$95 million of it went to buy arms for CIA-backed rebels.
Posted on 07/13/2025 12:00:56 PM PDT by Rummyfan
Forty years ago this month, Bob Geldof unleashed his “global jukebox”. With the help of Midge Ure and promoter Harvey Goldsmith, he staged a concert across two venues on either side of the Atlantic, starting at midday on Saturday July 13 1985 in London and ending at the John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia 16 hours later.
Around the world, 1.7 billion people tuned in, and it is seen as one of the great charity success stories of all time, raising $140 million for famine relief in Ethiopia.*
Live Aid was so big that it has its own folklore: Status Quo’s backstage antics, Bono’s messiah impression, Phil Collins hopping on Concorde to play both venues, Geldof swearing on TV and, of course, Queen’s show-stealing performance.
Yet Live Aid’s impact on music itself is often overlooked – perhaps because no-one wants to sound uncharitable. But the truth is that it was a disaster. In Britain, up until this point, we had enjoyed a long tradition of innovation and reinvention, but this brace of charity concerts changed all that, although few people noticed at the time. It resuscitated artists on life support, invented the idea of a concert as a greatest hits parade, strangled the “second British invasion” of great pop acts in America, and provided the model for a new consumerism, encouraging us to purchase (or repurchase on compact disc) the back catalogue of musicians who had been slipping out of public consciousness for a decade
Ultimately, Live Aid heralded an era of musical regurgitation and nostalgia, an era from which we have never escaped.
(Excerpt) Read more at uk.news.yahoo.com ...
I was a DJ at a Country Music radio station back then and actually once rode a horse to work (after saddling and cinching it up) but no, I don't know what the string is for on the back of your hat.????
$95 million of it went to buy arms for CIA-backed rebels.
You answered your own question. By 1985 most of the bands at Live Aid were past touring new stuff.
-Adam Ant ('Prince Charming' 1981)
-Black Sabbath ('Mob Rules' 1981)
-Bob Dylan ('Greatest Hits' 1967)
-Crosby, Stills and Nash (Deja Vu 1970)
-David Bowie (Let's Dance 1983)
-Dire Straits (Brothers in Arms 1985)
-Duran Duran (Rio 1982)
-Elton John (Too Low for Zero 1983)
-Eric Clapton (Slow Hand 1977)
-Four Tops (Greatest Hits 1967)
-Joan Baez (Diamonds and Rust 1975)
-Keith Richards (Rolling Stones 'Tattoo You' 1981)
-Kenny Loggins (Footloose single 1984)
-Led Zeppelin (Coda 1982)
-Mick Jagger (Rolling Stones 'Tattoo You' 1981)
-Neil Young (Decade 1977 Freedom 1989)
-Phil Collins (No Jacket Required 1985)
-Queen (The Works 1984)
-REO Speedwagon (Hi Infidelity 1981)
-Ronnie Wood (Rolling Stones 'Tattoo You' 1981)
-Sade (Diamond Life 1984)
-Santana (Moonflower 1977)
-Spandau Ballet (True 1983)
-Sting (The Police 'Synchronicity' 1983)
-The Boomtown Rats (The Fine Art of Surfacing 1979)
-The Hooters (And We Danced - single - 1984)
-The Who (It's Hard 1982)
Yeah, this article is pretty crap. He rags on Jefferson Starship, who whatever you might think of them had nothing to do with Live Aid. He blames them not only for releasing We Built this City in the same year as Live Aid, but also for helping make 1987 “the worst ever year for pop music” by releasing Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now.
By the way, We Built this City was written by the great pop songwriters Bernie Taupin and Martin Page, while Nothing’s Gonna Stop us now was written by the great pop songwriters Diane Warren and Albert Hammond.
Since Live Aid in 1985…
Black Sabbath - 9 albums - 20 Tours
Ozzie Osborne - 13 new albums - 16 Tours
Rolling Stones - 8 albums - 13 Tours
Robert Plant - 16 albums - 16 Tours
Eric Clapton -16 albums - 20+ Tours
Elton John - 30 albums - 30+ Tours
Neil Young - 29 albums - over 700 concerts ( Neil doesn’t tour like most bands)
David Bowie - 11 albums - 8 Tours - 12 Movies
Bob Dylan - 17 albums - has never stopped touring, too many to mention
CS&N - 4 albums- 9 Tours
REO - 5 albums - have toured nearly every summer since, usually with Styx
Santana - 13 albums - regulars on touring circuit most every summer
Sting - 15 albums - pretty regular on tour, just finished his last one
I'm not saying they were done but pointed out that at the time of Live Aid, they hadn't toured new stuff in a few years.
Some never wrote significant new stuff afterwards but could tour their old catalogs in perpetuity.
The concert promoters witnessed the drop in stadium bookings over the previous few years and wanted to rekindle interest in live events. The "charity" aspect was just a cover.
No. ALL of them had toured new stuff recently. NONE of them had producing stuff. Now some of them had had flagging ticket because time passes and audiences can be fickle, and the great “old act revival” wouldn’t happen for another 10 to 15 year. But every single one of them were making new material and touring. The charity was not a cover, that sentence from you is a despicable lie that should embarrass you.
I was not among them ... I had more important things to do ... like drinking a LOT of beer.
Were you even ALIVE in 1985? Nobody gave a rat's ass about "carbon" in 1985. We had finally gotten over the "Global cooling will bring a new ice age" idiocy; the "Global warming will drown us all" idiocy hadn't got fired up yet. Phil Collins may be a jerk and a leftist idiot and a lousy excuse for a musician, but no hypocrisy was involved regarding "carbon emissions" back then.
Well done, sir. Perfect example of "no matter how hot she is, somebody somewhere has had enough of her $#!+."
“We are the worms
Out on the sidewalk…”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=86mLpbwwLPM&pp=0gcJCfwAo7VqN5tD
ROFL!!!!!
Yes, indeed: “Worms are people too”.
Keep up. "Some never wrote significant new stuff afterwards."
Don't take my word for it - just look at how those acts were all sidelined even before grunge took over the airwaves and tour schedules.
And since the charity wasn't a cover, the producers did similar charity concerts in 1986 ...1987 ...1988 ...1989 - oh, that's right, they didn't. ...and it wasn't because people all around the world no longer had needs.
As DIRTYSECRET wrote in Post 39 "All the money was stolen. Sure made the doo-gooders feel good though. Huey Lewis wouldn’t perform in it because they knew the money would go nowhere."
Huey Lewis had joined the "We Are the World" recording and was initially expected to take part in Live Aid but bowed out while sharing his concerns about where the money raised was actually going. Lewis took some heat over his skepticism, but stood by his decision at the time to bow out.
https://loudwire.com/artists-who-missed-live-aid-why/
But yeah, despicable me for pointing out that the concert wasn't what the promoters hyped it as.
And many had significant works after. Again, time flies, audiences are fickle. Significance of a work is largely determined by the audience, if they buy it it’s significant, if they don’t it isn’t. It could still be awesome but not find the audience. Plenty of artists make great late career material that doesn’t sell.
As for promoters why would they? Understand putting on a festival like this is massive work. And since it’s for charity you don’t get paid. We’ll just jump ahead to a recent charity even, the Ozzy farewell show, raised nearly $200 for Parkinson’s research and charity hospitals. According to Tom Morello, who was “just” the musical director of the show, he worked on it for over a year. You think he’s going to sign up do another year to put together a charity gig for free? There’s a reason these are once in a lifetime gigs, cause nobody is dumb enough to do it twice.
It was what the promoters hyped it as. It didn’t work. Because Ethiopia is just too screwed up. Geldoff gets heat for not “waiting for infrastructure” so the money could be spent well. But the people throwing that shade ignore the fact that Ethiopia STILL doesn’t have that infrastructure. Do you think those critics would be happy if the money had spent the last 40 years in a bank account “waiting for infrastructure”?
They tried. Their intentions were good. But the world sometimes just doesn’t let good intentions accomplish anything. Although I think it did accomplish something. It put the whole concept of the benefit festival on the map. And there have been many since, some more successful than others. But at least these people try.
Oops. $200 MILLION.
Wut???
Now I understand why you called my post a despicable lie. I'm sorry that Live Aid was a significant moment in your life and now you're reading that it was a con game.
Do you really think Bob Geldoff didn't get paid? Do you not know how this works, or is this willful ignorance?
The "charitable" organization signs the paperwork that they received the full amount of money, but in reality they only take their cut for the role they're playing. The farther away from civilization and audits the better, like with corrupt African governments. The con man splits up the rest between him and his cronies. Back patting and tax write-offs all around.
Meanwhile, the Band Aid Trust, which managed the funds, lacked transparency. A 1986 investigation questioned its accounting, noting vague disbursements and payments to intermediaries, yet no full audit has ever surfaced.
https://thedavidvance.substack.com/p/why-live-aid-was-a-failure-and-a
https://medium.com/@SPIN.com/live-aid-the-terrible-truth-d7343da30a4c
https://www.spin.com/2015/07/live-aid-the-terrible-truth-ethiopia-bob-geldof-feature/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1259061/Sorry-Bob-Geldof-Band-Aid-millions-DID-pay-guns.html
Geldoff wasn't a fool for "waiting for Ethiopia to have that infrastructure", he jumped at the opportunity because Ethiopia didn't have the infrastructure. They weren't looking for a solution, they needed an excuse as to why nothing was delivered.
"That was very noble of you to run that charity event and send them such aid... They did they get the money, didn't they?"
~"Well, gee, um, you know, if they only had the infrastructure."
...like billions of dollars for high speed rail in California.
Bob didn’t get paid. And has spent the rest of his life trying to stop famine. And came out of the whole mess of Ethiopia pretty disheartened.
Sorry you need to #$%^ on something to feel good about yourself. But that’s a you problem. Bob tried. You just #$%^, he’s a better person than you.
Just don't accuse others of despicable lies when you refuse to look at the truth.
As you can read at the links I posted, Bob Geldof was warned repeatedly that the aid wasn't going to reach the needy. He knew.
So he should have what? Given up? Canceled the whole thing? I look at the truth just fine. The truth you’re studiously ignoring is he’d tried to go the normal routes and got a whole bunch of “there’s nothing we can do” and he didn’t accept that answer. So he tried. And yes he failed. But he TRIED. Which is more than all the international organizations that just kept shrugging their shoulders did combined.
It was Quixotic. But it was NOT a scam.
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