Live Aid 1985 - The Greatest show on the Earth

There had been charity concerts before, notably George Harrison concert for Bangladesh in 1971, but never one on this scale. This was a 16 hour concert held transatlantic with 69 acts and watched by an estimated 1.5 billion people.

I remember the whole build up to the day with Sir Bob Geldof making perennial demands on TV with 'Just give us your bleedin money' in his broad Dub accent. The initial target of Live aid was to make £1 million pounds but as the weeks and days progressed towards the event, the eventual amount pledged was estimated to be over £100 million. The ethos of the project was to save lives and it did, approximately 2 million were saved.

The catalyst for the whole event was when in October 1984 a BBC news report by Michael Buerk from Korem in Ethiopia which showed the horrific scenes of young children dying from starvation. This prompted Bob Geldof into action and within weeks had assembled all the musicians and singers he could to form Band Aid. a single was released called 'Do they know its Christmas'. It was a enormous success and went to number one and shattered all records. However, not content with this Geldof decided to think a bit bigger and look at doing a concert. The idea was hatched by Bob and his sidekick Midge Ure and Live Aid was born.

With the idea hatched they needed someone to promote and organise and Harvey Goldsmith was the man largely responsible for putting the idea into a reality. the two concerts were held at Wembley Stadium London and the JFK stadium in Philadelphia. It was set to go on 13th July 1985 and BBC radio DJ Richard Skinner opened the show with his co-host Andy Kershaw and we were ready to rock. Veteran rockers Status Quo kicked off the show with Rockin all over the world and this set the tone for a mouth watering 16 hours of live music.  They were followed by Bob and Elvis Costello. A band from bob home town of Dublin came to prominence during this concert. U2 made an lasting impression with there performance. they were due to play 3 songs but the second song Bad went on for 14 minutes as Bono jumped off the stage to help a girl who was being crushed in the crowd. She was saved and had the despair turn to joy as she danced with Bono on the stage.

Another notable performance was by Queen, there 20 minute set was regarded as one of the finest live performances seen. Lead singer Freddie Mercury led the 70,000 plus crowd in clapping unison and captivated the audience with a mesmeric performance which sadly you don't see these days. The crowd was completely in his hands. Other memorable performances included David Bowie, The Who and Paul McCartney whose microphone failed but like a true performer carried on. Also Phil Collins made appearances at both concerts. At Wembley he teamed up with Sting then over the pond he drummed for Eric Clapton and the reunion of Led Zeppelin.

My personal memory is still clear. That day I was playing 5 a side tournament in Wellingborough (which we won!) and i can remember all the cars had the radio on to listen to this musical extravaganza. We did hope to get knocked out early so we could get home and watch but we just kept winning. I did get home and we had an abundance of VHS tapes recording the event to keep for posterity. The tapes didn't last long but the memory lingers on. A fantastic day of music and never to be repeated the same in my opinion.


To enjoy the whole concert