Live Aid

Live Aid was a two-venue benefit concert and music-based fundraising initiative held on Saturday, 13 July 1985. The event was organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise further funds for relief of the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia, a movement that started with the release of the successful charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in December 1984. Billed as the "global jukebox", Live Aid was held simultaneously at Wembley Stadium in London and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia.

On the same day, concerts inspired by the initiative were held in other countries, such as the Soviet Union, Canada, Japan, Yugoslavia, Austria, Australia, and West Germany. It was one of the largest satellite link-ups and television broadcasts of all time. An estimated audience of 1.9 billion people in 150 nations watched the live broadcast, nearly 40 per cent of the world population.

The impact of Live Aid on famine relief has been debated for years. One aid relief worker stated that following the publicity generated by the concert, "humanitarian concern is now at the centre of foreign policy" for Western governments. Geldof has said: "We took an issue that was nowhere on the political agenda and, through the lingua franca of the planet – which is not English but rock 'n' roll – we were able to address the intellectual absurdity and the moral repulsion of people dying of want in a world of surplus." In another interview he stated that Live Aid "created something permanent and self-sustaining" but also asked why Africa is getting poorer.

The organisers of Live Aid tried to run aid efforts directly, channelling millions of pounds to NGOs in Ethiopia. It has been alleged that much of this went to the Ethiopian government of Mengistu Haile Mariam – a regime the UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opposed – and it is also alleged some funds were spent on guns. Although the BBC World Service programme Assignment reported in March 2010 that the funds had been diverted, the BBC Editorial Complaints Unit later found "that there was no evidence to support such statements". Brian Barder, British Ambassador to Ethiopia from 1982 to 1986, wrote on his website: "The programme itself, and in particular the BBC's advance publicity for it, gave the impression that these allegations concerned not only the aid operation in TPLF [rebel]-controlled areas but also the much larger international relief aid operation in the rest of Ethiopia, including in particular money for famine relief raised by Bob Geldof's Band Aid and Live Aid. This impression is entirely false. Nothing of the sort occurred."

Background

The 1985 Live Aid concert was conceived as a follow-on to the successful charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" which was also the idea of Geldof and Ure. In October 1984, images of hundreds of thousands of people starving to death in Ethiopia were shown in the UK in Michael Buerk's BBC News reports on the 1984 famine. The BBC News crew were the first to document the famine, with Buerk's report on 23 October describing it as "a biblical famine in the 20th century" and "the closest thing to hell on Earth". The reports featured a young nurse, Claire Bertschinger, who, surrounded by 85,000 starving people, told of her sorrow of having to decide which children would be allowed access to the limited food supplies in the feeding station and which were too sick to be saved. She would put a little mark on the children who got chosen, with Geldof stating of her at the time: "In her was vested the power of life and death. She had become God-like and that is unbearable for anyone." Traumatised by what she experienced she did not speak about it for two decades, recalling in 2005: "I felt like a Nazi sending people to the death camps. Why was I in this situation? Why was it possible in this time of plenty that some have food and some do not? It is not right."

Shocked by the report, the British public inundated relief agencies, such as Save the Children, with donations, with the report also bringing the world's attention to the crisis in Ethiopia. Such was the magnitude of Buerk's report it was also broadcast in its entirety on a major US news channel – almost unheard of at the time. From his home in London, Geldof too saw the report; he called Ure, the Ultravox frontman (Geldof and Ure had previously worked together for charity when they appeared at the 1981 benefit show The Secret Policeman's Ball in London), and together they quickly co-wrote the song "Do They Know It's Christmas?" in the hope of raising money for famine relief. Geldof then contacted colleagues in the music industry and persuaded them to record the single under the name Band Aid for nothing. On 25 November 1984, the song was recorded at Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill, London, and was released four days later. It stayed at number one for five weeks in the UK, was Christmas number one, and became the fastest-selling single ever in Britain and raised £8 million, rather than the £70,000 Geldof and Ure had initially expected. Geldof then set his sights on staging a huge concert to raise further funds.

The idea to stage a charity concert to raise more funds for Ethiopia originally came from Boy George, the lead singer of Culture Club. George and Culture Club drummer Jon Moss had taken part in the recording of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and in the same month, the band were undertaking a tour of the UK, which culminated in six nights at Wembley Arena. On the final night at Wembley, 22 December 1984, an impromptu gathering of some of the other artists from Band Aid joined Culture Club on stage at the end of the concert for an encore of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" George was so overcome by the occasion, he told Geldof that they should consider organising a benefit concert. Speaking to the UK music magazine Melody Maker at the beginning of January 1985, Geldof revealed his enthusiasm for George's idea, saying: "If George is organising it, you can tell him he can call me at any time, and I'll do it. It's a logical progression from the record, but the point is you don't just talk about it, you go ahead and do it!"

It was clear from the interview that Geldof had already had the ideas to hold a dual-venue concert and of how the concerts should be structured:

The show should be as big as is humanly possible. There's no point [in] just 5,000 fans turning up at Wembley; we need to have Wembley linked with Madison Square Gardens, and the whole show to be televised worldwide. It would be great for Duran to play three or four numbers at Wembley and then flick to Madison Square, where Springsteen would be playing. While he's on, the Wembley stage could be made ready for the next British act like the Thompsons or whoever. In that way, lots of acts could be featured, and the television rights, tickets, and so on could raise a phenomenal amount of money. It's not an impossible idea, and certainly one worth exploiting.

Live Aid production manager Andy Zweck 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."

Organisation

Among those involved in organising Live Aid were Harvey Goldsmith, who was responsible for the Wembley Stadium concert, and Michael C. Mitchell, who put together the American leg. On promoting the event, Goldsmith stated: "I didn't really get a chance to say no. Bob [Geldof] arrived in my office and basically said: 'We're doing this.' It started from there."

The concert grew in scope as more acts were added on both sides of the Atlantic. Tony Verna, one of the inventors of instant replay, was able to secure John F. Kennedy Stadium through his friendship with Philadelphia mayor Wilson Goode and was able to procure, through his connections with ABC's prime time chief, John Hamlin, a three-hour prime time slot on the ABC Network and, in addition, was able to supplement the lengthy programme through meetings that resulted in the addition of an ad-hoc network within the US, which covered 85 per cent of TVs there. Verna designed the needed satellite schematic and became the executive director as well as the co-executive producer alongside Hal Uplinger. Uplinger, the co-inventor of instant replay, came up with the idea to produce a four-hour video edit of Live Aid to distribute to those countries without the necessary satellite equipment to rebroadcast the live feed.

Collaborative effort

The concert began at noon British Summer Time (BST) (7:00 Eastern Daylight Time (EDT)) at Wembley Stadium in the United Kingdom. It continued at John F. Kennedy Stadium (JFK) in the United States, starting at 13:51 BST (8:51 EDT). The UK's Wembley performances ended at 22:00 BST (17:00 EDT). The JFK performances and the whole concert in the US ended at 04:05 BST on 14 July (23:05 EDT). Thus, the concert continued for just over 16 hours, but since many artists' performances were conducted simultaneously in Wembley and JFK, the total concert length was just over 24 hours.