What Was So Big About the Live Aid Concert?

If you were around during the 1980s, you most likely remember the 1985 Live Aid Concert held for famine relief in Africa. For those of you young’uns, 90s babies and younger, the Live Aid concert was one of the largest concerts in history, held on July 13, 1985 at Wembley Stadium in London and the John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia. Labeled as the “global jukebox”, the concert was set to help raise funds for the famine relief in Africa, especially in Ethiopia.

The concert held over 75 acts from pop artists, including Elton John, Queen, Madonna, Santana, Sting, the Beach Boys and so many more and had an attendance of 70,000 at the Wembley Stadium, almost 90,000 at the John F. Kennedy Stadium, and thirteen satellites broadcasting the even live to over 1.9 billion viewers in 110 countries. There were also about 40 countries who held telethons for the African famine relief during the broadcast.

What Was So Big About the Live Aid Concert?

So the attendance of Live Aid was one of the largest in history, including families watching at home, to benefit a good cause. But what exactly made it so important?

There were several factors that made the Live Aid Concert important, including raising $127 million in famine relief for Africa and the performance of 75+ pop artists, but perhaps the biggest was the performance from Queen. After wrapping up a world tour to promote their latest album, The Works, they lit up Wembley Stadium during their performance. But this didn’t happen by chance; they practiced for a week at the Shaw Theatre in London with their 6-song lineup. With twenty-one minutes to perform, they certainly made the most of it.

Freddy Mercury practiced his stage moves suited to a stadium show while the rest of the band worked on audience participation with synchronized hand movements, clapping, singing and stomping. The gestures were to create the feelings of community amongst the crowd.

Their performance at Live Aid started with Mercury jogging out on stage wearing a top adorned with a banner that said “Feed the World”. He also kept his famous attire, with the mustache, white jeans and a white tank top with a studded band around his right bicep. Within the first few seconds of singing a shortened version of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, Queen dominated the stage.

Next in their lineup were “Radio Ga Ga”, “Hammer to Fall”, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions”. Even the other artists were taken aback by their performance. Elton John joked to them, “You bastards, you stole the show.” Even the show’s organizer, Bob Geldof commented, “Queen were absolutely the best band of the day. They played the best, had the best sound, used their time to the full…It was the perfect stage for Freddie: the whole world.” And indeed they were!

Other Performances at Live Aid

Some of the other performances at Live Aid were from:

• Elton John
• Madonna
• Santana
• Run DMC
• Sade
• Sting
• Bryan Adams
• Phil Collins
• the Beach Boys
• Mick Jagger
• David Bowie
• Duran Duran
• U2
• the Who
• Tom Petty
• Neil Young
• Eric Clapton
• Bob Dylan
• Cyndi Lauper
• Paul Simon
• Bruce Springsteen
• Led Zeppelin
• Tina Turner
• Stevie Wonder
• Michael Jackson
• Lionel Richie
• The Pretenders
• Kenny Loggins

The Impact of Live Aid

Live Aid was organized in just 10 weeks by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for famine relief in Africa. The movement was started with the successful release of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in December 1984. In addition to the performances at the Wembley Stadium and John F. Kennedy Stadium, concerts were also held in other countries, including the Soviet Union, Canada, Japan, Yugoslavia, Austria, Australia and West Germany. 

While the impact of the performance was heavily debated, one aid relief worker commented on the publicity that followed after the concert, “humanitarian concern is now at the centre of foreign policy” for Western governments.  Geldof also noted, “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.” He also said that Live Aid “created something permanent and self-sustaining” but also questioned why Africa is getting poorer.

How Funds Were Divided

Organizers Geldof and Ure tried to run aid efforts directly and send millions of pounds to NGOs in Ethiopia, however, allegedly much of this went to a regime the UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opposed, known as the Ethiopian government of Mengistu Haile Mariam. Some of the funds were also supposedly spent on guns. While there’s no evidence that the money had been diverted, the former British Ambassador to Ethiopia, Brian Border, stated that “the diversion of aid related only to the tiny proportion that was supplied by some NGOs to rebel-held areas.”

What Do You Remember from Live Aid?

If you tuned in to the Live Aid concert, what do you remember? Was there any specific special moment you had? What did you think of Queen’s performance? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!