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Looking Back
Live Aid ’85: the day music changed the world
With Just For One Day on its way to the West End, we look back at Live Aid and its enduring legacy
I was only four years old in the summer of 1985 when Live Aid, the ‘global jukebox’ benefits concert, was broadcast across the world. Some might say I was too young to remember it. But remember it I do. Why? Because it was the first time I’d ever seen my Dad cry.
It was the images of starving children in Ethiopia captured in a video and set to ‘Drive’ by the Cars (famously, David Bowie dropped a song in his Live Aid set in order to allow time for the short to be played) that became too much for my 6’2 gentle giant of a father, and he wept openly in front of me. At certain points throughout the concert, he would draw me in for a crushing, protective hug. Confused, upset (my father wasn’t an openly tactile man), I kept asking: ‘Daddy, why are you crying?’ He didn’t answer. It was as if all words had escaped him. For years afterwards, I couldn’t (arguably still can’t) listen to ‘Drive’ without welling up. I’d wager a lot of people feel the same. Such was the power of Live Aid.
The brainchild of musicians Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, Live Aid was an ambitious, multi-venue benefits concert created to raise funds for the relief of the 1983 – 1985 famine in Ethiopia. The movement had started six months before with the release of charity single ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ in December 1984, which along with becoming the fastest-selling single ever in Britain, raised an incredible £8 million for the cause. Off the back of that success and the huge public interest attached to the issues the single highlighted, Geldof started planning his next move.
Through a mixture of calling in favours and using clever tactics – Live Aid production manager Andrew Zweck famously said, “Bob (Geldof) had to play some tricks to get artists involved. He had to call Elton and say Queen are in and 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” – Geldof’s vision finally came to life on Saturday 13 July 1985. Split across two venues, London’s Wembley Stadium and the John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, Live Aid was one of the largest satellite link-ups and television broadcasts of all time with an estimated audience of 1.9 billion watching the live broadcast (nearly 40% of the world population).
To this day, the roll call of bands on the bill is like nothing the world has, or will ever see again in this lifetime. At the JFK stadium, acts included Madonna, Tom Petty, Bryan Adams, Duran Duran and Simple Minds. Bob Dylan played with Rolling Stones members Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, while Mick Jagger performed with Tina Turner. There were huge reunions aplenty, with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Black Sabbath (with Ozzy Osbourne), the Beach Boys (with Brian Wilson), and the surviving members of Led Zeppelin taking the stage (Phil Collins and former CHIC member Tony Thompson drummed in place of the late John Bonham).
Collins – who did two stints during the concert, flying from London to New York via Concorde then taking a helicopter to Philadelphia – went on to play the drums during Eric Clapton’s set, which included the iconic ‘Layla’ and ‘White Room’. Yes readers, and that was just the American leg.
But it is, of course, the Wembley performances that ring true for most Live Aid fans. Overseen by the Prince and Princess of Wales (Princess Diana looking especially radiant in a sky blue dress), legends Status Quo opened the show, followed by Boomtown Rats – during ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ Geldof famously pauses after the line “The lesson today is how to die”, raising his fist in the air to deafening applause – and Elvis Costello.
![Live Aid (Queen) Full Concert [1985, London, Wembley Stadium]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/PLIAp5nr0q0/0.jpg)
However, at 18:41 UK time, Queen took to the stage, and in just 21 minutes, history was made. Wearing tight jeans and a white vest, Freddy Mercury peacocks onto the stage and proceeds to hold the 70,000 strong audience in the palm of his hand. His command of the crowd during the acapella section of the set, the sustained ‘aaaaaaaaaaaaaay-o’ ringing out across Wembley as fans yell the notes back to him is absolutely captivating to watch. A frontman so full of confidence and a master of both voice and presence, Mercury becomes godlike, a deity in Adidas sneakers, immortalised forever in a set that takes less than half an hour to execute. Four decades on, the unification of band and crowd is still spine-tingling stuff – often duplicated, never replicated, simply because there will never be another Freddie Mercury. Many fans, critics and experts alike agree that Queen’s Live Aid set is the best performance ever in the history of live music, and this writer is likely to agree. The Queen performance is the one we immediately think of whenever anyone mentions Live Aid. Absolutely unforgettable.
Other performances of note from the UK bill were U2 – relatively unknown at that point in time, but we’d argue that their performance (and that tender moment when Bono pulls a teenage girl out of the crowd after he sees her getting crushed), is better than many of bigger bands on the bill – and of course, our starman, David Bowie, who’s rendition of ‘Heroes’ reduced everyone to tears on a global scale. There was also Elton John and George Michael’s version of ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me’, and sets from The Who, Dire Straits, Spandau Ballet, Bryan Ferry, Sade and Paul McCartney. It really is staggering to think that this was just one concert. The talent involved and the 16-hour stint the bands, crew and fans put in to see it over the line.
Of course, there were criticisms. In the aftermath of the concert, concerns were raised about how the funds raised were being used in Africa. Coincidently, while the line-up featured some of the most famous rock musicians in the world, there were no African artists on the bill, which led people to accuse Geldof of being blinkered and insensitive to the continent he was trying so hard to champion. Led Zeppelin were also hugely critical of their own performance, and have since blocked broadcasts of the performance and withheld permission for it to be included on any DVD releases. As with everything in history, parts of Live Aid and its inception are problematic. However, as a fan, I can admit that there are things that should have been done differently, but the performances (and the passion that drives them) still hold a special place in my heart.
Later, Live Aid almost became an unspoken bond between my father and I. He even sent a deluxe Live Aid anniversary boxed set on DVD to me for my birthday when I lived in Canada during the early 00s. Battered and scuffed, this four-disc set travelled with me everywhere for the next decade. It became signature AJ ‘afters’ material; mates crowded round a makeshift laptop-come-TV setup drinking warm cans, and rating the performances.
It was only when my father passed in 2018 that I realised that the boxed set had become lost somewhere along the way. Probably loaned to some mate at a party, or tossed in amongst the Lord Of The Rings extended editions that became null and void once streaming started to replace DVDs. It’s a shame, but these moments live on. The amount of times someone has punched ‘Queen Live Aid’ into YouTube only to relive the moment Freddie screams “aaaaaaaaaaaaay-o” into the heavens. Absolutely glorious. The memory of my father crying though, watching Live Aid in real time nearly four decades ago – I don’t need a deluxe boxed set to remember that.
Just For One Day: The Live Aid Musical opens next summer, with tickets on sale now here
Photo credit: Steve Rapport/Getty Images
