Live Aid The Whistlestop Tour (Band Aid Highlights)

“It's twelve noon in London, 7 am in Philadelphia, and around the world it's time for Live Aid.”

So said the voice of broadcaster Richard Skinner, as he ushered in the start of a 16 hour live music event that would go down in history and raise an estimated £150 million for charity.

Billed as the ‘Global Jukebox’, and subsequently described as ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’, Live Aid took place on Saturday 13 July 1985 at London’s Wembley Stadium and Philadelphia’s John F. Kennedy Stadium. With an estimated global TV audience of 1.9 billion, and a combined total of over 160,000 fans in attendance at the two venues, it remains a landmark moment of the 1980s, one that everyone can say where they were when it happened.

Conceived by Bob Geldof in the aftermath of Band Aid’s huge hit Do They Know It’s Christmas? and following his own visit to Ethiopia, the aim was to raise more money for those impacted by the ongoing famine.