At the time, Live Aid was the biggest rock concert in history. It ran parallel events in London and Philadelphia on July 13, 1985. Live Aid was a continuation of the initiative Band Aid, a fusion of international pop musicians launched in 1984 by Bob Geldorf and Midge Ure to raise money for starving people in Ethiopia. Live Aid was a complex interplay of spectacle, capital, and affect. Both venues brought together 170,000 spectators. The concert was also broadcasted live on television networks and radio stations, reaching an audience of almost 1.9 billion people worldwide. According to official estimates, the event raised £150 million. However, there were voices that criticized the allocation practices or argued that financial aid alone could not solve Africa’s structural problems.
- Gill, Peter. Famine and Foreigners: Ethiopia Since Live Aid. Oxford. Oxford University Press, 2010.