LIVE AID 1985

The recent film Bohemian Rhapsody, which is about the band Queen, has made people recall that unforgettable day on July, 13 1985. It was the Live Aid concert and described as ‘The Day Rock and Roll Changed the World’. Surely, it was one of the most important charity events in the world.

On that day, Prince Charles and Princess Diana officially opened Live Aid in Wembley Stadium. It was organised to raise money for the famine and hunger problem in Africa. It continued at JFK stadium in Philadelphia, the USA and in some other parts of the world. It was ‘a super- concert’ which lasted for 16 hours and broadcasted to more than a billion viewers worldwide. The event raised more than 125 million dollars for Africa.

The creator of the event was the singer of the Irish group Boomtown Rats, Bob Geldof, who had travelled to Africa in 1984 and witnessed the devastating effects of famine there. After he returned to London, he called Britain’s and Ireland’s top bands to record his own song ‘Do they know it’s Christmas?’ A group of singers and bands such as Duran Duran, Phil Collins, U2, Wham and others came together under the name Live Band which became a bestselling single, immediately raising an amount of about 10 million dollars. This gave way to another song, ‘We are the World’. It was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and sung by singers like Bob Dylan, Cyndi Lauper , Tina Turner and Steve Wonder and made 44 million dollars at once.

This was followed by the live charity concert LIVE AID which was organised in just 10 days. It had 75 acts, including Madonna, Elton John, Santana, Mick Jagger, David Bowie and Queen. An audience of nearly 70,000 turned up in Wembley Stadium and 100,000 in JFK. They reached to more than one billion viewers through 13 satellites linked to live television broadcast in 110 countries. Of course, Queen with Freddie Mercury rocked the stadium starting with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, moving to ‘We will Rock You’ and finishing with ‘We are the Champions’.

One of the viewers, Divina McCall, said:

“My memory of Live Aid is being glued to the TV all day. I particularly remember Phil Collins travelling over continents, which summed up what the day was all about, and the feeling of intense good will and the want to change something.”