I was there and it was one of the best days of my life. Queen and U2 produced career changing sets and with The Who, Paul Mccartney, Elton, Bowie, Dire Straits et al as support how could any music fan not love it.
There may have been some corrupt African politicians that prevented all the money getting to the end target but when a disaster is happening something is better than nothing. No other music industry individual did more to help and bring attention to a truly horrific situation. In addition to all the Live Aid money this event spawned numerous other charity efforts over subsequent years. Thank you St Bob

Of course the reality was - it was a disaster. Self indulgent crap with microphones that didn't work and a load of temporary celebrities enjoying the exposure and the feeling that they were being seen as generous and kind and decent whilst they spent an afternoon drinking, doing drugs and being photographed with other celebrities.
Meanwhile corrupt officials pocketed fortunes, genuine charities suffered appalling donation collapse and millions died as a direct result.
And a second rate punk performer discovered you could get fame and worship by selling your soul to the devil.
The consequences were losing his wife to his best friend, losing both of them to an early death and losing his cherished career as a musician to the unfortunate and fake acclaim as a Saint by the media on the lookout for a good story.
A lesson to be learned.

Live Aid was an event that did an enomous amount of good and had a positive impact on music and charity that is still being felt today.
Other than 20 minutes of The Who and McCartney's Let it Be the sound quality during the day was first rate.

After Freddie/Queens performance my other highlight of the day was when when The Beach Boys performing in the US was shown on the big screens and everyone in a sun drenched Wembley danced and sang along with a band that was playing thousands of miles away, Good Vibrations indeed.

I find it hard to believe this all happened 25yrs ago today, Does anyone else on this board have any love for Live Aid?

I’m more leaning to JK’s views on this. It did Africa and Charities in general no good at all. It did give a huge boost to the Music Industry, but that was inevitable, given the amount of prime-time TV and general media coverage the event received. Queen and U2 in particular sold bucket loads of catalogue albums following their exposure. Most of the other acts saw sales rise - except poor old Adam Ant, but then he chose the occasion to promote a new song instead of playing one of his hits. And Saint Bob? Other than his family life issues, which would probably have happened either way. He did rather well, because his music career was pretty much over anyhow, so he opened a new revenue stream by writing his autobiography and joined the speaker-circuit.

Freddie was highly intelligent and very cynical about it; they rehearsed and rehearsed and put on a superb Greatest Hits promotional set.

I think Bob shaking hands with the devil has brought him (and others) much misery and it's far from over yet.

Says it all in my opinion:
www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/789301...o-why-should-we.html