Twenty-Five years ago on this very day I witnessed one of, if not the greatest concert of all-time. I am of course speaking of Live Aid which took place on July 13, 1985. The concert was held in two different countries in both London and Philadelphia and was seen by a record worldwide audience. I’ve written about Live Aid once before on my blog so I won’t go too deeply into the details and my memories but this was the concert for my generation. You can read my Live Aid blog from 2007 here.
Sir Bob Geldof of the band The Boomtown Rats was the driving force behind the show. He saw the shocking images of people starving in Africa and felt compelled to act in some way. Money needed to be raised to help those who were starving to death. The “Global Jukebox” was his idea. Not knowing if it could be done or if people would be interested in getting involved, Bob went about contacting fellow performers both young and old and one by one they answered the call. Any artists who didn’t take part likely wished they had after it was over.
I don’t think I fully understood how truly amazing the concert was as a then 16-year-old music fan. To me it was something that had never been done before with separate concerts on two different continents and performances from other locations. Live satellite feeds were still relatively new and untested for something of this magnitude and there were a few minor glitches but nobody seemed to care.
Sitting in front of my television from the early morning hours until late in the night I was tuned to the concert on Much Music; the relatively new Canadian music video channel. Every so often J.D. Roberts (now known as John Roberts on CNN) would come on between sets and talk with other VJ’s about what we were seeing and who was yet to come.
The line-up of performers was as star-studded as it could possibly be. Anyone who was worth listening to at that time in history made their way on stage. Among my personal favourites were Queen, U2, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Phil Collins, Duran Duran and Howard Jones. Of course they were all fantastic. Freddie Mercury was at his best with Queen and sadly we lost his amazing talent only six years later.
It was a concert that defined a generation; much like Woodstock had in the 60’s. Many others have tried to duplicate the impact of Live Aid but none have succeeded. It was one of those events that happened at the exact moment in time it needed to with the right cause to unite the world.
25 years ago? It seems it was only a few years past that this LiveAid concert took place.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much it changed the plight of the poor and starving people. It probably had an impact at that time but we are likely back to where we were.
At least the LiveAid concert set a precedent and showed what coulc be done.