12 fascinating facts to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Live Aid
On July 13th 1985 one of the biggest ever concerts took place – Live Aid.
The BBC reshowed the full concert, which is now available on iPlayer, and we didn’t want to let the occasion pass without doing something to celebrate. So here are 12 fun facts to mark the occasion.
1. US television networks initially rejected the idea but Bob Geldof persisted until they agreed to it going ahead.
2. There were 72,000 people at Wembley Stadium in London and 89,000 people at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia watching the shows.
3. Thanks to satellite link ups, the shows were seen by about 1.9 billion people in more than 150 countries.
4. Wembley tickets cost £5 (with a £20 donation added on).
5. It featured 16 hours of live music.
6. More than £110 million was raised by the event.
7. Sade was the only woman to perform solo at Wembley. (Alison Moyet and Kiki Dee were only on stage for duets, not as main performers.)
8. David Bowie wanted to do a duet with Mick Jagger singing ‘Dancing In The Street’. The plan was to link up Bowie’s Wembley show with Jagger, who was at Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium. Unfortunately, due to a video delay between the 2 locations, this wasn’t possible.
9. Phil Collins performed at both Wembley and Philadelphia. He travelled by Concorde in order to play at both venues.
10. A special revolving stage was constructed in order to fit all the acts into the schedule. As one act performed, the next act would set up so that the stage could be just turned round without there having to be a break between each act’s set.
11. Due to a sound hitch, Paul McCartney’s microphone didn’t work properly for the first verse of his version of the Beatles song ‘Let It Be’.
12. Toward the end of U2’s set, Bono spotted a 15 year old girl, Kal Khalique, being crushed against the security barrier. He stepped down from the stage, pulled her out of the crowd and danced with her.
At the time of writing, you can watch the concert here and here.
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