC documentary “Against All Odds” from 2005, “everyone who performed there was aware that more than a billion people would watch.” Perhaps that is why Geldof managed to get the who’s who of the music scene together.

Two concerts of superlatives

On July 13, 1985, the two concerts of superlatives rose in London and Philadelphia. David Bowie, U2, Die Dire Straits, Status Quo, Paul McCartney, Sade and The Who performed in the Wembley Stadium. Elton John brought George Michael with him as a surprise guest, Bryan Ferry had pink floyd guitarist David Gilmour by his side. And Queen delighted the masses with a rousing appearance that is considered legendary today.

In the JFK Stadium there were such different artists as Bryan Adams, the Beach Boys, The Cars, Run-DMC. Madonna, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Santana, Joan Baez, The Simple Minds and Duran Duran on stage. With Mick Jagger, Tina Turner smashed a fiery duet for eternity. Black Sabbath reunited with Ozzy Osbourne for a day. Led Zeppelin also celebrated a short -term reunion – with Phil Collins on drums.

Collins had previously appeared in London – with a Sting and alone – and then flown directly to Philadelphia with a concorde. At that time, the overview aircraft only took three and a half hours for the trip over the Atlantic. “I was still in London this afternoon,” joked Collins when he entered the stage in Philadelphia. “It’s a crazy world, isn’t it?”

Two billion spectators and $ 127 million

70,000 people in Wembley, around 90,000 in the JFK Stadium and even two billion spectators on the television screens “live AID”. The concerts are said to have generated more than $ 127 million for the victims of famine in Africa.

According to Geldof, “Live Aid” was a turning point in several ways. “After all, we took on the global political and economic structures at the G8 summit in Great Britain,” he said in the dpa interview, “and we forced them to do what we had asked: to double the help for Africa and to delete the debt of the poorest countries.”

Bob Geldof not only received praise for his commitment. Among other things, critics repeatedly assumed a “White Saviour Complex” – that he staged himself as a “white savior”. Moneyof is very annoyed. “It wasn’t all about me,” he said the “Times” now. “People die there, damn it because they don’t have enough to eat, even though there is more than enough in the world. That’s what it’s about!”

An event for eternity

From a musical point of view, “Live Aid” was the most important and largest event since Woodstock 1969. Official recordings were only published for legal and licensing reasons years later – but never completely. Among other things, LED Zeppelin prevent your performance from publishing because you were not satisfied with your performance.

20 years after “Live Aid”, Geldof organized with U2 singer Bono “Live 8”, another charity event against worldwide poverty. He thought a third event of this kind was unlikely for a long time. In the dpa conversation in November 2024 it sounded different. “I’ll try to speak to Daniel EK,” he said, “to see if we can do something special with Spotify.”