Sir Bob Geldof visited the new Wembley Stadium construction site to re-live his memories of Live Aid, his brainchild, and one of the biggest events in music history.
Live Aid was the biggest music event the world had ever seen and had the power and influence to raise £10million in just one day. It undoubtedly defined Wembley Stadium as THE premier rock venue. It was a great honour for the team working on the new Wembley Stadium project to welcome back the man whose passion drove the event.
Geldof’s visit was filmed by a BBC crew documenting his incredible life story, to give an insight into one of the UK’s most influential personalities. The documentary will be aired in March later this year.
The BBC camera crew filmed from a vantage point close to the position of the 1985 Live Aid stage on which dozens of the best bands and solo singers of the era performed to Wembley and the world in order to raise money and awareness of famine victims in Ethiopia.
During the visit, Geldof reflected on the famous moment he walked out on stage at Live Aid, which for him was his most memorable moment at Wembley as a musician:
"My back had been hurting and Bowie had been giving me a massage before I went on stage…I walked on stage and the noise hit me, and the noise was staggering. I’ve done Wembley before and I’ve done Wembley since and this was on just another level…suddenly my back wasn’t hurting as much…I didn’t understand the romance of it until I walked out on stage and heard that tremendous noise."
Live Aid
On Saturday July 13th 1985, 74,000 people packed into the stadium to watch the 12-hour concert, and 1.4 billion television viewers worldwide were glued to the screen as the super-gig with its star-studded line-up wrote its place in history as ‘the greatest show on earth.’
Inspired by Michael Buerk's BBC 1984 news report on the mass starvation in Ethiopia, Geldof felt the horrific situation ‘demanded more than a gesture.’ Geldof, lead-singer of The Boomtown Rats, had already rallied support once from the music world and raised millions of pounds for famine relief with the Band Aid single Do They Know It’s Christmas. Geldof using the same commitment and tenacity went on to persuade the best musicians of the era to rearrange busy schedules and to perform for free at Live Aid.
The staging of the concert was organised in three short weeks and was complicated by the fact that there was a satellite link with JFK Stadium in Philadelphia where the American arm of the event was being staged. From 5pm (London time) alternate sets were broadcast.
Status Quo kicked off the show with Rocking All Over the World. Other acts included David Bowie, Elton John, U2, The Who, Dire Straits, Sir Paul McCartney, George Michael, Queen and of course Geldof’s own band The Boomtown Rats. Performances were interspersed with reports from Ethiopia and appeals fro donations.
£10 million was raised that day alone. An up-lifting and life-changing event for those that performed, those that watched and those that benefited from the monies raised – it was without doubt the event that secured Wembley’s global reputation as a legendary music venue!
Did you know…?
- People from 170 different countries tuned in to watch Live Aid on their televisions.
- Prince Charles and Princess Diana were among the Wembley crowd
- About 24.5m Britons tuned into the show at its peak.
- Geldof hitch-hiked home after Live Aid because his car had disappeared from the car park.
- Phil Collins performed for Live Aid in both London and Philadelphia
Why the new Wembley will continue being THE premier music venue…
- The new stadium has been designed with large scale music events in mind
- Each of the two giant screens in new stadium is the size of 600 domestic television sets.
- Extensive and sophisticated acoustic modelling on the old stadium will allow the design team to finely tune the acoustics of new stadium.
- There is more leg-room in EVERY seat in the new Wembley Stadium than there was in the Royal Box of the old stadium.
- Almost all spectators will sit in a single bowl rather than four separate stands. This is a central feature of the new design with almost all supporters or concert-goers able to share the event with 90,000 other fans and should contribute to a memorable experience and atmosphere.
