Live Aid is 24 years old this week
Twenty-four years ago today, before 162,000 live fans and a TV audience of 1.5 billion, musician Bob Geldof staged the most impressive display of humanitarianism the world had seen.
Live Aid primarily played Philadelphia and London (with Phil Collins flying on the Concorde so he could play both shows) in a quickly organized effort to raise funds for African famine relief. Similar concerts were staged in Germany, Australia, the Soviet Union and the Netherlands.
Click here to see a rundown of all the bands who played. But first, how many '80s musicians can you identify in the photo above?
Relive the music, movies and culture of the greatest decade ever with Times online editor Steve Spears. A teen during the decade, Steve is obsessed with everything from Duran Duran to Journey, John Hughes to John Cusack, and parachute pants to Reaganomics.
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For probably the WORST take on Live Aid I have ever read, check out this article written in 2005. Wow, talk about just plain wrong:
http://www.popentertainment.com/liveaid.htm
I really wish Huey and the News would have taken part.
Posted by: Alyfox/Dan Vhay | July 14, 2009 at 11:39 AM
And that's Nik Kershaw next to Howard Jones!
Posted by: Roy, UK | July 14, 2009 at 11:05 AM
I highly recommend to people to get the DVD, it is amazing. I got it on sale for 20 dollars and it is a 4 dvd set. It is only missing a couple of big acts, one of the them being Zeppelin. The top five performances at Live Aid are
5)Black Sabbath - an often overlooked performance.
4)The Cars - One of the greatest American bands.
3)The Who - they never disappoint live.
2)U2 - This was the coming out show for U2, they never looked back since.
1)Queen - They owned that audience.
I have to say I enjoyed more of the Wembley performances. I just think the English audience was more into it. The US did have the Zep reunion but that was a bit of a let down. I heard Robert Plant sort of blame Phil Collins for not rehearsing the songs with them.
Posted by: Neil | July 14, 2009 at 11:05 AM
I think the girl to the left of George Michael is either Pepsi or Shirlie from Wham!
Posted by: Roy, UK | July 14, 2009 at 11:04 AM
Crockett:
Have fun at your Gitmo shows. Please take lots of pix and give us a full report. Do you wonder what type of place they will have for you to stay?
Posted by: Local 80s music fan | July 13, 2009 at 07:37 PM
i especially remember seeing robert plant reunite with the guys from zeppelin. although, it wasn't a great sounding set, it was terribly exciting.
Posted by: CHAD | July 13, 2009 at 06:44 PM
I remember this well.
We watched all afternoon, amid sessions of Geeky percentile dice rolling as we ventured to white plume mountain while playing AD&D.
We'd stop and watch when someone cool was on...
As a matter of fact, VJ Ponyboy was with me that day......
Posted by: Crockett | July 13, 2009 at 06:11 PM
I was glued to my TV for this. Did not miss a minute, even though the "Italian Feast" was going on right outside my window. Fuggetaboutit! Live Aid is on!
Posted by: sock puppet | July 13, 2009 at 06:05 PM
isn't that jodi whatley in the center? kind of ahrd to tell. i seem to recall that not allof teh artists were from the u.k.
Posted by: don in tulsa | July 13, 2009 at 05:44 PM
George Michael, Andrew Ridgely, Freddie Mercury and Bono are the ones I can make out.
Posted by: Michelle | July 13, 2009 at 05:10 PM
Wham
Bono
Bob Geldoff
Howard Jones
Posted by: Marty | July 13, 2009 at 05:07 PM
I absolutely love that the musical geniuses of the day had the foresight to put Elton John, Kiki Dee, and Wham! together on stage ... what a piece of 80s Awesomeness!
Posted by: chase | July 13, 2009 at 04:15 PM