The Live Aid concerts took place 38 years ago today on July 13, 1985.
The shows were held simultaneously at Wembley Stadium in London and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia. The first cause-driven, satellite-delivered mega event, it was broadcast to a global audience of approximately 1.5 billion in 150 countries and raised an estimated $230 million overall for famine relief. Other concerts inspired by Live Aid also took place in various other parts of the world that day.
Bob Geldof, the co-founder of the festival said, “It was an attempt to address clearly one of the great wounds of our time, which was the imminent death of 30 million people through starvation in a famine in Africa. And that struck me as being unacceptable and untenable that people should die of want in a world of surplus. And so you had to address the world, this was the logic. And I assumed just there were enough satellites and it turned out there was.”
Paul McCartney, Elton John, The Who, David Bowie, Queen, Dire Straits, U2, Bryan Ferry (with Pink Floyd's David Gilmour on guitar), Sting and Phil Collins (together) and Elvis Costello are among the artists who appeared in London.
Bob Dylan, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood, Mick Jagger, Tina Turner, Hall and Oates, Duran Duran, Led Zeppelin, Phil Collins, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, Eric Clapton, The Cars, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Madonna, The Pretenders, The Beach Boys, Bryan Adams, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath were among those who appeared in New York.
Phil Collins, who played with Clapton and Zeppelin and did a couple of his own songs in Philadelphia, was the only musician to perform on both sides of the Atlantic that day.