In this article we're going to review another very popular benefit concert, the one they call Live Aid.
Most people probably had very little clue that The Concert For Bangladesh would start a trend that would continue for many years. Live Aid is another example of some of the world's greatest musical acts coming together in a common cause to help people in need.
What made Live Aid different from Bangladesh and many other concerts was that this concert was not held in just one place. The concert, held on July 13, 1985 was broadcast live from a number of places, including Wembley Stadium in London, JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, and a few acts performing from Sydney, Australia and Moscow, Russia.
The concert itself was put on in order to try to help raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia. The concert was billed as sort of a "global jukebox." The number of people in attendance at just two of the sites totalled over 150,000 people. Live Aid was the largest scale satellite link-up and TV broadcast of all time. It was estimated that about 1.5 billion people saw the broadcast live.
The concert was conceived by master mind Bob Geldorf who had previously put together another gala called "Do They Know It's Christmas" which was known as Band Aid. That concert went off the previous winter featuring a number of British and Irish acts also for the purpose of raising funds for famine relief in Ethiopia. This is the first time that two concerts had been put on so close together to raise money for the same relief effort.
The initial goals of this concert was to raise about $1.5 million. But as the concert grew in scope and the number of acts increased the final number was estimated at a staggering $254 million earned. Nobody could have ever seen this coming. Because of Geldorf's efforts and the success of Live Aid, he received an honorary knighthood.
Because there were so many venues and so many performing artists it would be impossible to list every artist who performed and every song done. But there were a few memorable highlights that deserve to be mentioned.
One of the most memorable moments at JFK Stadium was when Bob Dylan was playing and broke a guitar string. Ron Wood then took off his guitar and gave it to Dylan. Wood was then left standing on stage without a guitar. What does he do? He shrugs to the audience and proceeds to play air guitar even imitating Pete Townsend's windmill motion until a stagehand brought Wood a new guitar.
Over at Wembley Stadium the highlight of the concert there was when Freddie Mercury and Queen got the entire audience in attendance to clap and sing to "Radio Ga-Ga," "We Will Rock You," and "We Are The Champions." It was reported that the sound at that point was almost deafening with over 70,000 people singing and clapping.
Live Aid was an amazing event. It raised millions of dollars and helped feed starving people. No, this wasn't just a concert.
Michael Russell Your Independent guide to Entertainment
