SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
And finally, 40 years ago today, music brought the world together for a concert to fight a devastating famine in Ethiopia. "Live Aid" took place on stages in London and Philadelphia where Queen, David Bowie, Madonna and others performed for a 16-hour event that reached 2 billion TV viewers. Kristi York Wooten with Georgia Public Broadcasting looks at the concert's impact.
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BAND AID: (Singing) It's Christmas time.
KRISTI YORK WOOTEN, BYLINE: For the generation that heard the song, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" the marathon "Live Aid" broadcast on July 13, 1985, was a global call to action.
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RICHARD SKINNER: It's 12 noon in London, 7:00 a.m. in Philadelphia. And around the world, it's time for "Live Aid."
WOOTEN: "Live Aid" co-creators Bob Geldof and Midge Ure organized the Transatlantic event that introduced music and advocacy to stadium crowds and home audiences. People across the planet mailed or phoned in more than $100 million while watching performances like Queen's "Radio Ga Ga."
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QUEEN: (Singing) All we hear is radio ga ga, radio goo goo, radio ga ga. All we hear is...
WOOTEN: Ure, who performed that day with Ultravox, is one of the trustees of "Live Aid's" donations, which were sent to Ethiopia at the time, and over the decades have funded food and medicines in other countries and are still doing so. He said the 1985 concert and a subsequent "Live Aid" event in 2005 empowered musicians and fans to confront their nation's leaders about issues around hunger and poverty.
MIDGE URE: We're using a platform that we created that's deemed fluffy and disposable. And all of a sudden, we were showing governments the way and showing them up, embarrassing them into having to do something.
WOOTEN: At "Live Aid" in London, David Bowie introduced footage to the audience of the starvation-ravaged people the show meant to help. Another memorable moment was when Patti LaBelle kicked off her heels for an emotional cover of Bob Dylan's "Forever Young."
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PATTI LABELLE: (Singing) Forever young...
WOOTEN: Over the years, the concert has received harsh criticisms, most recently from young Africans who see their continent as a land of opportunity, not needy. Others say Geldof and U2's Bono inspired lifesaving programs like George W. Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, that saved millions of lives since 2003. Bob Ferguson of the poverty fighting organization Oxfam says this year, with the closure of USAID and shifting attitudes toward aid, the message of "Live Aid" remains relevant.
BOB FERGUSON: We know that so many humanitarian aid projects are not just useful but essential, and I, for one, wouldn't have interest in that if it wasn't for my early understandings of why that was important, starting with "Live Aid."
WOOTEN: "Live Aid" showcased the guitar power of dozens of the world's top rock bands, including The Who, members of Led Zeppelin and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. But for musicians like Howard Jones, who played a solo grand piano at London's Wembley Stadium that day, the concert created a collective hope that a song and a ticket could make the difference.
HOWARD JONES: I played "Hide And Seek" at the piano, and it's a thing I'll never, ever forget in my life. It was a most amazing feeling of being supported by this huge population of people that was there and also people on TV and the stories that I've heard of people getting up early, you know, to watch it all and how much it affected them.
WOOTEN: But the most important thing, he says, is that despite some criticism, the concert and what came after did save lives. For NPR News, I'm Kristi York Wooten.
(SOUNDBITE OF HOWARD JONES' "HIDE AND SEEK") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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