13 July: Live Aid

On this date in 1985 the Live-Aid concerts, put together to help starving people in Africa were held in Philadelphia and London. 10 things you didn't know about Live Aid:

1. It was organised by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, who had already collaborated on the charity single, Do They Know it's Christmas? released the previous December. It had reached No. 1 on the UK charts and raised more than $28 million, but it wasn't enough to finance Geldof's vision of a fleet of trucks to move food and supplies to Ethiopians in need, so more action was called for.
2. There were two main concerts lasting 16 hours, taking place simultaneously in Wembley Arena in London and the John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia. Other nations also held benefit concerts on the day including Austria, Australia, Denmark, Germany, Japan, Russia and Yugoslavia.
3. One star actually appeared live at both concerts. Phil Collins performed with Sting in London, then boarded a Helicopter piloted by Noel Edmunds to take him to Heathrow where he boarded Concorde to New York and then another helicopter, arriving in Philadelphia in time for his set. He began his set with the words, "I was in England this afternoon. Funny old world, innit?" His jaunt across the Atlantic had another unexpected result as somewhere on the trip he'd bumped into Cher, who didn't know about the event but said she would have liked to take part. Phil told her, “Just show up!” so she did, and was a surprise last minute addition to the show.
4. The acts were each allocated a dressing room at the stadium but the facilities there were too basic for Elton John. Instead he brought his motor home along and set it up in the car park with with pot plants, a picket fence and a barbecue.
5. Live Aid attracted a lot of criticism for not being diverse enough, and not having enough black artists in it. Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson not only refused to appear but tried to organise a boycott of it. Ironically, had all the black artists who were invited – Prince, The Pointer Sisters , Stevie Wonder and Diana Ross among them, not declined, it would have been more diverse. Prince declined because he was taking time out from performing live at the time but did contribute a video.
6. Queen almost didn't perform, either, because Freddie Mercury thought it might look like a political statement. Geldof persuaded him otherwise and Queen's set turned out to be a highlight of the concert.
7. The first song to be played was Status Quo's Rocking all Over the World. The final song at Wembley was Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas?, and at the JFK Stadium USA for Africa closed the show with We Are the World.
8. Live Aid broke the record for the most watched TV special in history, with 1.9 billion viewers in 150 countries. Ticket sales and donations brought in around £80 million.
9. Geldof wanted the concert to be a once in a lifetime experience and demanded that all the TV footage be destroyed after the show. The American TV companies complied but the BBC didn't. The BBC's archives make up most of the DVD.
10. Not everything went to plan, of course, and there were technical glitches and instruments and voices off key. One technical fault was especially well timed – just as Roger Daltrey was singing the line "Why don't you all fade away", the feed cut out. Meanwhile, Pete Townshend accidentally stepped on the warning light which told acts when their time was up, and broke it, so their set over-ran by five minutes.

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