If you reached this Balkingpoints article by direct external link, stop by the front page for a rotating satellite view of the earth at night
The 40th anniversary of the epic Live Aid concert held in London and Philadelphia simultaneously. Broadcast on radio and television to an estimated audience of 1.9 billion people in 150 nations – some 40% of the world’s population as it stood in 1985.
The venue would alternate as each band finished their set, creating a set up window for the next band, etc.
Those numbers are incredible, as was the lineup of bands. The objective was to raise funds for famine relief in Ethiopia. The Wikipedia link above goes deep into detail about that effort and also the project of putting the event together.
There was obviously some advance publicity, however I didn’t see any of it. It was a different media landscape at that time, no internet. Just your basics of broadcast television & radio, newspapers, magazines and a newish medium known as cable TV.
I stumbled onto Live Aid in progress on FM radio, making deliveries of something called the Zana Power Disc. A device so obscure now that Google cannot even find it, except for a long-expired trademark listing. No images. It’s competitor, the Mellin Lite Saver looked like this ;
Despite the gimmick appearance it was technically a half-wave rectifier, which altered current going in to an incandescent light bulb and allowed it to burn for years on end. Many years before LED bulbs or even compact florescent, both of which rendered it obsolete.
At my delivery stops I also heard the concert a couple of times on the radios of people outside their houses – while washing a car, doing yardwork or whatever. When I got home there it was on television, long into that evening.
Different in kind than Woodstock, and reprised to a degree in 2005 with the “Live 8” concerts.
I was hopeful that 20-year cycle would pick back up this year, or better still would become a yearly event. There happens to be a global refugees crisis of staggering proportions, estimated now to be more than 100 million people, mostly due to various wars & political strife. We badly need both money and awareness, at levels far beyond the blind eye that the First World turns to it.
Many of the Live Aid performances are up on YouTube.
As well as this BBC documentary: Live Aid Against All Odds.
> Part 1
> Part 2