Was Live Aid the best rock concert ever?
Live Aid was billed as the biggest rock event the world would ever see. The 16-hour music marathon, organised by Boomtown Rats singer Bob Geldof, took place in two continents and was beamed live to 1.5 billion people worldwide. Dozens of the world’s biggest rock stars took part in the concert and the event raised 30m to help the starving in Africa. Memories from around the world: I was in California and we recorded it on professional VHS decks, edited it down to like 4 hours. My girlfriend at the time was a professional dance-party producer, so we hired a big screen, put it in a dance hall and threw a fabulous dance party using the tapes as our programme. Except for direct costs, all the money raised went to charity – Geldof’s African relief fund. As a media event, Live Aid was completely unrivalled. As a charity, it was certainly the most successful. And as a concert, it was ‘the big day’ for many bands. Bill Claxton, Singapore My friend Debs and I had just arrived in London from Gree
