Concerts - Live Aid
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.