Feed the World

It was July 13, 1985. A multi-venue benefit concert was held. Live Aid - the global jukebox. The event was organized by Bob Geldof (lead singer of The Boomtown Rats) and Midge Ure (lead singer of Ultravox). It was meant to raise funds for relief of the mid-1980s famine in Ethiopia. The movement originally started with the release of the charity single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in December of 1984. Live aid was held simultaneously at Wembley Stadium in London and at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia.

The 16-hour “super-concert” was globally linked by satellite to more than a billion viewers in 110 nations. The event raised more than $125 million in famine relief for Africa. This of course wasn’t the very first benefit concert - In 1971, former Beatle George Harrison organized The Concert for Bangladesh, but this was bigger.

Much has been said and written over the years about Live Aid - some love it as an amazing moment of music meeting compassion while some saw it as a bunch of rich, mostly-white celebrities swooping in to save Africa. You could also get into all the issues that went into getting the performers to buy into the concert.

Let’s just say Geldof’s tactics weren’t the cleanest. He would phone Elton John and tell him that since Queen and David Bowie had signed on, he really should. Then he’d turn around and tell Bowie that since Elton and Queen signed on, he really should. It was a big game of bluff.

The concert was organized in just ten weeks and featured more than 75 acts including Duran Duran, Phil Collins, The Who, a reunion of the remaining members of Led Zeppelin and so many other stars.

The first band to play Live Aid was Status Quo, a British rock band that had over 60 chart hits in the UK. The first song performed was “Rockin’ All Over the World” (pretty appropriate). The first performance in the US was from Joan Baez, who announced to the crowd that this was their Woodstock before leading the crowd in singing “Amazing Grace”.

There were so many great performances with arguably the best performance coming from Queen. We all know the story by now of how Queen got back together and ended up performing at Live Aid. It’s been voted as the greatest live performance ever in multiple polls and remains one I could watch over and over again. Freddie Mercury had the crowd in the palm of his hand. The band had the best sound and best use of their time - it was impeccable.

Other highlights were Tina Turner/Mick Jagger performing “State of Shock/It’s Only Rock and Roll (But I Like It)”, Hall & Oates put on a fantastic performance in their hometown, bringing out Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffin for some Motown soul.

Another highlight for me was the performance by U2. They played only two songs for their set, but the second was an incredible version of “Bad” with Bono interacting with the crowd, including dancing with a few people.

What was your favorite performance of the festival?

There were of course many issues: Bryan Ferry at one point was using two microphones because one was broken (so a roadie ran out and taped the two together).

Most famously, while Led Zeppelin’s performance was exciting on paper, they had a ton to deal with during their performance. The sound quality was terrible, Robert Plant vocals were terrible and Phil Collins did not fit in well in place of the late, great John Bonham. In fact, Jimmy Page blamed Collins for how bad part of the performance went. “We played ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and he was just there bashing away cluelessly and grinning. I thought that was really a joke.”

Another reunion gone bad was Crosby, Stills and Nash. They sounded off-key and evidently couldn’t hear each other on stage.

Whether or not you believe Live Aid did what it set out to do, it will go down in history as one of the greatest music events and concerts ever.