On July 13, 1985, at Wembley Stadium in London, Prince Charles and Princess Diana officially open Live Aid, a worldwide rock concert organized to raise money for the relief of famine-stricken Africans. Continued at JFK Stadium in Philadelphia and at other arenas around the world, the 16-hour “superconcert” was globally linked by satellite to more than a billion viewers in 110 nations. In a triumph of technology and good will, the event raised more than $125 million in famine relief for Africa.
Live Aid was the brainchild of Bob Geldof, the singer of an Irish rock group called the Boomtown Rats. In 1984, Geldof traveled to Ethiopia after hearing news reports of a horrific famine that had killed hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians and threatened to kill millions more. After returning to London, he called Britain’s and Ireland’s top pop artists together to record a single to benefit Ethiopian famine relief. “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was written by Geldof and Ultravox singer Midge Ure and performed by “Band Aid,” an ensemble that featured Culture Club, Duran Duran, Phil Collins, U2, Wham!, and others. It was the best-selling single in Britain to that date and raised more than $10 million.
“Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was also a No. 1 hit in the United States and inspired U.S. pop artists to come together and perform “We Are the World,” a song written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie. “USA for Africa,” as the U.S. ensemble was known, featured Jackson, Ritchie, Geldof, Harry Belafonte, Bob Dylan, Cyndi Lauper, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, and many others. The single went to the top of the charts and eventually raised $44 million.
With the crisis continuing in Ethiopia, and the neighboring Sudan also stricken with famine, Geldof proposed Live Aid, an ambitious global charity concert aimed at raising more funds and increasing awareness of the plight of many Africans. Organized in just 10 weeks, Live Aid was staged on Saturday, July 13, 1985. More than 75 acts performed, including Elton John, Madonna, Santana, Run DMC, Sade, Sting, Bryan Adams, the Beach Boys, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Queen, Duran Duran, U2, the Who, Tom Petty, Neil Young, and Eric Clapton. The majority of these artists performed at either Wembley Stadium in London, where a crowd of 70,000 turned out, or at Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium, where 100,000 watched. Thirteen satellites beamed a live television broadcast of the event to more than one billion viewers in 110 countries. More than 40 of these nations held telethons for African famine relief during the broadcast.
A memorable moment of the concert was Phil Collins’ performance in Philadelphia after flying by Concorde from London, where he performed at Wembley earlier in the day. He later played drums in a reunion of the surviving members of Led Zeppelin. Beatle Paul McCartney and the Who’s Pete Townsend held Bob Geldof aloft on their shoulders during the London finale, which featured a collective performance of “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Six hours later, the U.S. concert ended with “We Are the World.”
Live Aid eventually raised $127 million in famine relief for African nations, and the publicity it generated encouraged Western nations to make available enough surplus grain to end the immediate hunger crisis in Africa. Geldof was later knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his efforts.
In early July 2005, Geldof staged a series of “Live 8″ concerts in 11 countries around the world to help raise awareness of global poverty. Organizers, led by Geldof, purposely scheduled the concert days before the annual G8 summit in an effort to increase political pressure on G8 nations to address issues facing the extremely poor around the world. Live 8 claims that an estimated 3 billion people watched 1,000 musicians perform in 11 shows, which were broadcast on 182 television networks and by 2,000 radio stations. Unlike Live Aid, Live 8 was intentionally not billed as a fundraiser–Geldof’s slogan was, “We don’t want your money, we want your voice.” Perhaps in part because of the spotlight brought to such issues by Live 8, the G8 subsequently voted to cancel the debt of 18 of the world’s poorest nations, make AIDS drugs more accessible, and double levels of annual aid to Africa, to $50 billion by 2010.
For each starving sub saharan or south american that you save from starvation, they have 6-7 more starving children for you to feed later. The more humane thing to do is let that first generation die out. In two generations, one starving person becomes fifty starving people. Before too awful long you have a sam kinison joke that people ought to heed. Nothing grows here. This is sand. Move where the food is! You cant save the neandertal, you cant save the african. They dont have the mental capacity to save themselves, or even be saved.
I think it is more what the people are capable of by themselves, the result of their native mindset which may be genetic in nature, than any other factor.
Look at what Rhodesia was and what it produced before it became Zimbabwe and killed off its producing and managing class, a road South Africa is currently embarked on.
The native populations in Africa -all of it- have been around longer than almost anyone anywhere has and accomplished less with all their abundant resources and people than any of them.
Ethiopia is a shining example of an African country never colonized by the white devil slave masters.
Italy tried. Maybe the fact that they might possibly be the keepers of the Ark of the Covenant has given them the upper hand against these invaders. (While I may believe that the Ark is being protected in Ethiopia, I do not ascribe it any supernatural powers).
They do have outstanding cuisine too.
From the immortal Sam Kinison:
“You want to help world hunger? Stop sending them food. Don’t send them another bite. Send them U-Hauls. Send them a guy that says, “You know, we’ve been coming here giving you food for about 35 years now and we were driving through the desert, and we realized there wouldn’t BE world hunger if you people would live where the FOOD IS!
YOU LIVE IN A DESERT!! UNDERSTAND THAT? YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT!! NOTHING GROWS HERE! NOTHING’S GONNA GROW HERE! Come here, you see this? This is sand. You know what it’s gonna be 100 years from now? IT’S GONNA BE SAND!! YOU LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT!
We have deserts in America, we just don’t LIVE in them, assholes!’ “
It was all a con job to extract money from the bleeding hearts in white western countries…Much of the money was stolen by African dictators, and the rest just led to more population increase, now projected to saddle us with 4 BILLION Africans by 2100…..
I went to that thing, what a crazy good show. Saw a lot of bands that I would have missed otherwise, The Cars, Tom Petty, Madonna, The Pretenders, Hall & Oates. Saw a few different shows at the old JFK Stadium, it was a great concert venue because it was so big. They had the newer Veterans Stadium right next door, I understand that now they’ve knocked them both down.
Leaving whatever your thoughts are regarding Freddy Mercury’s lifestyle choice aside, truly the pinnacle of Queen’s career: