Entertainment Swindon

Forty years ago, one of the biggest global events in history broadcast across the globe from not just one concert venue, but two! One at the iconic old Wembley Stadium in London and across the pond in Philadelphia USA, arguably the most successful charity events in history, and I’d go as far as saying one of the best gigs ever!

It was 23rd October 1984, Bob Geldof, lead singer of the Boomtown Rats, switched on to the evening news at his home in London to witness the scenes of famine in Ethiopia, that moment would change his life and give birth to Band Aid, a charity Christmas song to raise money to help fight the famine and would lead to Live Aid, the biggest concert of its time, a concert that would quite literally rock the world! Two concerts would work in unison at the old Wembley Stadium in London and across the pond in the US, in Philadelphia and beamed across the globe live on TV.

I was old enough to remember watching the horrifying images aired on the BBC, it was like nothing I had ever seen before! I was 10yrs old, the days of Blue Peter and John Cravens News Round, the days before 24hr news and where the family would sit around the only TV in the house with their dinner on their laps watching the Six O’Clock News, those images coming out of Ethiopia, today would still be shocking, but with the internet and 24hr news, we have become desensitised to suffering in a way. Back then I was 10, I remember my generation getting involved in carboot’s, school fates raising money for Blue Peter. We were all horrified!

Geldof, horrified like so many of us, felt the need to do something, but what could a rock/pop star do? Well, produce a charity single, grab as many of the who’s who of British Pop of the day and put out a Christmas charity single. The single, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” would go on to raised £8million.

The BBC and CNN co-produced a documentary series to mark the 40th anniversary of Live Aid called “Live Aid: When Rock ‘n’ Roll Took On The World”. Live Aid was the next project from Geldof after the success of Band Aid the following year, 1985.

The documentary available on BBC iPlayer and Sky Demand, aired last week to coincide with the 40th Anniversary of the epic live event which saw the whole world come together on 13th July 1985 to watch the likes of the Who, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Tina Turner, David Bowie, Madonna and Queen, to name a few. That day, the two concerts, both sides of the pond was seen by approximately 1.5Billion people in over 150 countries and would go on to raise over $140million.

Geldof was already a well known rock singer, but Live Aid launched Geldof into being one of the world’s best-known and most successful activists. The Band Aid Charitable Trust, a foundation he co-created, is still funding international development projects to alleviate poverty and hunger in Africa. These include supporting maternal health care facilities in Ethiopia and a program to provide meals for children.

In 2005, the 20th Anniversary of Live Aid, Geldof rallied the pop industry to put on another Live Aid, but this time much bigger! The event would be called Live 8, a collective group of huge concerts that would take place on 2nd July 2005 in each of the G8 States and South Africa, which would be timed to precede the G8 Conference and Summit that was to be held at Gleneagles in Scotland. The goal this time round was not to raise money, this time round was a campaign to rid Global Poverty from the planet by calling upon the G8 Leaders to double the 2004 levels of aid to poor nations and to cancel third world debt.

More than 1000 musicians performed at these global concerts, and broadcast on 182 TV Networks and 2000 Radio Networks, with a reported 5Billion viewers.

So could we have another Live Aid event? Back in 1985, we didn’t just have the artists, the bands, but also the songs that just seemed to have been produced for such an event highlighting the extreme poverty in Africa at the time. Boomtown Rats with “I don’t like Mondays”, Status Quo with “All Around the World”, Sting “Every Breath You Take”, Phil Collins “In The Air Tonight”, David Bowie “We Could Be Heroes” and many more.

Today, we could never have a Live Aid again, back then, we were all in awe of these epic events, in 1985, this just had never been done before, in 2005, the internet was still a baby, and Facebook had only just launched the year before. Today, it would be received as a great event, but people are just not fazed by events like this anymore, it’s like nothing is seen as epic anymore. As well as this, we now live in a toxic extremist world, the youth today are no longer interested in putting on concerts and come together to bring the world together in harmony and unity, today, its shock tactics, aggressive parades, extremist views, glueing hands to motorways stopping ambulances racing people to hospital, and throwing paint at priceless works of art. A vibe of utter anger stirring up opposition and even calls for murder live on stage.

Today musicians, if you can call them that are invited on stage to cause controversy, to cause anger, to cause hatred and even violence. Glastonbury that back in the day was a festival of peace and love, yes there was activism, but that word has had its meaning change by a hard core element like from Kneecap, the Irish crap band that supports the IRA and Bob Vylan who at this years Glastonbury called for the murder of IDF soldiers.

Instead of warming people to support a cause, it seems that today, its all about shock, about stirring hate, drumming up anger, causing controversy. All this does is polarise people, pushing people to extremes, rather than bringing people together in a centralist community for the greater good.

Could this change? I really don’t think so, when this extremism, this popularism is being fuelled by people in high office, especially Trump who holds the highest office in the world as the President of the United States with his rhetoric dismantles USAID with the support of the richest man on the planet! Even in local government, we have councillors and senior civil servants in our very own Swindon Borough Council that have shown support to extremist groups such as Palestine Action, now deemed a terrorist group!

If we go back to the days of Live 8, as much as I have my issues with the man for taking our country into Iraq on a lie, Tony Blair who was lets face it a Red Tory, was a big supporter of Geldof’s mission and got behind the mission to cancel third world debt and was instrumental in getting the G8, even Putin at the time to get on board and sign an agreement to double Aid and get rid of third world debt. You just would not get that today! Trump, Putin, Farage and even to soleless incompetent Starmer. There is no leader today that would get on board with such a campaign and build unity. We have become a planet of isolationism, society has been fuelled with this toxic leadership, giving them permission to be an extremist spreading hatred.

Todays internet and the algorithms of of social media platforms have also isolated us, which is the total reverse of what social media platforms like Facebook was supposed to be, driving us to what we want to hear, if you are a Trump supporter, you will get pro Trump – anti Biden posts to your news feed, the internet is a toxic echo chamber of prejudice, fuelling your views, pushing the world further into extremism.

Even music can’t bring people together in unity any longer.

So with a heavy heart, I will sit back and watch the BBC documentary “Live Aid: When Rock ‘n’ Roll Took On The World” for the third time in a week with a nostalgic sigh and a wish to be back in 1984.